Satellite imagery helped the companies to uncover their fraud.
Actually caught in the act
On Thursday, a massive oil spillage was found off the coast Louisiana.
According to The New York Times, satellite imagery taken by Maxar Technologies and Planet Labs from space tech companies was used to identify the spillage. Images showed oil plumes covering approximately 10 miles of the Gulf of Mexico.
According to the US Coast Guard, the leak was likely caused by an old pipeline belonging to Talos Energy (a Texas-based oil & gas company). Experts believe that the pipeline was damaged by Hurricane Ida.
NOAA Hurricane IDA Aerial Imagery Respondent
Publicly available aerial imagery
John Scott-Railton (senior researcher at The Citizen Lab) first identified the oil spillage's source. He was using satellite imagery for Hurricane Idas damage investigation.
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Scott-Railton explained to the NYT that the availability of aerial imagery by NOAA allowed it to be possible to locate the spillage. It would have been much more difficult to find the environmental problem that is unfolding if NOAA had not made it public.
Cleanup duty
The US Coast Guard is currently assisting in the cleanup of the oil spillage. The pipeline continues to leak.
On Friday, the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement issued a media update stating that workers on 133 production platforms and six drilling equipments had been evacuated. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement stated that it will inspect the facilities and that any damage to them will be repaired immediately.
Another example of the man-made climate change result (i.e. The effects of man-made climate change (i.e. Hurricane Ida) may cause more damage to the environment (i.e. Massive oil spillages. This also highlights the vulnerability of our energy infrastructure in the face of disaster, especially when it depends on oil.
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READ MORE: Satellite Images Show Substantial Oil Spill in Gulf After Ida (NYT)
More about oil disasters: The Oil Company That Set the Ocean On Fire has a staggeringly long history of deaths and accidents
