ThinkIQ, a pioneer of digital manufacturing transformation SaaS, today announced that the Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CESMII), the United States’ national institute on Smart Manufacturing, will now be licensing its technology to power CESMII’s Smart Manufacturing Innovation Platform (SMIP). The CESMII SMIP is uniquely positioned to drive the adoption of Smart Manufacturing more broadly in the United States through powerful open interfaces and democratized information models to make it easier, faster, and cheaper than traditional closed solutions available to the manufacturing community.
With ThinkIQ as the foundation of the CESMII SMIP, ThinkIQ customers will be able to continually benefit from smart manufacturing applications developed and integrated with the SMIP and CESMII’s further development and expansion of Smart Manufacturing Profiles. This will enable a simpler, lower cost, and more effective implementation of smart manufacturing solutions to solve manufacturing problems as offered in CESMII’s Smart Manufacturing Marketplace. This open platform enables a new generation of problem solvers – app developers, data scientists, and empowered operators – to create and explore new ways to understand manufacturing problems
“We are proud to have been chosen by CESMII as a core technology partner to drive adoption of Smart Manufacturing by manufacturers of all shapes and sizes via the SMIP,” said Doug Lawson, CEO of ThinkIQ. “This serves as validation to our customers who have put their confidence behind the industry leading Smart Manufacturing platform.”
“The Smart Manufacturing Innovation Platform is designed to help every manufacturer capitalize on the advances and power of Industry 4.0 to increase competitiveness and profitability,” said John Dyck, CEO of CESMII. “Partnering with ThinkIQ provides the SMIP with the foundation that is intended to be a standard across the manufacturing industry.”
ThinkIQ’s SaaS Manufacturing cloud-based platform simplifies the creation of web-based applications and leverages the strengths of the Internet of Things, Big Data, Data Science, Semantic Modeling and Machine Learning. The platform collects data across the operation (existing and IIoT sensors) to provide actionable real time insights (e.g., identify correlations and root causes, traceability and yield issues, etc.). ThinkIQ’s recently enhanced Vision platform provides unparalleled visibility on the shop floor, eliminating blind spots and increasing productivity and worker safety. This creates a new level of capability beyond what independent disconnected operating environments can provide today, helping companies to manage their manufacturing operations and supply chains even more effectively during economic disruptions and labor shortages.
Planet Labs PBC, a leading provider of daily data and insights about Earth, today announced that it has been selected by two companies, SES Government Solutions and Telesat Government Solutions, to demonstrate real-time space-to-space connectivity solutions from LEO satellites to other in-space communication satellites operated by SES and Telesat for NASA’s Communication Services Project, or “CSP”.
“We are really proud to support NASA’s mission to shape and accelerate next-generation near earth in-space communication capabilities being developed in partnership with the private sector”
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With NASA’s plans to decommission its owned and operated satellites which are a part of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) in the coming years, the agency will evaluate the feasibility of commercial networks to reliably support future near-Earth missions. As part of Planet’s involvement in CSP, Planet will accelerate its R&D for near-Earth space communication capabilities on its future earth-observation satellites. Planet will work to demonstrate its state-of-the-art communication technology stack involving real-time satellite connectivity for NASA’s CSP, with the goal of further building its relationship with the agency and enabling low latency solutions for Planet customers.
“We are really proud to support NASA’s mission to shape and accelerate next-generation near-earth in-space communication capabilities being developed in partnership with the private sector,” said Planet Co-Founder and CSO, Robbie Schingler. “We’re proud to work with SES and Telesat Government Solutions to align our respective technology investments and business operations to create ultra-low-latency communication capabilities. Such capabilities could be leveraged by NASA and other government and commercial space actors, including Planet’s future satellite constellations, and we believe will create differentiating products and increase time-to-value for our Earth Data platform customers.”
With SES Government Solutions, Planet will work to develop and demonstrate a ubiquitous, always-on low-latency connectivity solution enabled by SES’s multi-orbit fleet of geostationary (GEO) and medium earth orbit (MEO) satellite constellations including on-demand inter-satellite-link connectivity via the O3b mPower satellite communications system.
With Telesat Government Solutions, Planet will work to build space-based RF terminals that will be hosted on two Earth observation spacecraft. Once in orbit, Telesat Government Solutions will demonstrate Ka-band, high throughput transmission from the space-based RF terminals to Telesat-operated satellites flying at a higher altitude, as well as mesh, space relay connectivity between the optically linked Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites before downlinking data to representative NASA operation centers.
