Private Space Race Targets Greenhouse Gas Emitters (scientificamerican.com) 47
Several startups and nonprofit organizations are using methane-tracking microsatellites to help companies understand the emissions levels of their business operations, and hold the worst polluters accountable. The satellites focus on tracking methane as it has 80 times the warming power of CO2, and is blamed for more than a quarter of the earth's 0.8 degree Celsius temperature rise since the Industrial Revolution. Scientific American reports: Historically, if scientists wanted detailed readings of emissions, ground-based sensors placed close to a source were the only option. Yet these are limited to particular sites unless teams of scientists drive around conducting time-consuming surveys, which are impractical on a large scale and are only deployed to measure known emitters. Satellites, however, survey large swaths of the planet. Their use of a single sensor also provides more consistency, making measurements from different spots directly comparable. Until recently, though, satellites have been prohibitively expensive and their spectroscopic sensors have lacked the precision of those closer to the ground.
That dynamic started to change within the past decade, as broader industry demands drove the miniaturization of electronics and shrank the costs of rocket launches. This made it possible to develop smaller, cheaper satellites that carry sensors capable of zooming in on individual sites to capture high-resolution methane measurements. Companies and one environmental group have leaped at harnessing such satellite capabilities for industries and policymakers eager to pinpoint individual local methane sources. But governments and large aerospace companies, encumbered by lengthy planning processes, have been slower to pivot away from a focus on measuring methane emissions on a regional and global scale. In 2016 the Montreal-based company GHGSat was the first to get off the ground with a proof-of-concept satellite called Claire, which successfully detected methane emissions from specific sites. A handful of other groups have followed suit. The nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund has enlisted several companies to develop what it calls MethaneSAT, which could provide weekly coverage of up to 80 percent of the world's major oil and gas production sites once it launches in 2021. Its data would be made freely available to policymakers who want reliable, independent emissions measurements. And its wide global coverage means it can complement higher-resolution satellites, such as future ones planned by GHGSat that would focus on particular areas.
That dynamic started to change within the past decade, as broader industry demands drove the miniaturization of electronics and shrank the costs of rocket launches. This made it possible to develop smaller, cheaper satellites that carry sensors capable of zooming in on individual sites to capture high-resolution methane measurements. Companies and one environmental group have leaped at harnessing such satellite capabilities for industries and policymakers eager to pinpoint individual local methane sources. But governments and large aerospace companies, encumbered by lengthy planning processes, have been slower to pivot away from a focus on measuring methane emissions on a regional and global scale. In 2016 the Montreal-based company GHGSat was the first to get off the ground with a proof-of-concept satellite called Claire, which successfully detected methane emissions from specific sites. A handful of other groups have followed suit. The nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund has enlisted several companies to develop what it calls MethaneSAT, which could provide weekly coverage of up to 80 percent of the world's major oil and gas production sites once it launches in 2021. Its data would be made freely available to policymakers who want reliable, independent emissions measurements. And its wide global coverage means it can complement higher-resolution satellites, such as future ones planned by GHGSat that would focus on particular areas.
How much pollution did it take for the rockets (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How much pollution did it take for the rockets (Score:5, Interesting)
Ignoring pollution to fight pollution.
These are microsatellites. The amount of "pollution" it takes to launch them is trivial, and they're typically launched as ride-along satellites on the spare launch capacity of launchers that are primarily orbiting some other payload.
Most people don't have a good grasp of large numbers-- one "illion" is much like another-- but do try to get a feel for the magnitude of "37 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year" and compare it to the size of a launch vehicle.
When black and white statistics validated by actual testing is required to convince the masses of the truth, real effort is required. If this weren't such a politically polarized topic, we might be able to get away with less, but here we are, being forced to pollute even more in order to prove the impact of pollution.
Intense but short lived (Score:2)
The satellites focus on tracking methane as it has 80 times the warming power of CO2, and is blamed for more than a quarter of the earth's 0.8 degree Celsius temperature rise since the Industrial Revolution.
Methane is a serious problem for us if we want to turn the tide against climate change.
True enough... but methane is a short term problem. Lifetime of methane in the atmosphere is about 10 years. So, it's contributing a lot to current warming, but not to the long-term warming.
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review/fugitive-methane-and-the-role-of-atmospheric-halflife-u53c.php?article_id=6097
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jan/16/greenhouse-gases-remain-air
Re: (Score:1)
That's like arrogant billionaires fly private jets to an event at which they convince people to drive prius or a bicycle.
