Researchers Used Google Street View Car To Spot & Quantify Methane Leaks

Natural gasses are heavily affecting the ecosystem with some hazardous greenhouse gasses leaking from the pipelines through smaller leakages. The larger leaks are easy to detect, but several smaller ones are constantly affecting the environment. These smaller ones could not be detected due to less availability of technology. Recently, Google Street View Car has helped the researchers to solve this particular problem. The researchers have been able to detect and determine the severity of the methane leakages in five different cities.

(  Top Gear/Youtube Screenshot)Google Street View car is helping to detect methane leakages 

According to Discover Magazine, in a bid to save the environment, researchers from three different institutes have collaborated to solve the issue. The researchers from the University of Northern Colorado, Conservation Science Partners, and the Colorado State University have joined hands with the Environmental Defense Fund and with a small number of Google Street View cars for the matter. This collaboration makes Google Street View cars into mobile methane detectors to monitor the leakages that have gone unnoticed.

A biologist by training, researcher Joe von Fischer once put his laser spectrograph in his car and drove around Fort Collins. This laser spectrograph can detect invisible gasses that are opaque under infrared. Fischer found a local methane leakage that day, detected by his mobile methane sensor.

He said, "At the same time, Google was interested in putting some of these new methane analyzer analogs in their vehicles, and the Environmental Defense Fund was interested in methane because it's so poorly quantified." Fischer was appointed for this particular project with Google Street View Cars as he was a direct choice.

According to Green Car Reports, the researchers modified the 2012 Subaru Impreza hatchback, run by Google Earth and collected local mapping data. The car had an intake tube that was rooted through the front bumper; also a real time analyzer was fixed in the load bay. They also installed locating and environmental sensing equipment on the roof of the car.  Now, this Google Street View Car gathered and processed the data of methane emission that was detected in any area it passed through.

The data in the cities, those have taken substantial methods to replace aging natural-gas pipelines fared well. The older ones, on the other hand, were not impressive at all. According to the data, cities like Boston and Staten Island released about 1,300 and 1,000 tons of methane a year respectively. Though these leakages are not as big as industrial accidental leakages, they do affect the environment significantly. Due to the lack of proper mechanism, the threats of small leakages were hard to detect. Now with the help of these Google Street View Cars, we can deal with the problem.