Two teams have introduced plans or launched new satellites in current months that may map fugitive landfill gasoline. The expertise is maturing at a vital time for emissions mitigation, as regulators take into account tightening restrictions on landfills and deadlines loom for international methane discount commitments.
Final month, GHGSat introduced plans to launch 9 satellites by the tip of 2026, practically doubling its present fleet of 12. Carbon Mapper introduced the launch of its Tanager-1 satellite tv for pc in August, and it started reporting knowledge from the satellite tv for pc in November.
These satellites, which may house in on gases like carbon dioxide and methane, might play an vital position in serving to nations discover and deal with greenhouse gasoline emissions, Jean-Francois Gauthier, senior vp of technique for GHGSat, mentioned on a current webinar.
“The underside line is that previously yr we have detected extra emissions than ever earlier than, regardless of international pledges,” Gauthier mentioned. “It is clear that each trade and governments want higher knowledge, in addition to detection and monitoring capabilities.”
The enlargement of monitoring applied sciences has earned rising assist from the general public sector, as regulators and non-governmental organizations work to sort out plumes of escaped methane, a gasoline with greater than 80 instances the worldwide warming potential of carbon dioxide over 20 years and a serious element of landfill gasoline. The non-public sector, which incorporates giant landfill homeowners, can also be getting on board with the expertise to tighten present gasoline assortment techniques.
GHGSat, primarily based in Quebec, is a personal firm that launched the primary business satellite tv for pc to measure greenhouse gasoline emissions from industrial sources in 2016. The corporate has labored with regulators just like the U.S. EPA and Atmosphere and Local weather Change Canada to exhibit its expertise, and it has had its devices validated by NASA and the European House Company.
Gauthier mentioned satellites might play a task in making emissions knowledge for landfills extra correct, one thing that has drawn the eye of environmentalists who say the trade and federal businesses are undercounting emissions with overly beneficiant fashions.
He mentioned that phenomenon performed out as GHGSat monitored oil and gasoline wells over the past eight years. New knowledge from satellites and different applied sciences has allowed scientists to seek out wells the place fashions predicted emissions ranges two or thrice decrease than real-world circumstances, Gauthier mentioned. After demonstrations of satellites’ success with oil and gasoline monitoring, the EPA has signaled its willingness to simply accept aerial imaging as a brand new monitoring expertise within the sector.
Gauthier is hoping to repeat that course of with landfills. Satellite tv for pc corporations are betting they’ll persuade EPA to acknowledge satellite tv for pc monitoring expertise as a part of a set of recent applied sciences used to exhibit compliance with landfill guidelines.
“It is a very totally different atmosphere, as a result of there’s been so many advances within the final 5, 10 years in all ranges of measurements for methane,” Gauthier mentioned.
Final month, Carbon Mapper additionally started updating its publicly out there knowledge portal with scans from its Tanager satellite tv for pc. Although the nonprofit cautions the knowledge is preliminary, it has already begun to determine a number of methane plumes originating from landfills within the U.S.
The most important such plume seems to be at GFL Environmental’s Sampson County Landfill in North Carolina, a facility that has been flagged for emissions points for years. The power lately commissioned a system to transform landfill gasoline to renewable pure gasoline with Opal Fuels; that got here on-line in October.
Carbon Mapper mentioned in a press launch in October that its publicly out there knowledge portal can complement present satellite tv for pc monitoring efforts like NASA’s personal EMIT system. Its scientists additionally hope the information can be utilized to tell native advocates close to polluting landfills. The nonprofit, backed by main philanthropic donors and assist from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, plans to launch a further Tanager satellite tv for pc to enrich the primary.
The imaging spectrometer onboard Tanager-1 was developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and examined in 2023. Planet Labs was accountable for constructing the satellite tv for pc.
Landfill engineers warning the satellites gained’t have the ability to exchange different strategies of detecting landfill emissions. Completely different types of superior emissions monitoring are higher for various eventualities, Dave Hostetter, a vp at SCS Engineers mentioned at Wastecon in October.
Usually talking, “the additional away you get from the methane, the harder it’s to pinpoint the place it is coming from,” Hostetter mentioned. However satellites, in his view, get pleasure from with the ability to seize a snapshot of a landfill many instances over the course of a comparatively lengthy tools lifespan.
In a single instance of this, GHGSat has been capable of seize emissions from a landfill in Israel roughly 80 instances over the previous yr and a half, Gauthier mentioned. However he additionally agrees that satellites aren’t a one-size-fits-all resolution.
“This isn’t a silver bullet; that is one instrument to deliver to the desk to make use of along with measurements on the bottom,” Gauthier mentioned.
He additionally sees GHGSat as coexisting alongside an ecosystem of satellite tv for pc networks, together with these run by Carbon Mapper or businesses like NASA. Gauthier mentioned GHGSat has been following Carbon Mapper for a while and “welcomes” the launch of their satellite tv for pc, saying there could also be room for collaboration sooner or later.
“It might be somewhat bit petty to see this as competitors, actually, as a result of there’s a want for as many satellites as we are able to [get] proper now,” Gauthier mentioned. “There are means too many emissions to start out selecting and selecting which instrument is getting used for this.”