An eye in the sky to detect methane emissions

MethaneSAT is the first New Zealand government funded space mission. A joint project between the United States' Environmental Defense Fund and New Zealand, the project will see a methane sensing satellite launched into orbit. Science journalist Peter Griffin finds out why and how.

MethaneSAT - the first NZ-government-funded space mission - is launching a satellite that will detect emissions leaking from pipelines, agriculture, landfill and wetlands.

Science and tech journalist Peter Griffin finds out why and how.

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The recent COP27 climate summit focused on reducing carbon dioxide emissions with the aim of limiting global temperature increase to within 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Reaching that goal will also require a dedicated effort to reduce methane.

"Ultimately there's no way to have anything like a habitable world without tackling our CO2 emissions," says NIWA's Dr Sara Mikaloff-Fletcher, the leader of the MethaneSAT project at the Crown research institute.

"However if you are thinking about... how you can reduce emissions quickly, there's a strong argument to be made for including methane in that first tranche of work. Over the next 20 years, methane that we emit today is going to warm the atmosphere 85 times as much as the equivalent amount of CO2."

Short-lived but powerful

Methane is a powerful but short-lived greenhouse gas that scientists estimate accounts for about half of the net rise in global average temperature since the pre-industrial era. But methane emissions from oil and gas have been underestimated for years, due in part to a lack of independent monitoring.

A voluntary global effort, the Global Methane Pledge, was launched in 2021 to address the methane issue, with over 100 countries, including New Zealand, undertaking to reduce methane emissions by 30% on 2020 levels by 2030.

Some satellites currently track methane emissions but are unable to zoom in and identify their exact source. MethaneSAT aims to fill that gap.

Primarily funded by the US-based nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, which is spending over $100 million on the project, MethaneSAT is also New Zealand's first government-funded space mission, to the tune of $26 million.

While the satellite will primarily be used to pinpoint methane emissions from leaky oil and gas pipelines around the world, New Zealand's involvement will allow a secondary focus on methane emissions from agriculture - sheep and cows here in New Zealand, but also rice paddy fields, wetlands and animal herds in the developing world…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details