{"id":459408,"date":"2026-02-07T08:55:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T08:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/459408\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T08:55:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T08:55:12","slug":"an-88-million-satellite-died-early-and-still-blew-the-lid-off-industry-emissions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/459408\/","title":{"rendered":"An $88 Million Satellite Died Early\u2014and Still Blew the Lid Off Industry Emissions"},"content":{"rendered":"

MethaneSat, an $88 million satellite designed to track methane emissions at an unprecedented scale and resolution, suddenly went dark in July<\/a>. It only survived about 15 months of its planned five years in orbit, but even within that short time, MethaneSat managed to expose widespread emissions that have gone vastly underreported by the oil and gas industry.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to an initial assessment of the satellite\u2019s observations, published<\/a> Monday by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF)\u2014the nonprofit that owns the MethaneSat project. According to the analysis, global data gathered during the satellite\u2019s year of operation show that emissions from the oil and gas industry consistently and significantly exceed figures reported in widely cited inventories.<\/p>\n

Even oil and gas producing basins with the lowest emission intensity are falling short of the industry\u2019s own emissions goals, the EDF report states. This points to an urgent need to ramp up industry- and government-led efforts to reduce emissions.<\/p>\n

Gone but still a game-changer <\/p>\n

Methane is an incredibly potent greenhouse gas that\u2019s about 28 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere, according to the Environmental Protection Agency<\/a>. Fossil fuel extraction and processing is a key source of methane pollution. In the U.S., the oil and gas sector is the largest<\/a> industrial source of the nation\u2019s methane emissions.<\/p>\n

MethaneSat was designed to pinpoint sources of global emissions\u2014primarily those produced by the fossil fuel industry. The satellite\u2019s state-of-the-art spectrometers could pick up subtle traces of emissions across entire oil and gas fields and zero in on hot spots with unmatched precision, producing high-resolution snapshots of methane leaks.<\/p>\n

During its brief time in orbit, MethaneSat gathered data that shows more than 221 scenes across 45 oil and gas producing regions, covering half the world\u2019s onshore fossil fuel production. EDF analysts used this data to compare and rank oil and gas basins around the world based on their total emissions and methane intensity\u2014the ratio of a basin\u2019s methane emissions to the amount of oil and gas it produces.<\/p>\n

Emissions underreporting exposed <\/p>\n

The analysis revealed some startling trends. Overall, oil and gas methane emissions were 50% higher than reported in the commonly cited Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research and the EPA\u2019s Greenhouse Gas Inventory, according to MethaneSat\u2019s observations.<\/p>\n

Methane intensity was generally lower in gas-focused basins than oil-focused ones, but in basins where gas accounts for at least 20% of fuel production, emissions were three times higher than reported in global inventories. MethaneSat\u2019s data also suggests that low-producing oil and gas wells disproportionately drive methane pollution, accounting for 40% of emissions in areas responsible for less than 7% of fossil fuel production.<\/p>\n

The findings weren\u2019t all bad, however. Methane pollution from oil-focused basins was actually 30% lower than inventory records, highlighting the need for more accurate monitoring to track emissions reductions.<\/p>\n

Although MethaneSat\u2019s operational lifespan was cut short, this Earth observer still proved to be a gamechanger for tracking planet-warming emissions. Researchers will continue analyzing its data to bring the landscape of methane leaks into sharper focus and bolster regulations that hold polluters to account. Based on these early findings, it\u2019s clear there is a lot of work to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MethaneSat, an $88 million satellite designed to track methane emissions at an unprecedented scale and resolution, suddenly went…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,299,17021,8568,17274,66,306],"class_list":["post-459408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-greenhouse-gases","tag-pollution","tag-satellites","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}