Resources

• MethaneSAT by EDF and the partnership with Harvard
  • Environmental Defense Fund (EDF): Slow global warming fast with MethaneSAT
  • The Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University: Reducing global methane emissions
• Existing efforts tracking methane emissions
  • European Space Agency: The TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI)
  • GHGSAT: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Monitoring
  • UNEP: International Methane Emissions Observatory
• Why it is important to track methane emissions from oil & gas operations
  • World Bank: Methane from Oil and Gas Production Explained
  • International Energy Agency (IEA): Methane emissions in a 1.5 °C pathway
• Commencement address by Fred Krupp: Williams College 2023 Commencement
• EDF Vice President Millie Chu Baird: MethaneSAT on TED talk

Host and Guest

Climate Rising Host: Professor Mike Toffel, Faculty Chair, Business & Environment Initiative (LinkedIn)

Guest: Fred Krupp, President of Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) (LinkedIn)

Transcript

Editor’s Note: The following was prepared by a machine algorithm, and may not perfectly reflect the audio file of the interview.

Mike Toffel:

Fred, thank you so much for joining us here on Climate Rising.

Fred Krupp:

Delighted to be here, Mike. It's an honor.

Mike Toffel:

So Fred, why don't we just begin with an introduction to you, your background and your role at EDF.

Fred Krupp:

Sure. Well, I got my dream job here at EDF a long time ago, decades ago. I was 30 years old and it's the only thing I've done for the last 30 some years. And, you know, getting a chance to work with super smart people, way smarter than I am, way more capable and to be able to work on the biggest problems, you know, we face like climate change. What could be better than that?

Mike Toffel:

So let's talk a little bit about EDF and the suite of services that it offers, the areas that it engages in, and how it compares to other NGOs. I would say it's not an activist NGO like Greenpeace or 350.org. It's more of one that works with scientists, with policymakers, with companies even, which is a little bit of a different tact than some of the other ENGOs we see.

Fred Krupp:

We do all of that, Mike, but we also sue people, particularly governments from time to time. So, I guess I put it a little differently. We're definitely in the business of changing the world and we're definitely in the business of getting governments to adopt strong policies around the world. And we definitely want to hold companies accountable, but we also want to work with governments. We also want to work with companies. So, you know, finding the ways that work for a long time is kind of the watchwords of EDF. We want to work with people and not assume that confrontation is the only strategy to change. Sometimes it is. Sometimes you need to sue folks. But oftentimes if you can help, in a constructive way, come up with ways that businesses can continue to make money, do things for people on the planet, they're more than happy to take that advice and sometimes even alter their business model pretty fundamentally.

Mike Toffel:

Great, so one of the areas that you've been leaning into for some time now is this part of your organization called EDF+Business. And that, I think, grew out of some work that you did collaboratively with companies to talk about how can you help them reduce their environmental footprint. So can you talk a little bit about the history of that and where we are today in that area?

Fred Krupp:

Sure. In 1990, EDF approached McDonald's and they had a big solid waste issue at the time. They were wrapping all their hamburgers and sandwiches in polystyro foam boxes. And we said we thought there was a better way not only to do that, but deal with all of their solid waste. So we put together a joint task force and at the end of the day came up with suggestions that could reduce their solid waste footprint by about 40%. Millions and millions of pounds have been reduced since they adopted most of the recommendations that we put forward. And that not only eliminates waste, but it eliminates all the pollution when those products were made in the first place. So that was the power of that -- just approaching a company and saying, we think you can do better. we'd like to help you do better -- turned into a whole line of work. They're not services in that we haven't been paid to do that. In fact, we've protected our credibility by not asking for remuneration or payment. And that we group all that work now is EDF+ or EDF+Business. And we've hired people out of business schools, sometimes from the corporate sector, sometimes from the environmental other environmental groups to come work with us where the mission is truly to understand the culture and the businesses of companies. And then we go out and we seek leaders in different sectors and we approach them and ask them if they would like to work with us and maybe set an example for a whole sector. And that's been incredibly successful from working with FedEx to redesign delivery trucks to working with Walmart to get a gigaton of carbon emissions, which is as much as Japan produces in a year, out of their supply chain, working with KKR to green up their many, many dozens of companies in their portfolio, green up their carbon footprint. It's been great work. And within EDF+Business, the last thing I'll mention is we have an incredibly productive internship and fellowship program we call Climate Core. And Climate Core has placed well over a thousand young people in postgraduate school into businesses on sustainability teams and has developed ways that those teams can reduce the carbon footprints of many of the Fortune 100 companies, not only in the United States, but around the world. And this program is now operating in India and China as well as in the United States and it has given us a network of alumni that is super neat.

