How satellites, algorithms and AI can help monitor methane emissions? Google's new initiative

Google, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), has announced a partnership to identify sources of methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. This was reported in Google's official blog. 

As part of the project, one of several MthanSAT satellites designed to monitor methane leaks will be launched in March 2024. 

Google will provide computing power for processing information and will create a map of oil and gas facilities using artificial intelligence to automatically identify infrastructure elements such as pipelines and fuel tanks. This will help identify the locations where methane is most frequently leaking. 

"Once we have a complete map of the infrastructure, we can overlay data from MthanSAT showing where methane is coming from. When these two maps are combined, we can see how emissions correspond to specific infrastructure elements and gain a much better understanding of the types of sources that typically contribute the most to methane leaks. This information is crucial for predicting and reducing emissions in the oil and gas infrastructure, which is generally most susceptible to leaks," noted Google.

The methane monitoring satellite data will be made publicly available on the Google Earth Engine platform for geospatial data analysis.