Following Planet’s agile aerospace philosophy, Planet looks to demonstrate various aspects of this technology via ground and on-orbit tests with the Pelican satellites that Planet intends to launch starting in the calendar year 2023. These missions may enable Planet to bring next-generation technologies into operation faster and at a lower cost than would be possible otherwise. Planet expects that inter-satellite link capabilities will enable Planet to leap forward in speed of delivery to commercial customers – going from data delivery timelines on the order of hours from existing constellations down to minutes with future systems – bringing value to users across a range of applications from disaster response to national security.
Globalstar has partnered with Globalsat Group to deploy a jointly developed IoT solution powered by Globalstar’s satellite network designed to monitor renewable energy stations located in remote areas of Latin America. The initial deployment will include 23,000 devices throughout the region with an expectation of additional opportunities in the short term.
The energy stations, which are installed in remote areas, have historically presented cost implications surrounding the access and, similarly, without notice of service shutdowns, have caused additional loss of time, revenue, and information. The new solution will allow clients to obtain daily data, including information on equipment status and energy consumption. Maintenance costs will also be drastically reduced with preventive scheduling and real-time response. The solution will also provide monitoring visibility as a means of theft prevention.
“This deployment represents a critical milestone in our expansion into renewable energy verticals in Latin America,” said Juan Porras, General Manager of Globalstar for Latin America. “Through this partnership, we are now well positioned to expand into other energy markets around the world,” said David Kagan, CEO of Globalstar.
Globalstar and Globalsat have been working together since 2019 on solutions in the mining, oil and gas, and government industries throughout Latin America. The development of this renewable energy project started back in 2020.
J. Alberto Palacios, CEO of Globalsat Group, commented, “It was a technically demanding development where we had to combine low power levels and high reliability, and our team was able to further optimize efficiency through the development of custom hardware, an aspect in which we are particularly proud of having been able to add value to this challenging project.”
Commaris™, a brand of Terrafugia, Inc. delivering uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) for commercial operations, today announces its dealer partnership with FIZUAS Unmanned Aircraft Systems. This partnership allows FIZUAS to sell Commaris’s flagship long-range UAV, the SEEKER, for commercial use.
“We are excited to launch our new partnership with FIZUAS; their team of experienced UAV professionals has created a dealership uniquely focused on those applications requiring commercial-grade UAVs such as the SEEKER,” said Fred Bedard, Director of Sales and Marketing at Commaris. FIZUAS brings Commaris the application expertise in commercial operations such as power, gas, oil, mapping, agriculture, law enforcement, and public safety, which are the precise applications the SEEKER was designed to operate within.
The Seeker’s innovative, electric, fixed-wing/VTOL hybrid aircraft is designed to perform a wide variety of commercial inspection operations, including security and surveillance, inspections, surveying and mapping, and more. It has a long-endurance capability, with up to three or more hours of flight time without a battery change, and it supports multiple payload configurations of up to 10 pounds at a top speed of over 75 mph.
FIZUAS (Fix-In-a-Zip, LLC. Unmanned Aerial Systems) is a trusted provider of UAS solutions. FIZUAS specializes in the sales, service, repair, and consultation of industry-leading drone solutions to the energy, agriculture, utilities, public safety, and search & rescue industries.
“The partnership with Commaris is a crucial step forward in the UAS industry and our objective of becoming a leading solutions provider,” said Mr. Christopher Camelio, Vice President, FIZUAS.
“The SEEKER platform by Commaris delivers a unique combination of drone capabilities into a single platform. The vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), the stability of the platform, and extended flight time are industry-leading, thus enabling our clients to realize significant benefits to their aviation programs,” added Mr. Camelio.
EuroGeographics has welcomed the strengthening of the United Nation’s Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management’s (UN-GGIM) mandate and Secretariat resources. “The resolution adopted by the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) recognizes that a strong global geospatial infrastructure is an essential enabler for achieving a sustainable future for all,” said Léa Bodossian, secretary general and executive director at EuroGeographics.
“Many of our members contributed to the work of the Committee of Experts’ and we are delighted to see such high-level acknowledgment of the crucial importance of location data. We welcome the recognition of knowledge sharing, and we value the importance given to capacity-building to ensure no one is left behind.”
