Satellite backed by Google, Bezos and Musk to track methane is lost in space

Keep knowledgeable with free updatesSimply signal as much as the Local weather change myFT Digest — delivered on to your inbox.An $88mn satellite tv for pc backed by Google, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been misplaced in area, in a blow to world efforts to detect the planet-warming emissions of the highly effective greenhouse fuel methane from the oil and fuel business. The MethaneSAT satellite tv for pc was launched in March 2024 aboard SpaceX to observe plumes and leaks of methane, an invisible greenhouse fuel liable for nearly a 3rd of the world’s warming within the industrial period. However this week, MethaneSAT mentioned the satellite tv for pc had “misplaced energy and that it’s seemingly not recoverable”. “The engineering crew is conducting an intensive investigation into the lack of communication. That is anticipated to take time,” an announcement mentioned, including that its work on tackling methane emissions would proceed. The Environmental Protection Fund, the non-profit that had spearheaded the satellite tv for pc, instructed the Monetary Instances it was “too early to say whether or not one other satellite tv for pc might be launched”. “Proper now, the main focus is on understanding what occurred, persevering with to course of and launch the high-quality methane information MethaneSAT already collected, and making use of the confirmed know-how and insights from the mission.”The machine, which was described as “one of the superior methane monitoring satellites in area”, had been gathering information and pictures of emissions at oil and fuel websites the world over. It was one in every of a rising variety of satellites that had sprung as much as accumulate information on methane leaks as nations and fossil gas firms the world over pledged to handle emissions of the extremely potent fuel in recent times. Greater than 100 nations led by the US and Europe signed up in 2021 to a world methane pledge to chop emissions 30 per cent by the tip of the last decade.The vitality business is the second-biggest contributor to human-caused methane emissions after agriculture. However addressing the business’s methane emissions is seen as among the many most cost-effective and quickest alternatives for tackling world warming at the moment out there. Specialists have warned, nevertheless, that vitality firms have discovered quite a few methods to cover the magnitude of their emissions, making know-how similar to satellites essential for monitoring emissions. “Oil and fuel is emitting much more methane than we realise,” Eric Kort, professor of local weather, area sciences and engineering on the College of Michigan, instructed the FT final 12 months. RecommendedThe Bezos Earth Fund, Bezos’ philanthropic arm, mentioned final July that it could present $10mn in funding to the EDF to help MethaneSAT, after it had already supplied a three-year $100mn donation in 2020. The satellite tv for pc was additionally backed by the New Zealand authorities and others. Google had additionally supplied AI computing capabilities required to crunch huge quantities of knowledge produced by the orbiting methane monitor.The satellite tv for pc was designed to measure methane emissions that another satellites can’t. It might additionally calculate complete emissions, the place they arrive from and the way they modify over time.World vitality methane emissions remained at near-record ranges in 2024, with the Worldwide Vitality Company saying earlier this 12 months that 70 per cent of such emissions could possibly be averted at a low value. Local weather CapitalWhere local weather change meets enterprise, markets and politics. Discover the FT’s protection right here.Are you interested in the FT’s environmental sustainability commitments? Discover out extra about our science-based targets right here