Mike Toffel:

Yeah, it's an amazing opportunity, I think, for those who are looking to get into this space. So all of this context of working with governments, sometimes suing governments, working with companies, this sort of push and pull approach that you have is really what EDF is known for. Its scientific expertise, its legal analysis, its corporate engagement. And now here we have a satellite that you launched a few months ago. And I wonder if you can talk about, you know, what is the objective of this MethaneSAT project that you embarked upon?

Fred Krupp:

Well, Mike, thanks for asking. You know, a lot of people think it's kind of crazy that a nonprofit environmental group launched a satellite and cost us $88 million to design, build and launch. But what may be even more audacious is the objective of launching that satellite. It wasn't to launch a satellite. The objective was and remains to reduce the methane pollution from the oil and gas sector by 75% globally and not by some far away date, but by 2030. And so that was the reason we launched the satellite and that remains the reason that the satellite will be a big tool in reducing this incredibly dangerous pollution that is driving a lot of the climate change we're experiencing, that's the mission, to get that pollution down 75 % in the next five, six years.

Mike Toffel:

So let's unpack that a little bit. So methane, as you mentioned, I think is sort of the, doesn't get the same amount of media attention that CO2 does. And yet methane, some estimates say it's responsible for about a third of the global temperature rise that we've experienced so far. So it is a huge player. It's got some particular attributes. It's more potent than CO2 per ton of pollution. And I know EDF has done some work that shows that they think that some of the major data sources, including from the US EPA, about how much methane is being emitted are likely underestimated. So is that the pool of reasons why you're focusing on methane in particular?

Fred Krupp:

It is, Mike. Let me put a point on that. Methane is ton for ton, but also ounce for ounce, 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in warming the planet. And when we think about the pollution that we're putting in the air today in 2024, methane pollution will actually warm the planet as much in the next 10 years as all the carbon dioxide from all the fossil fuel burned in the whole planet. Now the carbon dioxide keeps working for a hundred years. So, this is not a reason not to drive down CO2 emissions, but it is an opportunity we have by quickly reducing the methane pollution that's going to be responsible for so much warming in the next decade. It is an opportunity that we have to bring down the temperatures that we would otherwise see by slashing methane pollution, not only from the oil and gas industry, but from the other big sources, which are landfills, coal mines, as well as agriculture, which is, thank you, it's about as much as from the energy sector, agriculture is a big source in it. There are things we can do there as well.

Mike Toffel:

And so you mentioned earlier about the goal of being to reduce by 75% the methane emissions from oil and gas by 2030. So you're focusing on the oil and gas source relative to these others. Can you just explain why that's the target rather than agriculture or landfills, for example?

Fred Krupp:

Well, you know, we all should be working on all the sources and to some extent, you know, EDF is and others are as well. But oil and gas is the most tractable. It's the most practical thing to do because the cost per avoided ton is in some cases zero and in other cases a tiny cost to this industry. The oil and gas industry has sales today of seven trillion dollars a year. And for a relatively tiny amount, we could get to that 75% reduction goal. But don't take my word for it. The International Energy Agency, which is made up of oil ministers and energy ministers from many of the countries around the world, they have put out the 75% by 2030 metric. And they say, two thirds of that reduction would actually be at no cost and the other third at very small costs. So getting this data, focusing on this data will bring the accountability we need to power all the other things that need to be done to actually get this reduction achieved. And at the same time, EDF has begun working with the dairy industry, for instance, we've signed an agreement with Danone, which is one of the three biggest dairy buyers in the world. They have 58,000 farms that serve them and they've agreed to reduce their methane emissions from their supply chain by 30% by 2030 as well. So yes, oil and gas is the focus of MethaneSAT and it is the most tractable but there's opportunities in these other sources as well.