Building a bridge between the statistical and geospatial communities
Léa Bodossian made her comments during the twelfth session of UN-GGIM in New York where the not-for-profit association made a series of interventions as an Observer organization. She also confirmed EuroGeographics’ commitment to using its unique expertise in authoritative data and its extensive and well-established regional knowledge exchange networks to support a range of international initiatives, including the UN Integrated Geospatial Information Framework (IGIF), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Geospatial Roadmap, and the Framework for Effective Land Administration (FELA).
In particular, the Association offered its support to help strengthen the global geospatial infrastructure in building a bridge between the statistical and geospatial communities. Its aim is to facilitate coordination, collaboration, and communication within the international geospatial community via its extensive membership of national mapping, cadastral and land registration authorities, and a well-established network for sharing knowledge.
Harmonized open data
EuroGeographics continues to facilitate the provision of harmonized open data from official national sources for the United Nations Second Administrative Level Boundaries (SALB) initiative. The 1:1 million scales topographic open dataset, EuroGlobalMap is created using the Association’s unique data integration process and assists the project’s aim of compiling global administrative boundaries data from authoritative sources.
The Association reiterated the importance of trusted information from official national providers and was pleased to see that its research outlining the concept of authoritative data in Europe was the basis for the Working Group on Policy and Legal Frameworks for Geospatial Information Management’s initial thinking.
“Official, authoritative data is important because it supports a range of legal, fiscal, security and other public administrative purposes,” stated Léa Bodossian. “For example, cadastral authorities and land registries fulfill an essential role providing official, detailed, secure and reliable information on property rights and registration.”
“This trusted data is essential to meeting increasingly challenging national, regional, and global demands, and EuroGeographics is committed to continuing to contribute to the public good through its vision of a society empowered by the use of trusted geospatial services from its members.”
Red Cat Holdings, Inc., a hardware-enabled software provider to the drone industry, announces today a licensing agreement with Autonodyne, LLC. that will enable Red Cat subsidiary Teal Drones, Inc. to ship its drone for government and military segments – the Golden Eagle – with exclusive autonomous capabilities in late 2022.
Combining Teal’s drones and Autonodyne technology positions Red Cat as a leader in multi-vehicle and autonomous drone operation. Teal’s Golden Eagle drone with Autonodyne software has already successfully demonstrated drone “swarms” and provides features like “unlimited surveillance” that seamlessly rotates multiple drones over a single point of interest for 24/7 coverage.
Under the terms of the license, Teal has secured the exclusive right to Autonodyne’s software suite for “autonomy and exchange of control among humans and machines to perform tasks involving crewed and/or uncrewed vehicles.” Autonodyne has agreed to exclusively provide its software to Teal’s current and prospective customers for single vehicles, multi-vehicles, and linked multi-vehicles, whether existing or planned in the future and includes Autonodyne’s patents and unpatented technology.
Red Cat CEO Jeff Thompson said, “Teal’s products have repeatedly proven in testing that they can handle difficult mission-specific assignments with ease and offer autonomous capabilities that are superior to other drones. Autonodyne is the first of multiple development partners we plan to integrate and test with for prospective applications in the government and military segments served by our Teal division. Under the terms of the agreement, Autonodyne software will only be made available to Teal, effectively jumping Teal ahead of other drone companies seeking to provide multi-vehicle control or capabilities like unlimited surveillance. Competitors will have to develop their own software or secure licenses from others with inferior test performance.
“Adding Autonodyne software to the Golden Eagle is as significant to our Company’s financial success as it is to our customer’s mission success. At 42%, the gross margin on the Golden Eagle is certainly good, but adding Autonodyne software to the Golden Eagle increases our gross margin to over 60%,” concluded Thompson.
George Matus, the founder of Teal, said, “Red Cat has immediate potential to be a leader in this industry’s government and military segments. Golden Eagle was selected as one of only a handful of drones certified for U.S. Government procurement and it is continuously being improved, with a new version to be announced soon. Our hardware-enabled software approach allows us to meet or exceed the security and performance requirements for the military operation, border control, public safety, and more. As shown by recent international events, small drones irrefutably make a major difference in front-line outcomes. With fleet-level operation at just a few thousand dollars per mission versus millions for larger scale equipment, the attraction of our products is clear.”
