When it comes to greenhouse gases, people tend to focus on CO2, which is responsible for most of global warming. However, according to the IEA, it is methane that is causing about 30% of climate change. This is a big enough threat that this year the U.S. government plans to fine polluters $900 for every ton they release. By 2026, it will be $1,500 per ton.
Methane, the main component of natural gas, is a powerful greenhouse gas that causes 83 times more global warming than one molecule of carbon dioxide. Leakage is one of the main sources from both aging natural gas infrastructure and oil and gas fields.
However, the leak of the odorless and colorless gas was difficult to trace. Reporters were able to track down more than 1,000 so-called superemitters, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. In the United States alone, he says, there are over 4 million active and inactive oil and gas wells, some of which may be leaking as you read this article.
“The key question about why there are so many emissions is that there is no truly global measurement technology that can actually operate at the scale of the oil and gas industry,” said Orbio Earth co-founder and chief executive officer. CEO Robert Huppertz told TechCrunch.
And the EPA's new methane rules finally create an economic incentive for development.
The IEA said in a report released Wednesday that the company was able to observe a significant portion of the United States' estimated oil and gas methane emissions. Orbio estimates that approximately 10 million tonnes of methane will be released from onshore oil and gas exploration and production in 2023. If this pace continues this year, oil and gas companies could face fines of up to $9 billion. In 2026, the amount will increase to he $ 15 billion.
Orbio's pitch is that it's cheaper to pay startups to find leaks so oil companies can shut them down. This is a business model that is attracting attention from investors. Orbio has raised a $4 million seed round from the European Space Agency, Initialized Capital, and Y Combinator. The startup was part of the accelerator's Spring 2023 cohort.
There are two basic approaches to measuring methane emissions: bottom-up and top-down. A bottom-up approach would likely involve installing sensors at key points in the oil and gas infrastructure. They give fairly accurate numbers, but can be very expensive to install. Top-down approaches use one or a small number of sensors that can monitor large areas of the Earth. The results will be less accurate, but the cost will be significantly lower.
Orbio Earth, one of the entrants into the emerging methane tracking market, is taking the latter approach. Huppertz and his co-founder Jack Angela have developed a series of algorithms that use freely available satellite data to detect methane emissions.
Although the satellite Sentinel-2 used by Orbio was not designed to detect gas, the results are impressive. Researchers who tested various methane reporting methods, both commercial and academic, found that Orbio caught all of their leaks except one. That was less than 1 ton per hour.
Until the successful launch of MethaneSAT last week, no satellite existed specifically for detecting methane. In fact, just a few years ago, experts believed that general purpose remote sensing satellites like Sentinel 2 would not be able to extract enough signal from the noise to detect methane leaks. This is because methane and water in clouds are difficult to distinguish.
To differentiate, Orbio monitors the entire surface of the Earth, looking for anomalies over time. When an anomaly occurs, we determine whether the anomaly is likely a methane release and, if so, whether the source is an oil and gas facility. Orbio provides emissions data to end users within 48 hours, Huppertz said, but often less. The startup processes 10-20 terabytes of data every day.
Orbio's customers subscribe to its data products and analytics for a variety of reasons. Oil and gas companies may want to monitor their own assets, while investors may want to evaluate the performance of their own portfolios or benchmark their competitors' portfolios. Thanks to the satellite data Orbio uses, Orbio's data dates back to 2016.
The startup is working on applying its algorithms to other satellite data to begin assessing other greenhouse gases. “Natural gas is going to be very necessary for the energy transition,” Huppertz said. “So ensuring that methane and natural gas stays within the infrastructure and does not leak into the atmosphere is always critical until every last drop of natural gas is used up.”