Google Joins Satellite Launch Mission To Monitor Global Methane Emissions

Google is supporting a satellite project scheduled for launch in March, focused on collecting worldwide data on methane levels. The satellite is designed to orbit the Earth at a distance of 300 miles, completing 15 orbits daily.

The new project is a collaboration between Google and the Environmental Defense Fund, a non-profit global climate group. It will focus on methane emissions at oil and gas plants.

The information gathered by the satellite will undergo processing through the AI tools of the technology giant. The resulting output will be a methane map designed to detect methane leaks in global oil and gas infrastructure.

However, the company clarified that in the event of identifying a substantial leak, it would refrain from directly notifying the specific company responsible for the associated infrastructure.

In 2017, the European Space Agency deployed a comparable satellite instrument known as Tropomi. This instrument maps the occurrence of trace gases in the atmosphere, such as methane, and is scheduled to conclude its mission this year.