Geospatial Analysis to
Study Snakebite Risks in Nepal
A recent study in Nepal’s Terai region used geospatial analysis to compute the risk of snakebites in humans and domestic animals. Prof. Nicolas Ray, Head of Division of Human, Animal, and Environmental Health, University of Geneva, and Carlos R. Ochoa, Swiss National Science Foundation Ph.D. Student, University of Geneva, provided details of the study to Geospatial Artha.
For the random selection of the households to be surveyed, we used satellite imagery from Google, Bing, ESRI, and Yandex Satellite, through the plugin QuickMapServices in QGIS, as described in the original publication “Novel transdisciplinary methodology for cross-sectional analysis of snakebite epidemiology at national scale”, which is available at PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. The same publication also describes the functions used in QGIS and a summarized R script to randomly select the primary sampling units using Probability Proportional to Size (PPS) sampling.
Analysis helped predict snakebite risk for humans and animals
We used the Integrated Nested Laplace Approximations (INLA) method in the study, a robust Bayesian modeling method that borrows strength from neighboring areas and observations. This allowed us to confidently estimate the spatial risk of snakebite for humans and animals.
Study findings
We were able to identify the hotspots of snakebite risk in the Terai region of Nepal. We also highlighted very important factors that either significantly increase or decrease the risk of snakebite for a person living in a given area of 1–2 sq. km per year. Although poverty was already recognized to be an important factor increasing the risk of snakebites, the use of the Poverty Probability Index (PPI) and its importance as a standardized indicator of poverty was unprecedented.
Regional variations
The eastern and middle Terai regions suffer more incidents of envenoming than the western Terai region. We offered a possible explanation related to the distribution of the krait species (Bungarus genus) and the apparently eastern-predominant custom of sleeping on the floor. From this research, it was again evident that snakebite is a multifactorial disease involving not only humans, domestic animals and snakes, but also behavioral, socioeconomic, cultural, religious and environmental factors.
Key findings about
domestic animals
We could not compute the spatial risk for a few domestic animals. Nonetheless, the result for animals (as previously for humans) revealed some strong risk-increasing and risk-reducing variables that could be used for awareness campaigns in rural communities, such as having straw storages near human dwellings or animal sheds — especially since recent publications from our team showed an important total incidence of 61.5 (51.0–74.1) cases per 1,00,000 animals and significant economic losses for affected households. However, the most important variable was the average minimum temperature of the coldest month, which we considered to be linked to the biology of snakes and possible animal holding practices.
Farm practices behind increasing snakebite cases?
People working in agricultural fields are more exposed to encounters with snakes that hunt rodents and other animals in these fields. In our study, higher NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index) values indicated a reduction in snakebite risk. As discussed in the paper, one possible explanation is the difference between the average NDVI value of forests (higher) and that of crops (lower). However, in other circumstances and countries, the same high NDVI values have been associated with higher snakebite incidence.
Poverty contributes
to increased risk of snakebite incidents
As per the study, there are some covariates directly or indirectly related to poverty that were found to have an influence on the risk of snakebites. These covariates are: Poverty Probability Index (PPI), distance to water, food storage, and straw storage. Despite a complex dynamic, the snakebite risk of a household inevitably increases with the number of its members.
Carlos R. Ochoa is a PhD candidate at the institute of Global Health of the University of Geneva. He is a biologist with expertise in biostatistics and who is working in geospatial health with snakebite.
Prof. Nicolas Ray is Head of the GeoHealth group at the Institute of Global Health of the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He is a specialist in geospatial approaches to improve access to healthcare in low and middle-income countries.
THAICOM 8 Launch (2016). Original from Official SpaceX Photos. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.
Thaicom, a satellite communication provider and operator based in Thailand announced on Wednesday that it is partnering up with US-based Orbital Insight Inc. This partnership would enable Thaicom to deliver world-class data insights and intelligence services with Orbital Insight’s geospatial analytics platform to its customers in Thailand and the region.
The Orbital Insight Platform can transform multiple geospatial data sources from spaced-based technology and other world sensors from a wide range of service providers around the world such as satellite images, anonymized location data, vessel automatic identification system (AIS) data, and other IoT data—combined with AI and Machine Learning to analyze data.
