US EPA approves Sniffer drone system for methane leak detection

In a first, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) has approved the use of a drone-based solution to detect methane leaks at municipal solid waste landfill sites.

According to the EPA, Sniffer Robotics’ SnifferDRONE method of monitoring landfill methane emissions can be utilized as an alternative to existing federal regulations with certain limitations.

SnifferDRONE is a “hyper-local” solution that comes with a closed-path methane detector onboard a drone. It works by collecting air samples directly at the ground surface, measuring methane concentrations within those samples in parts per million (ppm), and correlating measurements to discrete latitude/longitude coordinates during flight.

Waste management companies have been testing and utilizing this technology since 2019. More specifically, the drone-based system has been deployed in 28 states and at more than 150 landfills to date, leading to the identification of over 16,500…