Published by Todd Bush on July 2, 2025
WASHINGTON - An $88 million satellite backed by billionaire Jeff Bezos that detected oil and gas industry emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane has been lost in space, the group that operates said on Tuesday.
MethaneSAT had been collecting emissions data and images from drilling sites, pipelines, and processing facilities around the world since March, but went off course around 10 days ago, Environmental Defense Fund, which led the initiative, said.
Its last known location was over Svalbard in Norway and EDF said it did not expect it to be recovered as it had lost power.
Amy Middleton, senior vice president at EDF, told Reuters. "We're seeing this as a setback, not a failure. We've made so much progress and so much has been learned that if we hadn't taken this risk, we wouldn't have any of these learnings."
The launch of MethaneSAT in March 2024 was a milestone in a years-long campaign by EDF to hold accountable the more than 120 countries that in 2021 pledged to curb their methane emissions.
It also sought to help enforce a further promise from 50 oil and gas companies made at the Dubai COP28 climate summit in December 2023 to eliminate methane and routine gas flaring.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, with 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.
Scientists say capping leaks from oil and gas wells and equipment is therefore one of the fastest ways to start tackling the problem of global warming.
While MethaneSAT was not the only project to publish satellite data on methane emissions, its backers said it provided more detail on emissions sources and it partnered with Google to create a publicly-available global map of emissions.
>> In Other News: BHP Inks Charter Contracts With Cosco for Ammonia Dual-fuelled Vessels
EDF reported the lost satellite to federal agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Space Force on Tuesday, it said.
Building and launching the satellite cost $88 million, according to EDF. The organization had received a $100 million grant from the Bezos Earth Fund in 2020 and got other major financial support from Arnold Ventures, the Robertson Foundation and the TED Audacious Project and EDF donors. The project was also partnered with the New Zealand Space Agency.
EDF said it had insurance to cover the loss and its engineers were investigating what had happened.
The organization said it would continue to use its resources, including aircraft with methane-detecting spectrometers, to look for methane leaks.
It also said it was too early to say whether it would seek to launch another satellite but believed MethaneSAT proved that a highly sensitive instrument could see total methane emissions, even at low levels, over wide areas.
Despite the efforts to increase transparency on emissions, methane "super-emitters" have rarely taken action when alerted that they are leaking methane, the United Nations said in a report last year.
The pressure on them to do so has decreased as the United States under President Donald Trump's second administration has effectively ended a U.S. program to collect greenhouse gas data from major polluters and rescinded Biden-era rules aimed at curbing methane.
Follow the money flow of climate, technology, and energy investments to uncover new opportunities and jobs.
Inside This Issue 🌊 The Quiet Rise of Offshore CO2 Storage: North America's Emerging Frontier for Carbon Capture 🍁 Canada Invests in Carbon Capture and Storage in Alberta 🛰️ Vortex Energy Finalize...
Inside This Issue ⚖️ CDR at a Crossroads: Is Private Sector Innovation Enough to Offset Washington's Wobble? 🌱 Exomad Green’s Biochar Field Study Reveals Significant Crop Yield Improvements In Bol...
Inside This Issue 🚀 Climeworks Raises USD 162M to Scale Up Technology 🛠️ DNV Advances Skylark to Enable Safe Scaling of CO2 Pipelines for Carbon Capture and Storage 🍁 Canada’s Rising Role in the G...
BEIJING, CHINA AND MADRID, SPAIN / ACCESS Newswire / July 7, 2025 / Hygreen Energy, a global electrolyzer manufacturer and hydrogen technology leader, has entered a frame agreement with Robert Bosc...
DANBURY, Conn., July 07, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FuelCell Energy, Inc. (Nasdaq: FCEL) President and CEO Jason Few has issued a statement praising the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) for its d...
Vortex Energy Finalizes Sampling Plan for Ant Survey at Robinsons River Salt Project
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 07, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vortex Energy Corp (CSE: VRTX) (OTC: VTECF) (FSE: AA3) (“Vortex" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the finalized sampling plan ...
Key takeaways S&P Global Commodity Insights, EcoRegistry and the International Carbon Registry (carbonregistry.com) are key players in the voluntary carbon market (VCM) and the first counterp...
Follow the money flow of climate, technology, and energy investments to uncover new opportunities and jobs.