Google has formed a partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF)’s initiative aimed at mapping global methane emissions from oil and gas infrastructure and providing information that will enable targeted action aimed at reducing those emissions – and the contribution they make to global warming.
► Data from MethaneSAT will be analysed by algorithms running on Google Cloud
► Information will be made available on Google Earth Engine later this year
EDF’s satellite, MethaneSAT – which is due to launch in March on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket – will map, measure and track methane levels in the top oil and gas regions in the world for regular analysis. It will monitor both methane-emitting sources sending a massive data stream down to the Google Cloud for analysis using algorithms developed by EDF to calculate and track the amounts of methane emitted.
By running the methane detection algorithms in the cloud and applying AI to satellite imagery to identify oil and gas infrastructure, EDF hopes to quantify and trace methane emissions to their source and make processing, accessing and visualising MethaneSAT data faster and more actionable.
In addition, Google plans to create a global map of oil and gas infrastructure, with the goal of understanding which components contribute most to emissions. It will use AI to identify facilities and storage containers in its imagery and combine it with EDF’s information about infrastructure to locate where the emissions are coming from. The insights will be made available later this year on MethaneSAT’s website and will also be accessible through Google Earth Engine.
In a blog post, Google said that methane from human sources is responsible for about 30% of global warming today, and a big contributor of methane in the atmosphere comes from extracting fossil fuels, like oil and gas.