According to the agreement, Thaicom will initially offer a different model of services, i.e., provision of data insights to customers, licensing to access the platform, and customized platforms designed to meet customer needs via the AI-powered Orbital Insight Platform.
Patompob (Nile) Suwansiri, Thaicom’s Chief Executive Officer, stated that “this collaboration marks an important milestone in our global partnership strategy for our future growth. As a regional space tech company, we will leverage this data-driven technology from the Orbital Insight Platform to embrace our new business opportunities in the new space economy domain. Applying insights from this trusted geospatial data will help our customers in government and private sectors, including the military, financial institutions, energy, and industrial sectors, as well as corporate and consumer goods, make better-informed decisions and enhance the country’s development in the digital era.
Kevin O’Brien, Chief Executive Officer, commented, ” Orbital Insight’s geospatial intelligence platform enables customers to discover, measure, and monitor activity anywhere in the world and get visibility into what they cannot see. We are excited to help Thaicom uncover insights and understand trends, patterns, and social-economic changes to make better, more data-driven decisions.”
Established in 1991 as Shinawatra Satellite after the name of its founder Thaksin Shinawatra, the company was granted a 30-year operating license by the Thailand government. During the same year, H.M. King Bhumibol Adulyadej the Great graciously named the national communication satellite program “Thaicom” short for Thailand Communication looked to bridge the gap between Thailand and modern communications technology.
The company launched its first satellite called the Thaicom 1 in 1993 which covered Southeast and East Asia serving the region’s broadcast industry. Subsequently in 2014, the company launched Thaicom 6 which now provides broadcast and data services over Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Thaicom’s Indian adventures
Earlier this year, Thaicom announced that it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Indian media company NXTDIGITAL LIMITED (NDL). This MoU was carried out as a strategic partnership between both companies and helped Thaicom enter the Broadband-over-satellite market and related services in India.
Thaicom and NDL also said that they will develop and offer a myriad of global emerging digital solutions – critical to the government’s vision and mission of a resilient digital India. These solutions, already developed and deployed by Thaicom elsewhere in the world include satellite artificial intelligence solutions comprising space-based data technologies for agriculture, disaster relief & natural resource management to public WIFI systems, and drones for augmenting rural digital solutions. With India’s significant dependence on agriculture and the incumbent challenges of crop management – the satellite-based AI will help by providing mission-critical data on tap.
Palo Alto’s own Orbital Insight
Orbital Insight Inc. is a geospatial analytics company that analyzes satellite, drone, balloon, and other unmanned aerial vehicle images. It was founded in 2013 in Palo Alto, California, by James Crawford.
It partnered with the World Bank in 2015 to improve its poverty data, using building height and rooftop material analysis to approximate wealth. In 2016, In-Q-Tel, and Google Ventures (GV), along with CME Group joined Orbital Insight’s earlier promoters Sequoia Capital, Lux Capital, and Bloomberg Beta.
The company has been on a stable upward trend and following the partnership with Thaicom, this stable trend might elevate even further.
Beans.ai, a geospatial data creation company that maps complex addresses and surrounding points of interest, is hiring and expanding its executive team to meet increased demand for its precise last mile logistics technology.
Founded in 2018 by former engineers from Uber, Google, and Yahoo, who experienced the inaccuracy of mapping firsthand during a family emergency, Beans.ai details the precise locations of secondary addresses found within larger, primary address sites, like apartment complexes, condominiums, hospitals, and colleges. This sub-address-level data is made available through both geocoding and feature services, which allow users to easily search and find unit locations and semantic waypoints.
Beans. ai has grown rapidly with 500+ customers including FedEx Ground, Uber, Instacart, Verizon, Cox, Fetch Package, Lytx, Ontrac, and Optima Overnight as well as $19M in funding from Saama Capital and Google veteran Amit Singhal, with participation from Venture Highway, Mubadala Capital and industry veterans Brian McClendon and Manik Gupta, among others. Beans.ai has mapped over 70% of all hard-to-locate addresses like apartments and mobile homes across the continental U.S. and powers over 4% of all residential deliveries in the U.S., up 100% in less than a year. To support this growth, the company hired former Podium Vice President of Sales, Nick Miller as Chief Revenue Officer. A Utah unicorn veteran, Miller also worked at Qualtrics before joining Podium where he spent six years helping the company scale from 20 to 1,400 employees.