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Plant trees (Score:2)
That's like arrogant billionaires fly private jets to an event at which they convince people to drive prius or a bicycle.
Can you cite a reference to even one billionaire flying a private jet to an event at which they try to convince people to drive a Prius?
The billionaires I can think of who claim to be worried about global warming are doing things like funding fusion energy projects [bloomberg.com] (a long shot, but a game changer if it works) or removing CO2 from the atmosphere [financialpost.com] (well, worth a shot) or even planting trees [worldtree.info] (seems like a good idea to me). I can't think of one telling people to drive Prius.
Re:How much pollution did it take for the rockets (Score:5, Informative)
We can quantify this. Let's take a Falcon 9. The F9 has a mass of around 550,000 kg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9 [wikipedia.org] with about 90% of that fuel, so that's around 500,000 kg of fuel (I'm ignoring manufacturing costs since the F9 is reusable although in practice the CO2 involved in making something with that much steel is very big. Estimates put the F9 as reducing overall CO2 production compared to most conventional, non-reusable rocket.) The fuel for the Falcon is kerosene which is extremely similar to gasoline. According to https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/sites/www.nrcan.gc.ca/files/oee/pdf/transportation/fuel-efficient-technologies/autosmart_factsheet_6_e.pdf [nrcan.gc.ca], one liter of gasoline produces around 2.3 kg of CO2, Using the numbers for the density of kerosene here https://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/volume-to-weight/substance/kerosene [aqua-calc.com], one gets around 1500000 kg of CO2 produced, or around 750 tons of CO2. That's about the equivalent of 100 cars on the road for a year, so this is extremely tiny. Another way of looking at this is 750 tons of CO2 is that methane is about 25 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas as CO2, so this is about 30 tons of methane equivalent, but yearly methane emission is on the order of tens of millions of tons.
And this is all before we get to the fact that these are microsatellites, so in practice one doesn't launch a single one with a single launch, but is launching many other satellites simultaneously, often tens or more. And if all goes well, these satellites will last for many years. So the functional CO2 level that should be allocated to one of these is even smaller. The argument that monitoring satellites themselves use CO2 or methane doesn't really work well; the amount used is extremely tiny compared to the ability to reduce methane and understand methane production from the satellites.
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For what it's worth, 1500000 kg is 1500 tons, not 750.
So, was that supposed to be 1500000 pounds, or 1500 tons?
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Depends on the launch vehicle. The satellite in question weighs less than 15kg; it was launched by the Indian PSLV-XL medium lift vehicle, along with eight other small satellites and a dozen cube sats.
The main engine of the PSLV series uses UDMH fuel with an N204 oxidizer. The byproducts of that reaction are nitrogen, ethane and water. Ethane is a minor greenhouse gas. The carbon source for the ethane is the dimethylamine (CH3)2NH) feedstock in the UDMH production, which in turn is produced from carbon
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...Commenters could ... learn others viewpoints in the light of day. ...
I had a really good laugh at that. That was real good. Please tell me more....
We already know who they are... (Score:4, Interesting)
China and India are the biggest polluters and no amount of cutting emissions and "going green" in the US and Europe are going to cancel out the emissions of China and India.
India just has no way to control all the pollution their industries create while China just doesn't give a shit about their pollution. However, if you complain loudly enough, China will send Chinese soldiers dressed as civilians to beat you with big sticks and then the local police will arrest you and the prisons will turn you into involuntary organ donors. So it would be in your best interest NOT to complain about China's out of control pollution.
Oh wait, someone is pounding at my front door. Be right back....
Moving away from the we say model (Score:2, Informative)
It's good to see technology used to verify or refute claims from producers that "it is not us". Real data theoretically helps us make better decisions.
The previous model where we relied upon industry claims didn't work to reduce emissions.
Methane potential (Score:3, Informative)
That number started showing up about 6 months ago and often has been parroted
Saying it often doesn't make it so -- even if your a never-Trumper
The EPA [epa.gov] says it's about 30 times more than CO2
Do as I say... (Score:2, Troll)
https://pagesix.com/2019/07/30... [pagesix.com]
And they wonder why no one takes them seriously.
TL (Score:1)
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Pollution comes from China, and Africa. They don't give a crap. Save your micro satellites.
Per capita, the U.S. is still number 1 in emissions. China still has a way to go to catch up. And Africa, so far, hardly emits enough to bother comparing.
http://www.globalcarbonatlas.org/en/CO2-emissions