Mike Toffel:

Got it. So the, let's talk about the theory of change of using satellites. So this strikes me as an example of other forms of information revelation where you try and disclose information and hope that that leads organizations to or individuals to change their behavior. You can think about restaurant calories items on billboards or you think about the health inspector grades of a this is an “A” restaurant or a “B” restaurant and you hope that just revealing that information that people are already calculating, might lead to some changes. The US Toxic Release Inventory is another example. Companies were above some thresholds of toxic release emissions were required to report it to a central database that the US EPA maintains. And I guess even now the SEC, recent joining California and joining the EU and some of these disclosure requirements, they all say if we provide more information, things will get better because it will change incentives or somehow lead to better outcomes. So can you just walk us through that in the MethaneSAT space, especially as it relates to oil and gas?

Fred Krupp:

I think two things are true, Mike. One, that having the data is necessary, but not sufficient to drive that change. So we will get some change just from disclosing the data. And we've seen when we've flown over facilities and informed an oil company that they have a plume of methane, that many times they take action. So there will be some change just from the disclosure. But I don't think it will be nearly enough. And so that's why I say the data itself is necessary, but not sufficient. Some of the change will come from the data because, you know, companies will act. Some of it will come from governments who will see how effective their regulations are or aren't. And then some of the change will come from investors who also have begun to make this a priority when they engage with oil companies. But the data just isn't there now. So maybe when I say necessary but not sufficient, let's just talk about the difference in data for a second. And then what are the other things that are needed to put that to use? Right now, Mike, almost unbelievably, there's no other instrument that can give us what are the comprehensive totals of methane pollution coming from the oil and gas industry. Other satellites can see pretty well 12% of the total, say in the Uinta Basin where we have good data, but methane air, which is the same instrument that's on MethaneSAT, can see 100%. So the reason the estimates have been so wrong from EPA is that they are estimates. They're reported as data, but they're actually not empirical data. And so MethaneSat will give us the first empirical data totals. There's no other satellite even planned, let alone in space, that can give us the total pollution.

Mike Toffel:

Interesting. Now you mentioned methane air. Is that the aircraft -based version that you were using before the satellites were launched?

Fred Krupp:

Exactly. That's the aircraft-based version. So the theory of change does say that just having the data will motivate some to act. But beyond that, once we have the data, we think governments will tighten regulations to make sure they're being effective. We'll enforce regulations when everyone can see if the regulations are or aren't effective. And beyond that, it will help the countries that import a lot of LNG, liquefied natural gas, if they want to play their part in combating climate change, they will take action to make sure that their supply chain is cleaned up. So the four biggest importers of LNG, this is very much part of the theory of change, the four biggest importers are the European Union, Japan, Korea, South Korea, and China. And already the European Union just this past November, enact regulations on methane, which not only affect how natural gas is produced inside their country, inside the European Union, but they also apply starting in 2030, they will set standards for how the LNG that's imported, how that can be produced to make sure it's cleaned up there. And Japan and Korea haven't done that yet, but both of those big importers are also beginning to talk with their suppliers about how they can cooperate to help them clean up this pollution. Because in a way, the country that ends up using the LNG, those countries are also beginning to understand it's part of their responsibility to make sure that that gas is sourced in a responsible way. All of this while we try to get off of oil and gas as quick as we can, but because it's a $7 trillion a year industry, we're going to still be using oil and gas for a while. And so it's imperative given the big impact that methane has that at least while we're still using it, hopefully for a short period of time, but likely a decade or more, while we're still using this stuff, let's at least get it cleaned up as we're accelerating the transition to other forms of clean energy as fast as possible.

Mike Toffel:

Now you mentioned the resolution, the detectability of the satellite as being 5 kg per hour, leaks as small as that can be detected from the satellite. I wonder if you can talk a little bit more about how else this satellite differs from the existing satellites that are out there monitoring various greenhouse gas emissions, some which do methane and some which do CO2. So if you could talk a little bit about is it the coverage, is it the resolution, pricing models, how else it might vary.

Fred Krupp:

Yeah, so it is all of that. It's the coverage, it's the resolution, and it is the pricing model as well. So in that order, it's pretty good order, in the coverage, you have a great satellite that was launched years ago by the European Space Agency called Trapomi, and it gives a global view. So it can tell us, and it has told us, about the big plumes of methane, the gigantic releases. They give us a global view, but they can only see these big releases that are a small minority of the total. On the other end of the spectrum, there are satellites up there like GHG –SAT, which is a wonderful private Canadian company and think of them as kind of a telephoto lens. They can see a relatively small patch of ground. It could be 10 or 15 kilometers square or on that order, and within that patch of ground that they can see, they can kind of pinpoint where a leak is, what valve needs to be fixed. So this is also an extraordinary, invaluable target mode instruments. So you have Trapomi that's a global instrument and then you have GHG, SAT and other target mode instruments. MethaneSAT is in the middle. We can look at 200 miles by 200 miles and in doing so, we can look at a big area, a big part of an oil basin, in some cases, you know, most of an oil basin, in other cases, it'll take a few targets like that to represent the whole oil basin. And we can come up with a comprehensive total, you know, in one pass. So, that's the difference. Basically, we're looking at much wider areas than the target mode instruments at much higher precision than the global mode and even higher precision than many of the target modes being able to see such small leaks. And now that we know that the small leaks make up the majority of emissions in most of the basins we've seen, it turns out that this instrument has unique coverage. But then when we look at precision, you know, that precision that I just mentioned is also what differentiates it. And then in terms of pricing, we've promised to make this data available for free to everybody on the planet. And so that's different than a GHG mode that sells its data often to oil companies that buy it. And I'm thankful that the oil companies do now want to know what their leaks are and buy it. But it's a different model in that they are not releasing that data to the public. And therefore, you're not getting the accountability that I think we are absolutely going to be a game changer by providing.

Mike Toffel:

So we'll get a little more into the outputs and the use cases in a minute. But first I want to just ask a question, an operational question is how will you figure out or decide where this, where to point the camera? I imagine you might do some passes to get the global scope of the whole world to make sure you're seeing where the leaks are. But after that, I imagine you might prioritize like known oil extraction basins or known processing facilities and so on. And so those will get over sampled perhaps several times a year. They'll get passed over to create sort of a time series at those high value locations. Can you talk a little bit about the targeting strategy?

Fred Krupp:

Sure, well we've, first of all, let me just say that this satellite is an outgrowth of our chief scientist, Steve Hamburg's conversation with a Harvard professor named Steve Wolfsey. And the project has been a good collaboration between the Environmental Defense Fund and the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and also the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has actually helped design the specific instrument that's doing the work. So I want to give a shout out to Harvard for its great involvement in this. Second of all, we are not going to look at the whole world from the very beginning. We are just going to, from the very beginning, look at the oil and gas basin. So we've gotten other partners, including good folks at Stanford University to help us develop maps of the oil and gas infrastructure around the world. In the beginning, we won't be looking at offshore oil, but onshore oil production, we'll be able to see 80 % of the production in the world and we'll be able to look at it multiple times at a particular facility in a week. So, we'll have our work cut out for us in the first year plus, making sure we get multiple images of each of the oil and gas producing basins around the world. And that is going to be the targeting strategy. Now, as we see things we want to re -image or see variability from pass to pass. We will know if certain places need to be sampled more, other places can be sampled less. And, you know, ultimately, we will be able, down the road, to look at other sources of methane even beyond oil and gas.

Mike Toffel:

So talk a little more about the development process. You mentioned Harvard, I was going to ask you about that, but you've already jumped my question there. So we're talking about several areas of Harvard, and now you also mentioned Stanford is sort of helping out in thinking through some of these other issues. Any other collaborators who either donated time or expertise to the project?

Fred Krupp:

Yeah, so thankfully there's been a lot. This is a unique project in my experience because what we were attempting to do and measure methane from outer space at this precision with this wide coverage had never been done. And initially there were many people who didn't think it could be done. And they, those doubters, became some of our earliest and best collaborators. Tom Ingersoll, who was hired by EDF to run the project, wanted to know every reservation and doubt they had, embrace those reservations and doubts. And many of them were valid concerns and caused us to refine the design of the satellite. So beyond that, we asked experts in measuring trace gases from the atmosphere, we asked many of them to participate on a scientific advisory council. The project's unique in that every single person we asked said yes. Then we asked people in the satellite business if they can help advise us on how to contract, how to choose vendors, how to make sure our designs were right, how to, you know, vet them and battle test them. And again, every single person we asked to be part of our technical advisory team said yes. So they included people like, you know, Dan McLeese, who was formerly the chief scientist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory out in California. Just a range of amazing talent all saying yes. Then we knew that to do the very complicated calculations to convert the levels of methane, the concentrations of methane into volumes, flux rates, taking into account wind speeds and wind directions at different levels between the ground and the satellite and low Earth orbit, given how complex that was, we needed to get a lot of computing time. And so Google has been a great partner and has donated about $9 millions of computing time to us. And actually the lead data scientist figuring out how to do that, Tom Menendez is an alumnus of the Google data organization. But again, a lot of these technical matters or most all of them, Steve Wolfsey, the Harvard professor has been, you know, leading the team along with Steve Hamburg at EDF, our chief scientist who has been overseeing the entire effort. So it's been a massive amount of collaboration with a lot of partners.

