Latest Guides

Non-Profits News

Local Nonprofit Has Big Plans for Deploying JPL-Designed Greenhouse Gas Detector on Global Scale

Published on Wednesday, December 8, 2021 | 6:32 am
 

To track methane release, Riley Duren, Research Scientist at the University of Arizona and an Engineering Fellow locally at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory along with his colleagues developed a device called an Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer.

This spectrometer works as a camera that can take a picture, detect and measure signatures in the atmosphere associated with methane which are invisible to the naked eye.

After a successful pilot study on the use of the technology, researchers now want to make the spectrometer operational at a global scale in a bid to combat greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.

Duren, Chief Executive for Carbon Mapper, a non-profit organization headquartered in Old Pasadena, is working with the private and public sector to deploy the technology on satellites to pinpoint and measure methane and carbon dioxide (CO2) point-sources from space.

Duren said Carbon Mapper is partnering with JPL, California Air Resources Board, California Resources Board, and other groups for the program.

According to Duren, back in 2016 and 2017, JPL along with other research groups conducted a study of methane emissions statewide with a NASA aircraft, using the technology.

“What we found is that less than 0.2% of the infrastructure in the state is responsible for emitting between a third and a half of the state’s entire methane inventory.”

“Out of almost 300,000 pieces of infrastructure that were surveyed, only about 600 of those facilities produced methane emissions,” said Duren.

Duren added that through the study, researchers found there are strong methane emissions with oil and gas production, with waste management and with agriculture.

“The plan for the Carbon Mapper satellite constellation is to build on the success of the airborne pilot program in California, and extend that approach globally using satellites,” Duren said.

Duren said that the ultimate program goal is to be able to provide daily to weekly monitoring of methane and CO2 emissions from individual facilities around the planet and to do that in a sustained way.

He said using the technology, operators and government agencies can identify leaks and other malfunctions so that operators and regulators can take prompt action to reduce emissions, Duren added.

Duren said researchers are planning to launch the satellites in the next two years.

“Our plans are to work with planet and JPL to have them build the first two demonstration satellites that will launch in late 2023.”

“And those would then be followed by a larger constellation of satellites built that would offer more operational and sustained monitoring,” he said.

Get our daily Pasadena newspaper in your email box. Free.

Get all the latest Pasadena news, more than 10 fresh stories daily, 7 days a week at 7 a.m.

Make a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

 

 

 

buy ivermectin online
buy modafinil online
buy clomid online
buy ivermectin online