>The Nord Stream breach released between 56,000 and 155,000 tonnes of methane into the atmosphere, making it among the largest methane emissions ever recorded from a single point
No, current consensus is that it was likely the Ukrainians. They are the obvious suspects, but they were initially ruled out because it was thought they didn't have the capabilities.
When the attack happened, I first reckoned [1] the suspects as US < Russia < Ukraine, with accident being a possibility I couldn't order with respect to the others. Looking back at the replies to the HN post I did at the time, actually quite a few people agreed that Ukraine was a strong contender. Although very quickly, the narrative focused on the US versus Russia for the most likely suspect, depending on whether you believed more that Russia was an irrational state actor or all world foreign policy is somehow done at the direction of the US.
As I said, the motivation isn't particularly compelling. But it should be noted that were Russia to have done it, it wouldn't have lost very much (the pipelines were no longer in operation at the time of the explosion, with NS2 never coming online, and NS1 having been shut off "indefinitely" a few weeks prior) and risked relatively little blowback, as Russia had already lost all credibility in the West when it invaded Ukraine. The gains aren't much, though. Primarily, it would have been a punitive action ("You want to support Ukraine? Okay then, freeze to death come winter!"), although it was noted at the time that the explosions weren't that far from a new Norway-Poland gas pipeline that had just come into service--a demonstration of capability. Unclear attribution could also be used as a lever to try to weaken NATO, by sending the US and EU into mutual recrimination.
All said, it looks like a low-risk, low-reward situation for Russia, which isn't exactly compelling evidence.
"Swedish prosecutors have said they will end their investigation into the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in 2022, dodging the question of who destroyed the then new energy link between Russia and Europe shortly after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine."
In my opinion the most worrying thing in this story is that nobody is willing to come forward and say who did it. Sure, there is the possibility that nobody knows with certainty and I understand it in that case, you do not want to accuse anyone if you are not pretty sure. But from following the story - admittedly not too closely - I did not get the impression that this is the case, but I may just be wrong.
When you choose a deal with Russia to screw up you neighbours, who also happen to be in a political union with you, you are not the "innocent" part of the situation.
Russia was no adversary when Nord Stream was build and given the repeated disputes between Russia and Ukraine with regard to gas [1] it seems completely reasonable that they wanted to bypass them.
Nord Stream entered service in 2011, 3 years after Russia invaded Georgia. Everyone except Merkel knew that Russia would eventually be a problem for eastern europe.
But the project started in 1997 and began construction in 2005. And Merkel was among those that advocated for a different politics towards Russia, one that might have avoided the situation of today.
Which makes sense, the plan in Germany was pretty straightforward: snag cheap gas from Russia, flip it for a profit to the rest of Europe, and juice up their manufacturing sector. Essentially, they were aiming to cash in big time, even if it meant stepping on the toes of their nearest neighbors by dealing with Russia—a country not exactly known for playing nice.
Their reasons were only economical, this wasn't really a plan to prevent Russia from threatening their closest neighbours.
Livonian War
The Polish-Russian War of the 1600s
The Great Northern War
The Russo-Turkish Wars
The Partitions of Poland
The Crimean War
The Winter War
The Invasion of Czechoslovakia
or some other
Various menacing statements and border incidents over the years (including a cross-border kidnapping in Estonia a few years back); GRU sabotage incidents in Czechia and Romania; and most notably, ongoing occupation of a good chunk of Moldovan territory, in the form of the Kremlin-managed mafia state known as Transnistria.
Basically Putin's whole idea is that any place the Russian Empire (or its temporary proxy, the Soviet Union) sat on at one point or another in the past 350 years is fair game for re-occupation, vassalization and/or intimidation of some sort today.
The Eston Kohver kidnapping, an Estonian security service member kidnapped a few meters across the border and later exchanged for another Estonian that spyed for Russia. Shaddy business, sure, but nothing that says war with Estonia.
Sabotage in Czech Republic, the Vrbětice explosion? They blew up the ammunition stockpile of some weapons trader that intended to sell them to Ukraine. That does not seem directed at the Czech Republic.
Maybe I am missing something, but the history of Transnistria sound not unlike many other civil wars to me.
