MethaneSAT, a satellite against the gas emissions

We are living in a world, during a historical period, where we don’t know any more to which problem we have to think about. The world is sick, suffering and it loudly ask to be safed. Naybe the biggest problem, even though sometimes it’s understimated, is right the global warming. The main purpose of the whole global population is to reduce the gas emissions. And the fight against the emissions is fought on all fronts. Now even from the space. MethaneSat is the satellite, wanted by Environmental Defense Fund, that will control the greenhouse-gas emissions.

The methane and the gas emissions

Between all the greenhouse gases the methane is one of the most danger, but, fortunatelly, it’s possible to detect it. The methane has an incredible power climate-alterating, which is even 25 times higher than the most chatted CO₂. It is less famous because, probably, its spreading stopped for many years. Mainly in the period that goes from the 1990 to the 2007. But then there was an exponential growth of its concentration in the atmosphere.

Why was there this change? Many studiers tried to answer to this question. According to Robert Howarth, professor of environmental biology at the Cornell University, half of the methane emissions, of the last 15 years, arrive from the gas leak of the fracking plants.

While a combined study of the researchers of the Environmental defense Fund, of Harvard, of the Georgia Tech, of the Netherlands Institute for Space Research and according to the datas given by the European Space Agency, they examinated the gas and petrol deposits between Texas and New Mexico. The study demonstrated that, these deposits, are releasing methane 15 times higher than the one ruled by the law.

It seems so that they found out the guilties, but how was it possible?

“These results show the ability of the satellite technology to check the greenhouse emissions and to give the datas needed to companies and governments to know where they need to act”. Explains Steven Hamburg, Head Scientist of the Environmental Defense Fund.

The Environmental Defense Fund and MethaneSAT

We saw, so, the huge work that Environmental Defense Fund is doing, one of the biggest and active environmentalist organization of the world. Which uses the  most recent technological innovation to solve the biggest environmental problems.

About it it was right the organization to launch the project MethaneSAT. The satellite was presented to the world about a month ago and, together with it, the usage that they wanted to do of it.

MethaneSAT, infact, is able to find the main methane leaks, to identify the precise zone and the size of the leak. The biggest part of the gas emissions, infact, come from the leaks, ignored and understimated by the companies.

The methane leaks arrive from the biggest gas lines and from the extraction plants of petrol and gas. Environmental Defense Fund let us even know that, the datas that will be collected by MethaneSAT will be made public. With this move they would like to encourage the companies and the same governments to promptly act on these leaks.

The launch of the satellite MethaneSAT is fixed for the 2022.

Not only MethaneSAT

MethaneSAT isn’t alone, even if it promises to be much more precise compared with its colleagues already at work. We saw, infact, what the satellites are able to do while looking for the dangerous greenhouse gas emissions. Like the important and meticulous job made by the satellites Sentinel, of the European Space Agency. It’s been the same satellites, though, that don’t say only bad news.

During the lockdown, infact, it was right the european satellites Sentinel that shown the images about the massive drop of the nitrogene dioxide on the Padana Valley. The program Copernicus Sentinel is going to grow with the launch of other three satellites. MethaneSAT will be in good company.

This post is also available in: Italiano