California plans to install a network of computerized monitors to measure methane emissions from regions that are home to dairy ranches, farms, landfills and other sources.
It will be the first network of its kind in the United States and will help the state take another step toward reducing emissions of the gases related to global warming.
By May, seven devices about the size of a personal computer will be placed in regions of the state where methane emissions are believed to be the highest. Those include the farm fields of the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys and landfills in the Los Angeles basin.
“What we’ll be able to do is to find the identity, the location and the strength of methane emissions within the state,” said Jorn Herner, the scientist managing the program at the California Air Resources Board. “This is new and pioneering work.”
Picarro Inc., the Sunnyvale-based company that makes the devices, will announce Wednesday that its sale of the monitoring devices to the state has been approved, clearing the final hurdle for the program to begin.
The air board spent about $400,000 on the devices and software modeling to analyze the data.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, academic research scientists and other countries have deployed similar monitors in the last two years to track greenhouse gases around the globe.
California’s approach, scientists say, is the most extensive effort to gauge local emissions. The information gleaned from the monitoring system is expected to inform state regulators who are charged with implementing the state’s landmark global warming law, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed in 2006.
The monitors are considered the most precise method scientists have to monitor methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The first data is expected to be ready for analysis in summer 2011. (AP)