And just to be clear, I am not supporting Russia, but we have to be real and stick to the facts. False judgments - no matter whether it is making Russia more or less evil than it is - can lead to bad decisions. In my opinion a random assortment of incidents like the ones you named are hardly enough to draw the conclusion that Putin wants to reestablish the Soviet Union.
It's all about connecting the dots, which are more than the sum of the parts. And taking into account the last 350 years of history. In this context, the above incidents (and the cat-and-mouse games with Sweden) can be seen as shots across the bow.
If you look at Transnistria, it's definitely not a random civil war, but very much a proxy conflict (like breakaway republics in Georgia, or what Russia was doing in Eastern Ukraine 2014-2022).
In my opinion a random assortment of incidents like the ones you named are hardly enough to draw the conclusion that Putin wants to reestablish the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union, no. But what he does want is as much re-establishment as possible of Russia's historical "sphere of influence", and in Putin's mind, of Russia's role as the protector of Slavic culture and Eastern Orthodox values.
There are plenty of statements in support of this, all over the place, and very easy to find.
Personally I think there is no convincing evidence that Russia has a desire to go to war against other countries in eastern Europe, but for the sake of argument I will grant you that. The thing is, just having a desire to go to war with some country is only the first step. Does Russia have the means to do it? Does Russia believe it could win the war? Could Russia win the war? Could they occupy and control the country for long enough that resistance would subside?
And maybe to add to the first point, sure, Russia certainly wants as much influence as it can get, but that is no different than every other country. There is of course a wide spectrum of means to achieve this, from economical cooperation, to supporting a coup d'état, to starting a war and a million things in between. Some we would consider legitimate, some not. That Russia would immediately jump to one of the most expensive options requiring a commitment for decades to succeed, that needs some pretty good evidence in my opinion.
That Russia would immediately jump to one of the most expensive options requiring a commitment for decades to succeed, that needs some pretty good evidence in my opinion.
That they have done so already in Ukraine is all the evidence we need, in my opinion.
Only if you think that the goal of the invasion of Ukraine was to annex the entire country or bring it under permanent Russian control. I do not think that this is the case and that the reason of the invasion is solely or at least primarily to prevent NATO expansion into Ukraine. I think that is what essentially all the evidence indicates and that there is essentially no evidence that conquering Ukraine was the goal.
Only if you think that the goal of the invasion of Ukraine was to annex the entire country or bring it under permanent Russian control.
The entire country, no.
By all indications, they only wanted to annex about 60 percent of it -- including of course the capital, the entire Black Sea coast, and likely a good chunk of buffer territory. The remaining regions, being almost entirely non-Russian speaking, would have been left as battered rump state, to be perhaps dealt with later.
The goal was clearly and unambiguously to wipe independent Ukraine off the map, and to eliminate as many of the intelligentsia on its kill lists as it could find. The remaining population was to be forcibly expelled or assimilated, as has already happened in the occupied regions.
All of which, by their planning, would have been basically cakewalk, and over and done in a matter of weeks.
Whether they wanted to properly annex 60 percent or 100 percent of Ukrainian territory is irrelevant in this context - and basically amounts to splitting hairs.
If he would choose to leave after 2 terms, he would be a positive figure in Russian history. Now, he will be responsible for the collapse of the Russian Federation.
History shows us that term limits mainly stop those who'd play by the rules from getting re-elected. The guys who couldn't care less about the rules? They'll just whip up a new law to extend their stay in power.
And that was the quintessential mistake of the West. Thinking the Cold War ended because the USSR was dissolved. Their minds went out of the game while Russia was still on that game, only paused it temporarily because the 90s were brutal for them.
On the part of Germany, IMO it was/is a bundle of many things like Germany is very industry heavy and having cheap gas is a much needed advantage, to the point all those bright stoic German quality minds made their own country very dependent on Russia.
Also their historic and somewhat fascination with Russia, thinking they can "fix" them and be European brothers.
Also psyops, treason and corruption at the highest levels. Best known cases: Gerhard Schröder and Angela Merkel's early life and questionable policies.
Obviously there's not much you can do with corruption.
