Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Sparks

Why the World Needs Yet Another Methane Satellite

Carbon Mapper’s ultra-precise Tanager-1 is headed to space.

Methane pollution.
Heatmap Illustration/Carbon Mapper

Yet another methane satellite is launching into orbit Friday, as early as 11:19 a.m. Pacific time, on a SpaceX rocket. Developed by a coalition of public and private partners and led by the nonprofit Carbon Mapper, its precision imaging helps fill a gap in the methane detection universe and complements the abilities of MethaneSAT, the Environmental Defense Fund-developed, Google-backed satellite launched back in March.

Riley Duren, CEO of Carbon Mapper, likens his company’s satellite to a telephoto lens, saying it “has a resolution that's about 10 times higher than the MethaneSAT instrument” — although the tradeoff is that the field of view is about 10 times smaller. The ultimate goal is to identify “super-emitters” of methane and carbon dioxide at the facility level. So while MethaneSAT can detect the total emissions emanating from a particular basin, state, or country, Carbon Mapper can zoom in to figure out what’s going on within 50 meters of accuracy so that operators and regulators can be notified.

Both companies use an imaging technology known as spectroscopy, which involves splitting the light reflected by Earth’s surface into its constituent wavelengths. Methane and carbon dioxide each have their own spectroscopic signature. “It's not unlike being able to perceive the distinction in human fingerprints,” Duren told me.

The Carbon Mapper Coalition satellite, called Tanager-1, came from a partnership between Planet Labs, which developed the satellite, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which developed the particular spectrometer used onboard. Duren helped create the tech during his nearly 28-year career at JPL, where his research revealed the outsized importance of super-emitters. That helped inspire Duren to found Carbon Mapper in 2020, though until now the organization has mostly done suborbital aerial surveys to track methane and carbon dioxide emissions.

Promisingly, he’s found that distributing his team’s findings often leads to a rapid response. “When we've shared our data with oil and gas companies, landfill operators, and regulators, what they tell us is nearly half of the emissions that we're reporting were previously unknown,” Duren told me. “And in many cases, they can quickly repair them.”

The data from these surveys is publicly accessible on the Carbon Mapper data portal, and the data from Tanager-1 will be published there as well. In addition to Planet Labs and JPL, other coalition partners include the California Air Resources Board, University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and RMI. To date, Carbon Mapper has raised over $130 million in philanthropic funding, from donors including the High Tide Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment.

Ultimately, Carbon Mapper aims to launch a constellation of more than 10 satellites, which together will detect and track up to 90% of high-emitting methane sources with near-daily frequency. But this will require funding beyond what the philanthropic sector is likely to pony up.

“Scaling up this to the full constellation and sustaining it will hinge on the ability of governments and the private sector to pay for data,” Duren told me. (MethaneSAT is also philanthropically supported.) “We're hopeful that as these programs scale up and we demonstrate their utility and the regulators depend on them, that we'll see governments begin to match what philanthropy has started,” Durian said.

If you want to watch the launch live, you can do so here.

Green

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Sparks

Trump’s Offshore Wind Ban Is Coming, Congressman Says

Though it might not be as comprehensive or as permanent as renewables advocates have feared, it’s also “just the beginning,” the congressman said.

A very large elephant and a wind turbine.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

President-elect Donald Trump’s team is drafting an executive order to “halt offshore wind turbine activities” along the East Coast, working with the office of Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, the congressman said in a press release from his office Monday afternoon.

“This executive order is just the beginning,” Van Drew said in a statement. “We will fight tooth and nail to prevent this offshore wind catastrophe from wreaking havoc on the hardworking people who call our coastal towns home.”

Keep reading...Show less
Sparks

One Reason Trump Wants Greenland: Critical Minerals

The island is home to one of the richest rare earth deposits in the world.

Donald Trump.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

A top aide to incoming President Donald Trump is claiming the president-elect wants the U.S. to acquire Greenland to acquire more rare minerals.

“This is about critical minerals. This is about natural resources,” Trump’s soon-to-be national security advisor Michael Waltz told Fox News host Jesse Watters Thursday night, adding: “You can call it Monroe Doctrine 2.0, but it’s all part of the America First agenda.”

Keep reading...Show less
Green
Sparks

An Insurance Startup Faces a Major Test in Los Angeles

Kettle offers parametric insurance and says that it can cover just about any home — as long as the owner can afford the premium.

Los Angeles fire destruction.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Los Angeles is on fire, and it’s possible that much of the city could burn to the ground. This would be a disaster for California’s already wobbly home insurance market and the residents who rely on it. Kettle Insurance, a fintech startup focused on wildfire insurance for Californians, thinks that it can offer a better solution.

The company, founded in 2020, has thousands of customers across California, and L.A. County is its largest market. These huge fires will, in some sense, “be a good test, not just for the industry, but for the Kettle model,” Brian Espie, the company’s chief underwriting officer, told me. What it’s offering is known as “parametric” insurance and reinsurance (essentially insurance for the insurers themselves.) While traditional insurance claims can take years to fully resolve — as some victims of the devastating 2018 Camp Fire know all too well — Kettle gives policyholders 60 days to submit a notice of loss, after which the company has 15 days to validate the claim and issue payment. There is no deductible.

Keep reading...Show less