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Satellite supergroup spots methane super-emitters
- edrxty 3y agoNo mention of MethaneSAT? There's an EDF funded private satellite mission launching in a few months to go hunt methane emitters with high accuracy
- gregable 3y agoHow do the efforts compare? Does methanesat add anything beyond what these already do? Genuine question, im unfamiliar.
- bee_rider 3y agoI wonder what to do with this sort of information. Perhaps our governments could add a carbon tariff or something, if it is relatively easy to measure how much carbon is being emitted and where.
- IAmGraydon 3y agoI believe the US government has been fining methane super emitters for some time [1]. The problem is China is the bigggest emitter - nearly double the next highest country, which is India, followed closely by the US. That said, the US emits far more than any other country per capita. [1] https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/19/callon-permian-basin-epa-fine/ https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/19/callon-permian-basin...
- secondcoming 3y agoIs 'per capita' a useful metric other than to give the largest emitters some sort of retort? One person living alone on a private island who cooks food on a fire several times a day might have a really high 'per capita' score, but in the grand scheme of things it's utterly irrelevant.
- bee_rider 3y agoIt is a bit weird that we need so many emissions per person in the US. In the very least it ought to be a sign of where there’s slack in the system.
- Ekaros 3y agoPeople survive for fraction of emissions in other places. So why would it not be reasonable for people in USA to do exactly the same?
- sargun 3y agoIn your opinion what should pollution be measured as a function of? If you choose not to measure it per capita, then every country, no matter how large or small will be measured equally, setting up perverse incentives for smaller countries to have pollution heavy environments.
- mysterydip 3y agowhat about per square km? Or per GDP, since emissions are loosely tied to production, we could gauge efficiency?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- icantbebothered 3y ago> what should pollution be measured as a function of? Consumption? China is a huge emitter, but a large percentage of that comes from making products destined for America and Europe. IMO the emissions for those products should be assigned to the country that is purchasing them.
- numbers_guy 3y agoThe alternative would be to say that Americans are worth more than Chinese (and Europeans and everyone else) and have a God given right to emit twice as much.
- bee_rider 3y agoIt is a big problem. We need a more integrated system than just having the US fine domestic companies that emit too much, I think. The obvious way to workaround that sort of fine is just to outsource manufacturing and emissions to China. A first-pass attempt could be for countries that want to do something about the problem to start up some sort of carbon credit market, with heavy tariffs for goods imported from outside the market.
- lock-the-spock 3y agoThat's exactly what the EU is doing - right now putting in place the "CBAM" (carbon border adjustment mechanism)
- selimthegrim 3y agoThis is the one good thing I was looking forward to from the Trump administration
- lokar 3y agoA lot of the methane consumption can’t be moved overseas
- euroderf 3y agoDoes the United Nations have conventionally-armed cruise missiles ? Shouldn't it ?
- declan_roberts 3y agoAbsolutely not unless you think the very worst most dysfunctional working group you’ve experienced at work should be able to make life-and-death decisions.
- dylan604 3y agoI know I’ve been in meetings where I’ve wished for the sweet relief of death. Would the use of force need to be unaimous, super majority, simple majority, or a unilateral decision?
- euroderf 3y agoMy original comment was tongue-in-cheek, but... Obv such a decision would be a vetoable Security Council authorization. Certainly this would still be less provocative to the world community than a unilateral attack, such as a US sub attacking a plant in the former USSR, or China attacking a plant on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. And I guess it would be a last resort, after making an offer to fly in the tech and know-how to flare the methane instead. "Get me Red Adair on the hotline NOW!"
- schnuri 3y agoI‘d love to see a list of the largest emitters.
- IAmGraydon 3y agoI agree - it would be great if the data was public. I’m sure a large amount of this comes from natural gas flares.
- dsukhin 3y agoThe data is indeed public [0]. But beware, it’s huge to download; it’s also available in a hosted/queryable interface on Google Earth Engine [1]. [0] https://scihub.copernicus.eu/twiki/do/view/SciHubWebPortal/WebHome https://scihub.copernicus.eu/twiki/do/view/SciHubWebPortal/W... [1] https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets/catalog/sentinel https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets/catalog/...
- IAmGraydon 3y agoThank you!
- tlrss 3y agoYou might be interested in Climate TRACE. They produce a global inventory, identifying the largest individual sources of emissions, and publish it CC-BY - https://climatetrace.org/downloads https://climatetrace.org/downloads
- thegrim22 3y agoThe fact that they decided not to mention who the largest emitters are should clue you into who it is.
- p1mrx 3y agoUgh, don't tell me it's those goddamn humans again.
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- tomrod 3y agoThough they aren't the only ones mentioned in the article, I love the work GHGSat is doing! If anyone from there reads here, would love to connect. https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomaseroderick/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomaseroderick/
- codethief 3y agoSo how much of the yearly methane emissions do the super-emitters account for and how much do they emit in absolute numbers? The article seems to be lacking the most interesting information…
- bArray 3y agoExactly. There's a good chance that climate change efforts are far better targetted at super emitters. We have limited resources and these are relatively low-hanging fruit.