> One of the last acts of former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in office was to sign the deal creating the Nord Stream 1 project in 2005. Schröder subsequently became chairman of the company behind it and took several directorial positions in Russian energy companies in the following years.
It was a huge methane release, but it isn't continuous. The US oil and gas industry (all by itself) emits 8,000,000 metric tons of methane every year, and global emissions are vastly greater. Ongoing emissions are worthy of our attention because we can do something about them on a forward-looking basis; Nord Stream isn't because we don't have a time machine.
The rise of independent imaging of methane leaks through satellites and overflights has been revelatory. They've shown the numbers industry was reporting and EPA has been using in its GHG estimates have been comically low.
The more they look the more they keep finding. Some areas of the Permian in NM are so bad at 9% leakage rate that their GHG impact is worse than coal .
Industry of course is shocked (shocked!) and says they are on it. But methane monitoring rules during the Obama administration that could have revealed this sooner were rescinded under Trump at their behest. Presumably the same thing will happen with Bidens rules if Trump is reelected.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the case that whilst methane is many times worse than CO2 in terms of its warming effect, it also has a much shorter "half life" than CO2 - in the region of a few years before its no longer having an effect on warming. Not to minimise the fact that we should be avoiding contributing to global warming in any way possible, but comparing it to coal therefore is apples to oranges
You aren't wrong but comparison requires some context. Because of the decay comparisons are made over a time period, the EPA typically uses 100 years. It uses a factor of about 28x, ie methane retains 28x more heat than an equal amount of co2 over a 100 year time period.
There's debate over whether 100 years is an appropriate time period. Many say its too conservative given the nature of the heating that we face. Over a 20 year time frame the ghg factor is 84x. This has implications particularly when people think about feedback effects, ie methane increases heat which causes permafrost to melt and release more methane which increases heat, etc. Another feedback effect making the picture more complicated is that the decay rate of methane in the atmosphere decreases as the concentration increases.
However you cut it, methane in the atmosphere is increasing more rapidly than co2 despite its decay. Reducing it gives a lot of bang for the buck given that in industry most of the emissions come from a relatively few points in the infrastructure. There are of course other sources which are very challenging to reduce like agriculture.
To build on the context, I is also worth pointing out that with both CO2 and methane, the vast majority of the heating doesn't come from the molecules themselves, but water vapor.
The ghg potential for each is based on the 2nd order system impact and interaction with water vapor.
It isnt nearly as simple as some reactive index of the molecule itself
Cant say much more, but working with a client in Oil and Gas to equip their inspectors with offline tools to map and report equipment. The sense I get from them is aligned with this- big pressure to lock down infrastructure.
In the USA, the news of other nations doing the same is not amplified. see GLOC 2023, Global Networking Forum. IAF
Last COP, heresay indicated that there was negotiations going on about how much legal identification of site ownership will be readily available. For example, an offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico leaks badly, but the owner is a contracting company at arms length. What does the map show to the public?
Offshore rigs/wells/FPSOs are huge operations and ownership is relatively easily traceable for the people who can exert pressure (investors and governments). And generally it is the big operations that have the biggest leaks.
The bigger issue is whether the operator or their government has the funds or the willingness to do something about it... (E.g. Mexican president AMLO and PEMEX's leaking wells like Zaap C...)
yes, the field is gaining quite a lot of momentum. The EU is publishing free images from satellites Sentinel-5P with a dedicated instrument called TROPOMI, and the Netherland space research center is crunching those to detect methane plumes. They publish it every week there https://earth.sron.nl/methane-emissions/ (and yes it's mostly oil&gas).
Another nice resource on the topic (not just satellite images, but also small sensors) https://www.methanefix.tech/. Also this research program on methane removal https://www.sparkclimate.org/methane-removal/home
that methaneFix link is literally just a couple of show-offs! I like the effort.. there is a difference between the large orgs, large institutions and then those web people..
The TROPOMI link is very dense and yes, exactly what the references above are.. excellent, so much to do
Its not only methane, we need to be tracking things like CFC 11 & 12 leaks ON A CONSTANT BASIS. There is still consistent production in china of this and many other banned gases.