“As a career salesperson, there’s nothing more motivating than selling an innovative product and I can honestly say Beans.ai is building one of the best products I’ve ever encountered,” said Miller. “With the largest mapping database in the U.S. and its advanced AI-driven technology, Beans.ai is disrupting the delivery industry by making that last mile easier to navigate for drivers, creating a more seamless customer experience. It’s a privilege to work with an ingenious team, building a superior product that’s solving an important problem in the service industry.”
Additionally, Beans.ai has named Jack Yu Chief Technology Officer. Yu, who joined Beans.ai as one of the first employees in 2019, came from Uber as a staff engineer and spent 10 years at Oracle prior. In the CTO role, Yu is working to scale the teams and systems to serve more customers, more diverse industries, and more countries. He’s also leading efforts to expand ideations and experimentations with both new and old technologies while evaluating technical partnerships to broaden collaborations.
“At Beans.ai, we aspire to use simple technologies to solve really complex problems,” said Yu. “It’s a joy to work with such a creative team and together, we’re tackling some of the most interesting last 100 feet challenges for many companies.”
In addition to his role as CRO, Miller has opened a Utah office and is currently hiring for a number of roles in various departments, including account executives, sales operations, and marketing. For more detailed information on open roles and how to apply visit beans.ai/careers.
NV5 Geospatial, North America’s most comprehensive geospatial science data firm, today announced the debut of its ARIS II Rover. The upgraded robotic electric substation monitoring system comes after five years of in-field implementation and testing. The rover meets the industry’s most exacting standards for ruggedness and reliability, enabling it to function in harsh environmental conditions and over various terrains commonly found at distribution and transmission substations. The remotely controlled wheeled rover offers a modular design custom-fitted with advanced thermal sensors, imaging, and audio/video technology that allows utilities to protect assets and limit liability while speeding reaction time.
“Geographic and personnel limitations, combined with aging infrastructure, present significant challenges for utility companies when it comes to maintaining their substations,” said Ian Birdie, vice president of Innovation for NV5 Geospatial. “With our extensive experience in these substation environments, NV5 Geospatial has customized the ARIS II Rover for the unique needs of utilities. We built our next-generation robot on a rugged platform that can exist remotely and deliver the information and insights utilities need to maintain their networks proactively. On-time information allows quick response to equipment anomalies, weather events, and intrusions before they have an impact.”
The ARIS II rover supports a variety of applications, including event check-ups, situational awareness, health monitoring, work audits, inventory management, emergency response, and security, offering:
Industry-leading military standards (MIL-STD) and ingress protection ratings, resulting in a weatherproof design that can withstand and work reliably in harsh environments, and a 36-degree climbing ability for difficult terrain.
The pre-configured payload of sensors and equipment that supports thermal imaging, video, and two-way audio communication capabilities, as well as GPS with real-time kinematics (RTK) that supports the accurate mapping of drives within a substation.
Modular design for flexibility in sensor and camera positioning and simplified maintenance on or off-site, with the ability to carry up to 110 outs of equipment.
Up to six hours of battery life or two miles of driving and a recharge garage included when the rover is not in use.
Easy installation and movement to different substation locations with a pallet-ready Rover and housing.
Secure web portal that offers controls and management tools to support real-time inspection/driving, feedback and measurement from onboard sensors, and the ability to review and measure thermal conditions and high-resolution photos.
This combination of features enables the ARIS II Rover to assess conditions in substations. Thermal imaging captures temperature deltas against assets to help utilities determine when equipment needs to be evaluated and replaced. Onboard cameras can visually detect corrosion and asset damage and are able to read gauges from up to 50 feet away.
An astonishingly high rate of methane is emitting from the shallow water zones of the offshore oil and gas production in Gulf of Mexico. The emission rates detected were much higher than typical onshore oil production.
According to a new study, the methane emissions were 23-66% high from shallow offshore Gulf of Mexico operationscompared to 3.3-3.7% reported by other studies of operations in the Permian basin. The study, conducted by researchers at Carbon Mapper, University of Arizona, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, University of Michigan, and Arizona State University, observed 151 shallow water offshore oil and gas platforms in US state and federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico.