Mike Toffel:

How long has this development process been taking place? It sounds like it's such a complicated effort.

Fred Krupp:

The process started in late 2016, 2017. I was able to announce it on stage at a TED conference in Vancouver, Canada in 2018. But by that time we had already hired Tom Ingersoll, the work was and the fundraising was well underway.

Mike Toffel:

And let's talk a moment about the fundraising. You mentioned $88 million. That's something like a third of the EDF operating budget in a given year, if my math is right. And I imagine you're trying to avoid cannibalization of the funding of EDF as an organization with this new project. So you're looking for $90 million of new money, which doesn't sound that easy to acquire in an eight -year period that includes the COVID shutdown. So how did you accomplish that impressive feat?

Fred Krupp:

Well, you know, the bad news for the world is that climate change is real and it has grave implications. The good news for the world is that a lot of people understand it's real and want to do something about it. And these include people with, you know, substantial resources. Early on, John Arnold, and a couple in Texas they spotted the importance of this potential project. They were introduced to me by Julian Robertson and John Arnold became a, you know, made the first lead gift and Audacious, the Audacious project, which is kind of the charitable arm of TED. Chris Anderson agreed to put it on stage and get donors together to talk about the project. They've been a big help. Then the Robertson Foundation recognized the importance of this. Julian Robertson has passed away and never got to see the satellite launch was a real believer in the Environmental Defense Fund approach of trying to use science, use data, work with people where possible to get big change on climate. And then, you know, one great gift that made the whole project possible, the gift that closed out our fundraising on this came from the Bezos Earth Fund, from Jeff Bezos and Warren Sanchez, you know, heard the story of what we're trying to do. They made a great gift that, once we had in hand, we were able to move forward with great confidence. But, you know, the question you're asking is, you know, the COVID shutdown, all of that hasn't made things easier, but the fact that methane pollution is so powerful that it's such a great opportunity to lower the temperature increase that we'd otherwise see in the next decade, the fact that there was a real project that could be part of a theory of change that made sense. All of that combined with the fact that there's a lot of people who want to do something about climate change allowed us to raise the money.

Mike Toffel:

Yeah, and the emphasis on methane is something that we share here at Harvard, even beyond the collaborators that you mentioned. The Salata Institute here, this new institute focusing on climate and sustainability, has one of its flagship projects actually looking into methane and trying to figure out what are the policies and what are the practices needed to dramatically reduce it within short timeframes, given all the opportunities that you described that are out there.

Fred Krupp:

Rob Stavins at Harvard is an Environmental Defense Fund alumni and we're proud to say that. So yeah, the work on methane, I've had the chance to talk with Jean Solada about it and it's a tremendous gift that he made and I'm so happy that a portion of it is going to also to work on driving methane pollution down.

Mike Toffel:

So let's talk about the outputs of the satellite. So you mentioned some of the processing calculations and the formulas and the compute time that's necessary to take what the satellite is receiving and try and figure out where exactly did those emissions occur on the ground, which as you mentioned has to do with weather conditions and other features. So when the data starts getting reported out, and you're going to put it on a website, you're going to put it on a database, are you going to build maps? Like how do people actually tap into the outputs of the satellite information?

Fred Krupp:

Yeah, so it's definitely going to be put on databases and we're going to make that available with a memorandum of agreement with people that want it. We're going to make it available to the International Methane Emissions Observatory, which is part of the UN, and it's collecting data from many sources of data on many sources of methane pollution. It is the repository that's beginning to be developed by the UN. It will be unique, not even for carbon dioxide do we have a repository of such empirical measurements and data. So I think it actually could be a good model for what we should have on carbon dioxide in the near future. And others will be able to download the data too. We're still working out the details on how to make that available. But the public will have free access for noncommercial use. As I said before, everyone on the planet will have free access through a website. We will make maps and visualizations available. We'll have, in the course of time, not for more toward the end of this year or so, basin by basin comparisons of the actual pictures of how much methane, what the volumes are from different basins and parts within the basin where the methane is coming. So the pixel size we'll have is pretty small and we'll get some good granularity here, although it will give an opportunity for those target mode instruments to follow behind and get even more granular. So that's what will be available and I'm sure there's a million uses of data that no one's ever thought of, but making it available to researchers, there'll be a lot of uses of the data because it'd be millions and millions of data points coming continuously and being made available, not quite in real time. We'll have to go through checks and verifications, but hopefully within a short time of each observation on an ongoing basis, you know, we will have this pipeline of data flowing to the public.