Reporting their findings again in Nature (2019), the group showed that CFC-11 emissions in eastern mainland China were around 7,000 tonnes per year higher in 2014–2017 than in 2008–2012. While this finding did not explain the full increase in CFC-11 levels seen since 2013, at 40–60% of the global rise, it represented a very significant fraction.
Crucially, the researchers also showed that the increase occurred in a specific region, primarily the north-eastern provinces of Shandong and Hebei.
While true that they are concerns, the first article you linked notes that those started to be clamped down on 6 years ago - would be good to have an update.
And also, the scale of methane leaks compared with cfc11/12 means that even though they have ~3-4x the GWP of methane, the impacts of poorly tracked methane leaks are astronomically higher.
Better realtime data may improve actionability, and the big audience reach may influence the overall narrative. Independent measurements are extremely important to have for science and data validation. But monitoring methane has been going on for a few years. NASA even has a portal:
Yes, NASA (JPL) did some of the original work on remote-sensing measurements of methane emitters.
The bulk of the methane emission events displayed on the (excellent) portal you linked come from EMIT, an imaging spectrometer on ISS.
EMIT was made to map ground mineral composition for climate studies, but it does gather a visible-to-IR spectrum across the mid-latitudes at a 60m resolution. This spectrum bears the imprint of any atmospheric methane, allowing them to back out a CH4 concentration from the spectrum as a side product separate from the original mineral-mapping goals.
How do methane leaks compare with the flaring we have to do by definition when fracking occurs? As I understand even flaring produces something like 8% methane, probably more in less regulated oil production than the US.
In the US industry has said that around 1% of gas coming out of the flare stack does not combust. Recent research has shown this is about 5x too low which makes a big difference in the ghg impact.
Most new satellite data is focusing on the oil and gas industry. Methane emissions from coal mining is getting much less attention. The reason oil and gas are being prioritised is 1. There is a financial incentive to reduce emissions (less leaks=more money). This doesn't apply to an open-cut coal mine. 2. Regulations are coming in the US which will put a dollar cost on methane leaks. The EU methane regulations for oil and gas are also coming in. But the biggest motivator is the expectation from investors. They want companies to have methane reduction targets and transparent reporting. They will give companies a 'premium valuation' - a reward for being good corporate citizens if they join frameworks like the OGMP 2.0. Sadly, there is little or no regulation for coal mine methane.
Old coal mines can emit methane for a long time if not remediated. Many have been long abandoned or if there is a currently active owner they aren't able to cover the cost because they aren't viable. It will fall to government to do anything about it.
Same as with nuclear, you privatise the profit and socialise the losses. Nuclear and coal would have made way to newer forms of energy long ago if not for that imho.
Not saying that there haven't been and still are lots of subsidies for wind, solar and hydro, but it's obscene how much money has been given to the big players in "traditional" forms of energy creation.
This doesn't actually map methane leaks. It finds oilfield equipment and infrastructure and guesses how much it might leak and how that leak might diffuse. There's not like a special sensor to see methane from the satellite like I had originally guessed
"Maguire said the same AI technology that Google used to detect trees, crosswalks, and intersections from satellite imagery would be applied to oil and gas infrastructure. The map would be overlaid with data from MethaneSAT to shed light on the type of machinery most susceptible to leaks."
> It finds oilfield equipment and infrastructure and guesses how much it might leak and how that leak might diffuse.
MethaneSAT has sensors for methane [1]. So the guess work is in detecting an oilfield, the actual methane levels are no more guess work than a thermometer.
88 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 137 ms ] thread>The Nord Stream breach released between 56,000 and 155,000 tonnes of methane into the atmosphere, making it among the largest methane emissions ever recorded from a single point
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2342081-nord-stream-lea...
https://archive.ph/Yb20f
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32996564
All said, it looks like a low-risk, low-reward situation for Russia, which isn't exactly compelling evidence.
What about Biden explicitly stating that the US will destroy the pipeline ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS4O8rGRLf8
https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/investigating-th...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/07/sweden-drop...
And
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_NATO#Membersh...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_dis...
????
Merkel had her way 16 years, her politics are exactly what got us here. This is a ridiculous statement.
Their reasons were only economical, this wasn't really a plan to prevent Russia from threatening their closest neighbours.
