Automated Methane plume monitoring from orbit

Reducing anthropogenic methane emissions is arguably the most urgent lever we have in preventing future catastrophic climate change (UNEP methane assessment report). Among methane emissions, episodic oil and gas super-emissions contribute disproportionately to the concentration of methane in the atmosphere (Lavaux et al 2021). These emissions are caused by equipment failures on oil rigs, pipelines or well pads and are manageable if detected in time.

STARCOP is Trillium's initiative to pair AI methane detection using multiple satellites with diverse detection capabilities to quickly detect methane leaks onboard and provide notifications in near-real-time.

AI pipelines use hyperspectral instruments such as EMIT and AVIRIS to accurately distinguish methane plumes from background noise - previously a problem that required human intervention due to the unique spectral properties of methane. STARCOP was able to detect a recent emission occurred in the Permian basin that was also reported here. Additionally, we also demonstrated detection of large plumes with open multispectral instruments such as Sentinel-2 and WorldView-3. 

STARCOP is an accurate and lightweight AI and can be run on edge devices such as the Worldfloods ML payload. STARCOP has been developed with support of the ESA Cognitive Cloud Computing in Space initiative.