Regarded as one of the largest emitters of methane gas on the planet, the oil-rich Permian Basin spans parts of western Texas and southeastern New Mexico.
The Environmental Defense Fund's Jon Goldstein told KUNM about their newly launched satellite that's currently collecting swaths of emission data from the Permian and other oil fields around the globe. It’ll be so accurate, the public can look at data from their own backyard.
Jon Goldstein: MethaneSAT is a satellite that is the first satellite actually launched by an environmental nonprofit. It was launched in March and is already streaming data back to Earth, looking at methane pollution from all around the globe, including in New Mexico. It's designed to help detect with better accuracy than ever before where the problem areas are, so that regulators, industry, and members of the public can have transparent pictures into where the problems are, so that they can be addressed and fixed.
KUNM: This technology is not new. Why can't other satellites detect smaller pockets of widespread emissions?
Goldstein: Some of the first popular images that really caught on in the public of methane problems via satellite were of the San Juan Basin in Northwest New Mexico, where, back in about 2014, a methane hot spot was detected from an older satellite technology. That, I think, helped catalyze the momentum that Governor Lujan Grisham and her environmental regulators latched onto to get that problem addressed through the state's regulations. However, those older satellite technologies were pretty coarse in terms of how specific they could map the problem and tracing it back to specific sites. The newer technologies –– MethaneSAT is one. Carbon Mapper is another. They have a satellite that launched even more recently, and is more designed to be as precise as possible, to trace those problems back down. The more precise we can be about where the problems are, the better chance we have of getting them addressed.
KUNM: You've released new images and data of the Permian Basin, which folks call the "climate bomb." Can you tell us what trends you've been seeing in our neck of the woods, especially in New Mexico?
Goldstein: It's kind of a tale of two cities. It's interesting. So on the New Mexico side, this is still somewhat anecdotal, and once we get the steady stream of data coming back from MethaneSAT, I'd love to revisit this so that we can update it with some more data. But, the early indications are that the state's regulatory approach is working. There was a presentation made recently by the Energy Minerals and Natural Resources Department to the Legislative Finance Committee, about a 70% decrease in reported venting and flaring in New Mexico since the regulations came into force, which is great, because those are major sources of oil and gas methane pollution. In Texas? Not so much. It continues to be a problem, and a much bigger problem than I think a lot of folks realize, and that's one of the reasons that we're hopeful for satellite technologies and other technologies to make it more transparent to the public where the problems are, so that we can get them addressed.
KUNM: Another project you all have going on called MethaneAIR – which uses similar tech, but it's strapped to a jet — found oil and natural gas producers across the US are actually emitting methane into the atmosphere at over four times the rates estimated by the Environmental Protection Agency. Why is there this clear discrepancy?
Goldstein: So historically, how EPA has collected this information is they ask operators to report to them their emissions. They allow them to use modeling assumptions. So rather than going out and measuring each piece of equipment and adding up those numbers, the oil and gas industry is very diverse. You're talking about thousands of potential pollution points on each well site, and there are tens-of-thousands of well sites across New Mexico. So, it gets a lot more difficult.