Merkels and Schröders are how we got here. German military is now planning for missile attacks against their infrastructure: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nato-russia-missile-strik...
Russia attacking the rest of Europe is just fear mongering.
Except perhaps for:
Livonian War The Polish-Russian War of the 1600s The Great Northern War The Russo-Turkish Wars The Partitions of Poland The Crimean War The Winter War The Invasion of Czechoslovakia or some other
Unfortunately this absolutely not the case, as applies to the Baltics and Moldova. The threat to those countries is very real.
Basically Putin's whole idea is that any place the Russian Empire (or its temporary proxy, the Soviet Union) sat on at one point or another in the past 350 years is fair game for re-occupation, vassalization and/or intimidation of some sort today.
Sabotage in Czech Republic, the Vrbětice explosion? They blew up the ammunition stockpile of some weapons trader that intended to sell them to Ukraine. That does not seem directed at the Czech Republic.
Maybe I am missing something, but the history of Transnistria sound not unlike many other civil wars to me.
And just to be clear, I am not supporting Russia, but we have to be real and stick to the facts. False judgments - no matter whether it is making Russia more or less evil than it is - can lead to bad decisions. In my opinion a random assortment of incidents like the ones you named are hardly enough to draw the conclusion that Putin wants to reestablish the Soviet Union.
If you look at Transnistria, it's definitely not a random civil war, but very much a proxy conflict (like breakaway republics in Georgia, or what Russia was doing in Eastern Ukraine 2014-2022).
In my opinion a random assortment of incidents like the ones you named are hardly enough to draw the conclusion that Putin wants to reestablish the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union, no. But what he does want is as much re-establishment as possible of Russia's historical "sphere of influence", and in Putin's mind, of Russia's role as the protector of Slavic culture and Eastern Orthodox values.
There are plenty of statements in support of this, all over the place, and very easy to find.
And maybe to add to the first point, sure, Russia certainly wants as much influence as it can get, but that is no different than every other country. There is of course a wide spectrum of means to achieve this, from economical cooperation, to supporting a coup d'état, to starting a war and a million things in between. Some we would consider legitimate, some not. That Russia would immediately jump to one of the most expensive options requiring a commitment for decades to succeed, that needs some pretty good evidence in my opinion.
That they have done so already in Ukraine is all the evidence we need, in my opinion.
The entire country, no.
By all indications, they only wanted to annex about 60 percent of it -- including of course the capital, the entire Black Sea coast, and likely a good chunk of buffer territory. The remaining regions, being almost entirely non-Russian speaking, would have been left as battered rump state, to be perhaps dealt with later.
The goal was clearly and unambiguously to wipe independent Ukraine off the map, and to eliminate as many of the intelligentsia on its kill lists as it could find. The remaining population was to be forcibly expelled or assimilated, as has already happened in the occupied regions.
All of which, by their planning, would have been basically cakewalk, and over and done in a matter of weeks.
Whether they wanted to properly annex 60 percent or 100 percent of Ukrainian territory is irrelevant in this context - and basically amounts to splitting hairs.
Tatcher, Merkel, Putin - if they would have a 10 year limit, things would be much better.
Putin being the prime example.
On the part of Germany, IMO it was/is a bundle of many things like Germany is very industry heavy and having cheap gas is a much needed advantage, to the point all those bright stoic German quality minds made their own country very dependent on Russia.
Also their historic and somewhat fascination with Russia, thinking they can "fix" them and be European brothers.
Also psyops, treason and corruption at the highest levels. Best known cases: Gerhard Schröder and Angela Merkel's early life and questionable policies.
I would say with 20/20 hindsight that turned out to be completely false.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream_2#Opposition
Obviously there's not much you can do with corruption.
> One of the last acts of former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in office was to sign the deal creating the Nord Stream 1 project in 2005. Schröder subsequently became chairman of the company behind it and took several directorial positions in Russian energy companies in the following years.
Methane will not simply dissipate. It will turn into water and CO2.
> but extra CO2 emissions from closing down the nuclear plants in Germany will not.
Somehow still managed to have smaller CO2 output per capita than US.
The Aliso Canyon leak in LA in 2015 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliso_Canyon_gas_leak) was comparable size (~100,000 tonnes CH4) and is also dimly recalled.