- oezi 3y ago> We have limited resources I am always wondering why we constrain ourself in the case of fighting climate change. Yes, all spending will at some point have to be accounted for, but it is relatively easy for governments to borrow money if the political will exists. To reduce global CO2 emissions to zero the estimates are in the range of 100-200% of global GDP. This seems to be an amount of money that could easily be raised as debt or created via monetary policy. What is holding back such an investment?
- bArray 3y ago> Yes, all spending will at some point have to be accounted for, but it is relatively easy for governments to borrow money if the political will exists. I think the next few years will show you why unchecked borrowing is a bad thing. Ultimately, the people who lose their homes pay for it. > To reduce global CO2 emissions to zero the estimates are in the range of 100-200% of global GDP. This seems to be an amount of money that could easily be raised as debt or created via monetary policy. What is holding back such an investment? Where are those numbers coming from? So far we have invested a significant amount and not seen anywhere close to those returns on investment. Not only this, but in what Universe is 200% global GDP sustainable? > This seems to be an amount of money that could easily be raised as debt or created via monetary policy. Ultimately, somebody always foots the bill - and it's normally the poorest people who lose the most. What you're asking for is for these people to suffer. I don't consider this an acceptable trade.
- idlewords 3y ago[flagged]
- rib3ye 3y agoRelated: Five Things You Should Know About COP26 - Reducing methane is the fastest strategy available to reduce warming https://www.state.gov/dipnote-u-s-department-of-state-official-blog/five_things_to_know_about_cop26 https://www.state.gov/dipnote-u-s-department-of-state-offici...
- declan_roberts 3y agoThe article doesn’t seem to mention it, what are the super meters? What country are they located in and what are they doing?
- brmgb 3y agoMostly oil fields which are not or improperly flaring or gaz infrastructure which are leaking. Can also be landfills where decomposition create methane but still mostly the oil industry. For “normal” emitters, you can add to that cattle farms.
- Terr_ 3y agoIn this context "super-emitters" means strong outliers, locations or events where unusual amounts of something (i.e. methane) are being released. This often correlates to either accidents that have not been detected/fixed, to deliberate pollution for financial again, or to something nobody realized was significant before.
- cute_boi 3y ago> "to deliberate pollution for financial again" What do these words mean? Why would anyone do it and how can they gain something? I am suspecting greenwashing, but please clarify if possible.
- icantbebothered 3y ago“Do deliberate”, I think. Like the mafia setting up a hazardous waste disposal company, and then simply dumping the waste into a ditch. Makes them a lot more money.
- Terr_ 3y ago> “Do deliberate” In this case it's "correlates to", rather than "correlates do". "Thing {X} often correlates to {y}, to {z}, or to {w}."
- Terr_ 3y ago
- downWidOutaFite 3y agoMy hypothesis is that unknown emissions like these is why climate change seems to be happening faster than the models suggest.
- crazygringo 3y agoSo has this resulted in previously unknown/unexpected super-emitters? I'm curious if this has the potential to make a big difference, if there are e.g. pipeline leaks costing companies a lot of money that this can find, where the emitters have an incentive to fix it. Or if will be largely useless, because all the unknown culprits turn out to be natural sources we can't do anything about, or industrial processes in places where enforcement is lax already and it won't change anything.
- smoyer 3y agoI was going for some shaming!
- macinjosh 3y ago[flagged]
- stainablesteel 3y agoto let methane just go into the air from industrial processes is actually kind of wild. natural gas is basically methane, you can use that to fuel your energy needs. seems like a waste.
- lokar 3y agoFor a long pipeline in a remote area the cost of keeping leaks minimal is not economic
- nojvek 3y agoSo CO2 isn’t the most potent, it’s the one that humans release the most compared to natural processes over last 100years. Most potent is h2o (water vapor). The warmer the air, the more water vapor is held. Water retains an incredible amount of heat energy as well. But very few articles talk about it. In general, warming the earth is a runaway effect. More co2 means warmer air and oceans. This means more water retained in air and less in oceans. Which means even more warning. Warmer earth means less ice which reflects sunlight. Less ice means even warmer planet. Venus is a great example of earth’s distant future if we don’t get the runaway warming under control. Crude oil is the greatest blessing for human growth, but May also be a curse in disguise.
- Gibbon1 3y agoYou are as far as I understand correct. The increase in water vapor amplifies the effect of CO2 and methane. And the amount of cloud cover vs the amount of water vapor makes modeling what happens very tricky and beyond what a lay person is capable of.
- deepsun 3y agoAfaik it depends on the clouds altitude. Low clouds reflect more that they contain to the space, while high clouds reflect more back to earth.
- johnea 3y agoSeeing them is one thing. The real question is: What is anyone going to do about it? Do you really think some large consistent emitter is going to stop just because they show up on a satellite image?