Loss of the methane hunter
MethaneSAT goes dark, imperilling global methane emission accountability
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The Global Methane Pledge (GMP) was launched by the United States and the European Union in November 2021 at COP26. GMP signatories, of which there are now 159 countries plus the European Commission, have committed to cutting global anthropogenic methane emissions by 30% by 2030, compared to 2020 levels. Earth observation technologies, and satellites in particular, have been foundational to the GMP due to the spotlight they have cast on the problem — quantifying overall methane emissions while also tracing them back to the source.
Earlier this week the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) revealed that it lost contact with its MethaneSAT satellite, widely considered to be the gold standard in methane emission tracking technology, able to produce high precision, high resolution data over wide areas that are largely invisible to other satellites. Despite persistent attempts to restore communications with MethaneSAT, EDF now believe that it has lost power and is unlikely to be recoverable.1
Launched in June 2024, MethaneSAT circled the Earth 15 times a day at an altitude of 590 kilometres, collecting data in a 200 kilometre swathe. It’s mission was to monitor at least 80% of global oil and gas production, detecting both distinct point sources and dispersed area emissions. With a resolution of around 140 metres, it’s instruments were able to monitor even the smallest methane leaks (i.e. those that emit less than 500 kg of methane per hour), revealing that when combined they make up a large portion of the overall methane released in major oil and gas producing basins.
A few months prior to the launch, EDF’s senior vice-president, Mark Brownstein, outlined how he saw MethaneSAT’s role in the cutting global methane emissions: “MethaneSAT is a tool for accountability. I’m sure many people think this could be used to name and shame companies who are poor emissions performers, and that’s true. But [it] can [also] help document progress that leading companies are making in reducing their emissions.”
MethaneSAT isn’t the only satellite that can provide insights on methane emissions. There are more than 25 in orbit tracking both distinct point sources and dispersed emissions. Other recently launched satellites include Tanager-1, EMIT, and EnMap and are also fitted with sensitive detection thresholds and provide high resolution data on methane emissions. They join the Sentinel 5P satellite which can map methane across hundreds of kilometres, and has identified huge plumes of methane from oil and gas facilities in places such as Turkmenistan, and the GHGSat constellation of 14 satellites dedicated to tracking GHG emissions including methane from individual industrial facilities (see The carbon tracking opportunity: Real time tracking of GHG emissions and carbon sinks is a huge growth market).
MethaneSAT’s unique capabilities mean that its loss is a significant setback towards achieving the GMP. It will make it much more difficult to track methane emissions from the oil and gas sector and other major methane emission sources (e.g., coal mining, landfills, livestock and agriculture), while also making it more challenging to identify and implement measures that curb methane releases from emitters — whether large or small, infrequent or repeat offenders. That’s a problem for the individual industries, but it’s becoming an issue for the banks and other financial institutions that fund them, and are now looking at how they can curb their financed emissions.