Groundbreaking Discovery: UK Methane Leak Detected from Space for the First Time.
A big leak was found in UK Gas Pipe Seen from Space
A really big leak of a strong warming gas called methane was seen from a satellite over the course of three months. This happened at a gas pipe owned by Wales and West Utilities. The leaked gas could have powered 7,500 homes for a whole year!
Using satellites to find leaks quickly can help stop them sooner. Methane is much more powerful at heating the Earth than CO2—28 times more, in fact. It’s a big contributor to the global temperature going up by about 30%.
In a town called Cheltenham, there was a leak in a pipe. This was found out in March, and it was first reported to the BBC. A team at Leeds University spotted it with special satellites.
Emily Dowd, a student at the university, was looking at pictures from space to see if landfills were leaking methane. But she saw something different—a methane leak from a gas pipe, far away. This pipe was owned by Wales and West Utilities.
For the UK and other countries fighting climate change, finding and stopping methane leaks is really important.
Once the leak was found, Emily worked with GHGSat, a company that owns the satellites. They took more pictures from space. Another team from Royal Holloway University measured things on the ground.
Emily said, “Finding this leak makes us wonder how many more are out there. Maybe we need to look even harder and use our technology.”
Wales and West Utilities found out about the leak because someone said they could smell gas. They were already working on getting permission to fix the gas pipes when the satellite spotted the leak.
We’re not sure why the leak happened, but sometimes old pipes can leak methane. The satellite method shows that finding these leaks quickly is really possible.
The biggest sources of methane come from the oil and gas industry, farming, and places where waste is buried. The UK used to let out a lot of methane, but since 1990, it’s been going down. Lately, progress has been slower.
Right now, people find methane leaks by going out and looking for them, which is tough when there are so many pipes and sites. The UK’s estimate of how much methane it lets out is based on data about how businesses work.
Jean-Francois Gauthier, who works at GHGSat, said that satellites are just one part of the solution. But they’re really good at something special. They can keep coming back and taking pictures often, and they don’t need to send people out, so it’s effective and not too expensive.
GHGSat has nine satellites that fly around 500 kilometers above the Earth. They can see gases really clearly, down to 25 meters.
GHGSat recently made a deal with the UK, worth £5.5 million, which is funded by the UK Space Agency. They’ll give data from their satellites about methane emissions to UK groups like Ordnance Survey.
The head of the UK Space Agency, Dr. Paul Bate, said that satellites are getting smaller and stronger. This makes them perfect for watching how much greenhouse gas the world is making and helping decide how to get to Net Zero.
But these satellites still have some things to improve on. Prof. Grant Allen, who studies the air at the University of Manchester, said that while satellites like GHGSat are really helpful, there’s still more work to do to be sure about how much methane is coming out of big sources that could be stopped.
SOURCE: BBC