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Google is making a map of methane leaks for the whole world to see (www.businessinsider.com)

submitted 9 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Google is making a map of methane leaks for the whole world to see::Google will use satellite data, AI, and its computing power to map methane emissions around the globe. The transparency marks a new era in climate accountability.

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[–] nexusband@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Siberia isn't the permafrost melting - those emissions correlate to known Oil and Gas Wells, that mostly have been just left open, so that they can be used easily again. Melting permafrost is still releasing relatively little.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I work in O&G and my own firm just spent the last three years hunting for and patching pipe leaks by looking for methane emissions.

This is something they've been crowing about for a while, but its been a problem for decades that only got treated as something worth fixing when the cost of aerial reconnaissance dropped. Its a classic negative externality that energy companies simply don't want to acknowledge until the price is right.

If you think this is the only case in which lax regulation has left the lid off Pandora's box, don't ask what was up with the BP oil rig explosion or look to hard into the number of gas leaks polluting the Mississippi river or... really... ask any questions at all about the state of safety and soundness of O&G infrastructure.

[–] nexusband@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Yep...makes Synthetic fuels an even more no-brainer for me personally. Granted, it doesn't for those companies and lobbyists because it's going to be a lot more expensive initially, but if there's really a will to do something against climate change, the first thing to do should be taxing those companies doing this shit willfully and knowingly to hell and back. A few wind turbines with some electrolysis machines suddenly become a lot cheaper.

And it's a Win-Win for everyone - lots of people keep their jobs, execs keep getting money and I can keep driving ICE - and no extra co2, methan or other gasses are being released. And with these Satellites, there's actually a way to keep companies from being shit.

But that may very well be a bit too utopian...