The U.S. Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), together with a scientist of Colorado State University worked on a solution to detect and prioritize methane gas leaks of pipelines throughout the U.S. The natural gas pipeline network in the U.S. distributes over 1.3 million miles, making maintenance difficult and expensive. The EDF therefore decided to reach out to Google. Google’s Street View fleet, while driving and capturing 360 degrees photos could also measure methane if equipped with the required sensing technology, so the plan. Karin Tuxen-Bettman of Google Earth Outreach says, “we had the potential to turn our Street View fleet into an environmental sensing platform.”
While the project began by equipping some cars to measure methane concentrations, it now reached a level where it could be deployed to other vehicles thus creating a street-level pollution map.
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