Mike Toffel:

What's the role of AI and machine learning? This is a question we get all the time here on campus. How is AI and ML going to disrupt or enhance the satellite data, either from your satellite or from others? Have you guys started thinking about that question?

Fred Krupp:

Well, I think we've not only started thinking about it, but we've already started deploying it. So in order to generate the comprehensive infrastructure map we needed to the oil and gas industry, it's my understanding that we've used AI to analyze photographs and figure out where that infrastructure is. Going forward, there'll be, you know, I'm sure a robust contribution that AI can make in trying to discern what the patterns of emissions are, and what the opportunities to reduce those emissions are. How much is stochastic events? How much is related to vessels that are leaking? How much is related to gathering pipes? There'll be lots of analysis that we should be able to do much more quickly with AI than without it.

Mike Toffel:

Interesting. So going forward, it sounds like there's a good amount of ongoing infrastructure needed to take the data, to translate it, to make it available, to build these mapping systems out, to perhaps have an API people can plug into to continue thinking about where do we steer the ship and which pictures do we take. What is the magnitude of investment and operating complexity that EDF has embarked on with this satellite project in a going forward basis?

Fred Krupp:

Yeah. So thanks Mike. Let's step back to the purpose where you started this conversation. And the purpose, the narrow purpose of this mission is to drive down oil and gas methane emissions by 75% by the end of the year 2030. Okay. So we're already, you know, part way through 2024 as we record this interview. So we don't have that long to do that. And 75% is pretty ambitious goal. The cost of turning this data into the information we need and getting it into the hands of the stakeholders we need is going to be substantial. So the $88 million was designed, built and launched in that order. It'll be about $30 million a year for the next few years in order to process the data, develop the data products, the maps, get them distributed. And the reason I'm so hopeful goes back to what we talked about, the theory of change. Not only are big buyers now showing interest, big producers are realizing that they need to be responsible here too. So just going back to December and COP 28 that was held in Dubai, the oil producing nation, the United Arab Emirates, 50 oil and gas producers representing 40% of global oil sales made commitments to reduce their methane pollution by 90% by 2030. Now, right now, it's great to have them making those commitments, but the data really doesn't exist yet. MethaneSAT will give them the data to help facilitate the reductions they've committed to make. We will do everything we can to help.

Mike Toffel:

I can imagine all sorts of use cases and top 20 and bottom 20 lists and maps and all sorts of stuff coming out of a variety of shops. Very interesting. So let me turn to my last question that I ask of all guests, which is for advice. So folks listening to this podcast are often thinking about what are the career opportunities out there in climate change and particularly as it relates to organizations and businesses. You've been at EDF for decades as its lead, and now with your decade-long experience dealing with satellites, there's a wide range of directions you can take the question. So let me just open it up to you.

Fred Krupp:

Hey, thanks Mike. Well, first of all, you know, when I was deciding on what to do with my life, I really wanted to, I'd been inspired by a college professor I had named Charlie Walker, an engineering professor to spend it working on solving environmental problems. And it took some persistence. I actually started an environmental group in Connecticut in order to get into that field. That's not something I would advise everyone to do. But my first piece of advice is be persistent. If this is the field you want to work in, you can find a way to apply your skills and talents. I talked more about my advice in the commencement speech I gave at Williams College this past June. And there's more advice on that there.

Mike Toffel:

Great, well, and we'll link to that in the show notes.

Fred Krupp:

Thank you. Beyond that, I would say if nothing else, if someone is having trouble getting to sleep, maybe listening to that will help. I would say those interested in the MethaneSAT mission and satellites and what we are up to, MethaneSAT.org has its own website. We are keeping it up to date with progress report on what the MethaneSAT is finding.

Mike Toffel:

Great. Well, thanks so much for sharing the story of your time at EDF and about EDF and of course about this MethaneSAT. And I feel like I really understand the why and the how now so much better. So I really appreciate that.

Fred Krupp:

Thank you, Mike it’s a pleasure.