The more they look the more they keep finding. Some areas of the Permian in NM are so bad at 9% leakage rate that their GHG impact is worse than coal .
Industry of course is shocked (shocked!) and says they are on it. But methane monitoring rules during the Obama administration that could have revealed this sooner were rescinded under Trump at their behest. Presumably the same thing will happen with Bidens rules if Trump is reelected.
Edit: And its over 80 times (!) more warming than CO2 over a 20 year period.
https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-methane-is-sho...
Presumably someone with connections to big methane producers is spreading it?
There's debate over whether 100 years is an appropriate time period. Many say its too conservative given the nature of the heating that we face. Over a 20 year time frame the ghg factor is 84x. This has implications particularly when people think about feedback effects, ie methane increases heat which causes permafrost to melt and release more methane which increases heat, etc. Another feedback effect making the picture more complicated is that the decay rate of methane in the atmosphere decreases as the concentration increases.
However you cut it, methane in the atmosphere is increasing more rapidly than co2 despite its decay. Reducing it gives a lot of bang for the buck given that in industry most of the emissions come from a relatively few points in the infrastructure. There are of course other sources which are very challenging to reduce like agriculture.
The ghg potential for each is based on the 2nd order system impact and interaction with water vapor.
It isnt nearly as simple as some reactive index of the molecule itself
https://www.methanesat.org/
there are a half-dozen such sensor missions.
https://gee-community-catalog.org/projects/ogim/
MSFT announced a commercial partnership to do the same not long ago.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-and-accentu...
In the USA, the news of other nations doing the same is not amplified. see GLOC 2023, Global Networking Forum. IAF
Last COP, heresay indicated that there was negotiations going on about how much legal identification of site ownership will be readily available. For example, an offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico leaks badly, but the owner is a contracting company at arms length. What does the map show to the public?
The bigger issue is whether the operator or their government has the funds or the willingness to do something about it... (E.g. Mexican president AMLO and PEMEX's leaking wells like Zaap C...)
The TROPOMI link is very dense and yes, exactly what the references above are.. excellent, so much to do
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/research/impact/stories/greenhouse... https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/603350
Reporting their findings again in Nature (2019), the group showed that CFC-11 emissions in eastern mainland China were around 7,000 tonnes per year higher in 2014–2017 than in 2008–2012. While this finding did not explain the full increase in CFC-11 levels seen since 2013, at 40–60% of the global rise, it represented a very significant fraction.
Crucially, the researchers also showed that the increase occurred in a specific region, primarily the north-eastern provinces of Shandong and Hebei.
https://www.coolingpost.com/world-news/chinese-selling-r12-a...
And also, the scale of methane leaks compared with cfc11/12 means that even though they have ~3-4x the GWP of methane, the impacts of poorly tracked methane leaks are astronomically higher.
https://methane.jpl.nasa.gov
https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Coperni...
The bulk of the methane emission events displayed on the (excellent) portal you linked come from EMIT, an imaging spectrometer on ISS.
EMIT was made to map ground mineral composition for climate studies, but it does gather a visible-to-IR spectrum across the mid-latitudes at a 60m resolution. This spectrum bears the imprint of any atmospheric methane, allowing them to back out a CH4 concentration from the spectrum as a side product separate from the original mineral-mapping goals.
(Some history: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33427748)
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/09/16/advocates-hold-...
https://www.heet.org/gas-leaks-map
https://www.iea.org/energy-system/fossil-fuels
In the US industry has said that around 1% of gas coming out of the flare stack does not combust. Recent research has shown this is about 5x too low which makes a big difference in the ghg impact.
Not saying that there haven't been and still are lots of subsidies for wind, solar and hydro, but it's obscene how much money has been given to the big players in "traditional" forms of energy creation.
"Maguire said the same AI technology that Google used to detect trees, crosswalks, and intersections from satellite imagery would be applied to oil and gas infrastructure. The map would be overlaid with data from MethaneSAT to shed light on the type of machinery most susceptible to leaks."
MethaneSAT has sensors for methane [1]. So the guess work is in detecting an oilfield, the actual methane levels are no more guess work than a thermometer.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MethaneSAT