Bezos-founded Blue Origin methane emissions spotted by space station
Breanne Deppisch
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Jeff Bezos’s space company, Blue Origin LLC, is responsible for large emissions of methane gas that have at times been large enough to be spotted from the International Space Station.
According to data collected by the nonprofit group Carbon Mapper, the methane emissions were recorded leaking by a space station facility on June 4 from the West Texas ranch where Jeff Bezos’s company regularly tests its space rockets.
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The methane emissions were analyzed by Carbon Mapper and found to be leaking at 1.5 metric tons per hour. There is no indication of how long it lasted.
Blue Origin rockets run on liquefied natural gas, or LNG, which is made up of up to 95% methane. Texas state air regulators do not impose limits on methane emissions or require disclosures of releases, nor does the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
“We frequently transfer LNG from our suppliers into storage tanks at our engine test stands. Everything operated normally,” Sara Blask, a spokeswoman for Blue Origin, told Bloomberg in an email, though she declined to comment on the total amount of gas released.
“There were no issues or reporting thresholds exceeded,” she added. Blue Origin officials did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
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According to a permit filed with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in 2020, Blue Origin, the private U.S. space exploration company founded by Bezos, said it estimated it would dump roughly 3.4 million cubic feet of LNG into the air annually.
It is unclear if those numbers reflect current-day operations.