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Why there's more to the space economy than tech bros and tourism

How space tech can help us fix the planet

Space tech might yet play a critical role in saving the planet, rather than providing an exit strategy for the billionaire preppers club.

If asked to think about the space economy it's quite possible that the first thing that comes to mind is rocket launches, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and assorted tech bros gaming out ways to escape the planet come the apocalypse. But space tech might yet play a critical role in saving the planet, rather than providing an exit strategy for the billionaire preppers club.

The space economy is booming, so Computing caught up with satellite observation and data analytics platform Kayrros, and space focused private equity firm NewSpace Capital to discuss how the space industry is reducing the environmental impact of industries closer to Earth.

Kayrros, founded in 2016, combines satellite imagery with proprietary computer vision and machine learning algorithms to provide risk related insight across three core missions.

The first of these is the accurate measurement and monitoring of GHG emissions for governments, regulators and industry. The second is the real time measurement and monitoring of physical climate risk, with the goal of protecting people, ecosystems and assets. The third is the provision of intelligence to enable better investment decisions to accelerate the transition to clean energy.

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Jean-Pierre Dacher

Jean-Pierre Dacher, CTO of Kayrros explains who the company's customers are.

"The people who consume our data historically are finance but more recently asset managers, energy operators and regulators."

The client list now extends to the UN, which announced a partnership between Kayrros and the European Space Agency (ESA) earlier this year to deliver Methane Watch. This project will track the success of more than 100 countries in meeting the Global Methane Pledge by detecting and quantifying emissions.

Detecting methane "super-emitters"

An interesting real-world example of how this partnership is already delivering change can be found in Turkmenistan, the country responsible for the highest number of methane "super-emitter" events in the world in 2022.

The reason we know this is because data produced by Kayrros and reported in The Guardian found that methane leaks from just two fossil fuel sites in Turkmenistan contributed more to global heating in 2022 than the UK's entire carbon footprint.

Methane is incredibly important if we are to slow the rise in global temperatures. It accounts for around 30% of the rise in global temperatures and it traps 80 times more heat than carbon over a 20-year time frame.

Kayrros analysed data from the ESA Sentinel satellites. Dacher explains:

"We took imagery from the ESA Sentinel -5 hyperspectral and Sentinel-2 optical. From this we applied some machine learning algorithms and some physics algorithms to do three things. The first thing is detection of methane plumes. The second is quantification, which involves deep physics diffusion models. It involves looking at the shape of the methane plume and some other data like wind, for example, and doing an inverse diffusion of gas. From that we can establish the likely source of the leak. The third is attribution, which is looking at assets at the ground."

This is how the leaky sites were identified. The good news is that Turkmenistan's president, Serdar Berdimuhamedow, has acknowledged the methane leaks and launched initiatives to cut them. A roadmap has also been drawn up to include the country signing up to the Global Methane Pledge. It has the potential to be a relatively easy win.

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Why there's more to the space economy than tech bros and tourism

How space tech can help us fix the planet

Space tech might yet play a critical role in saving the planet, rather than providing an exit strategy for the billionaire preppers club.

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Global view, local relevance

The transition to clean energy and the wider drive to reduce the rate at which the global temperature is accelerating is highly politicised. Most individuals acknowledge the climate crisis is real, but opinions differ about the speed at which change can and should happen - and who should pay for it.

Cynicism about corporate greenwashing is pervasive and highly corrosive, as it enables those with an interest in frustrating progress towards reducing emissions to use the charge of hypocrisy to make individuals and businesses question the motives of everyone involved.

Levels of trust in governments, politicians, processes and institutions are at historic lows, and whilst that is a wholly understandable reaction to the news cycle of the last decade, it's also part of the reason change is so hard to enact. Cynicism has been cultivated and weaponised.

If policies to bring about a greener, more sustainable future are to work, trust has to be rebuilt. Part of that involves the provision of accurate and accessible data. If individuals, companies and governments trust data, you've knocked away the first two pillars of resistance.

Jean-Pierre Dacher sets out the case.

"Look at the stages of resistance. One is to claim that there is no data. The next is to acknowledge that there is data but claim it's not accurate so you can't act. The third is to say ok, there is data but why should I act if others aren't? Kayrros focus on the first two stages. We provide scientifically proven, accurate data that people can use to drive change."

The Turkmenistan case study provide an excellent example of this process in action. The Turkmenistan government would almost certainly not have acted had Kayrros not identified the "super-emitter" events.

It's also easy to see how Kayrros' data could restore some faith in the veracity of carbon markets. Carbon trading and carbon credits are a murky business. The quality of some of the projects used to "offset" corporate emissions are variable at best. The additionality and permanence of projects underlying even gold standard credits has been examined and found wanting in a number of cases.

Kayrros' data could be used positively to verify the claims of offset providers, set better standards and restore trust.

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Bogdan Gogulan

The CEO and managing partner of NewSpace Capital, Bogdan Gogulan, makes the case that the miniaturisation of electronics, cloud computing, real-time data analytics and AI can be applied to improve productivity and create a more sustainable future.

"The miniaturisation of electronics has taken satellites from being the size of a bus and costing $300 million to being the size of a shoebox and costing $300k. Down on Earth there is cloud computing, data centres, artificial intelligence tools, which help us to make sense of all that satellite data.

"This is a very important enabler for space enabled products and services, which help us to improve productivity, and create a more sustainable economy and more sustainable economic growth."

It's often said that the tools and technology to reach net zero and stabilise global temperature already exist, but that the political will to use them is absent. Space technology holds out the intriguing possibility of being able to influence that political will for the better, and hold the powerful to account for their promises. As Gogulan says:

"Space technology provides a global view and reach, but also local relevance. That is huge. Because we can really see what happens at a global level, but then identify those multitude of small sources of particular problems that cause much bigger problems. It's not about naming and shaming. We can identify the people and organisations making a positive impact. It's becoming tangible and quantifiable, and that's massive."