Offshore platforms were mapped using the Global Airborne Observatory – a plane equipped with a 432-band visual and shortwave infrared imaging spectrometer with a 34 degree field of view and a bore-sighted high resolution context camera. This is the first systematic application of a remote emissions-sensing technology that can detect methane emissions over water, and attribute methane emissions to specific infrastructure.
Methane is more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere, and such undetected emissions disproportionally contributes to global warming. Offshore oil and natural gas platforms are responsible for about 30% of global oil and natural gas production. Despite the large share of global production there are few studies that have directly measured atmospheric methane emanating from these platforms.
“Top-down atmospheric measurements of methane in the offshore environment is notoriously hard so the fact that we were able to systematically measure the areas we wanted to measure was a huge success,” says Riley Duren, CEO, Carbon Mapper, adding that “this really opens the door for what is possible in the future in terms of sustained, operational offshore monitoring.”
Carbon Mapper is a non-profit with a mission to deliver and guide the adoption of digital public goods that facilitate timely action to mitigate human impacts to Earth’s climate and ecosystems. It is planning to launch a hyperspectral satellite constellation that will be designed to pinpoint and track 90% of global high emission methane point sources. The first two satellites are scheduled to be launched in summer-fall 2023.
The organization plans to conduct periodic near-global surveys for persistent high emission methane sources (for example, see gold areas in the figure below) and more frequent monitoring of priority areas to detect intermittent activity (purple areas) – including most of the major offshore oil and gas production fields around the world. The monitoring cadence for these surveys will depend on the number of satellites in the constellation.
The ‘super-emitter’ activity observed in the Gulf of Mexico is likely due to a combination of leaks and malfunctions from older equipment and intentional venting of gas, says Duren. “One hypothesis is that routine “cold venting” of gas might be more prevalent at relatively low production shallow water oil platforms than many onshore basins like the Permian where flaring is widespread,” he adds.
Onshore oil and gas production is undoubtedly contributing a large share to overall methane emissions but owing to their remote location posing technological challenges in conducting studies these areas have not been included in a large number of studies. Natural hindering factors like dark surface areas limiting solar reflection limit overall methane measurements in such locations. Such limitations may lead to gaps in overall methane emission measurement and thus undermine Global Methane Pledge goals.
Remote sensing via aircraft or satellite—adapted for offshore conditions—may provide a powerful way to close this observational gap.
“Bottom-up estimates and gaps in observational data can result in significant undercounting of emissions from offshore oil and gas infrastructure,” says Dr. Alana Ayasse, Research Scientist with Carbon Mapper and the University of Arizona.
“This study underscores the importance of increased transparency and sustained remote monitoring in offshore oil- and gas-producing regions to inform mitigation action,” she adds.
Multiple visits by the researchers to many of these platforms in Spring and Fall of 2021 showed that the offshore sources measured in this study were highly persistent. Further observations to be done will evaluate whether there is a long-term trend.
Another observation was that the high emissions were being released by specific types of equipment which were visually easy to identify- tanks, satellite wells, pipelines, and vent booms.
The study found that the methane emissions from the measured platforms exhibit highly skewed ‘super emitter behavior’.
Although the study area was centered on the Gulf of Mexico, based on the study patterns Carbon Mapper predicted that these skewed distributions are generally not limited to this section of the Gulf of Mexico and probably occur in other offshore production regions globally. To further broaden the area of study scientists in this program are planning to conduct broader airborne methane surveys of the Gulf of Mexico including deeper waters later in Fall 2022.
What were the challenges?
Even with high resolution images of methane plumes observed from high-altitude aircraft, it can be challenging to relate those emissions to specific equipment and operations within complex facilities like offshore oil and gas platforms, explains Duren.
“In an ideal world, we would have access to operational data or direct on-site confirmation by facility operators. In this case, our study was limited to using high- resolution images to assess probable causes—for example, whether a methane plume appears to originate from storage tanks or vent booms,” he adds.
For instance, the fact that the team detected methane emanating multiple times from the same locations over several months helped improve the confidence in its assessments, but there were always some residual uncertainty regarding attribution.
According to Dr. Ayasse, one of the biggest challenge was the limited scope. “We were not able to measure everything, and we did not measure deep water platforms. This means that our results are likely limited to shallow state and federal waters,” she explains.
Carbon Mapper hopes to fill these gaps with future studies and once its satellite constellation is in place that will provide persistent monitoring of offshore oil and gas fields globally starting late next year.
