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Skytruth the Bakken

Skytruthing mission over the massive Bakken shale oil and gas fields in western North Dakota using a sensor package strapped to a high altitude balloon rig.

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Skytruth the Bakken

Skytruth the Bakken

Skytruth the Bakken

Skytruth the Bakken

Skytruth the Bakken

Skytruthing mission over the massive Bakken shale oil and gas fields in western North Dakota using a sensor package strapped to a high altitude balloon rig.

Skytruthing mission over the massive Bakken shale oil and gas fields in western North Dakota using a sensor package strapped to a high altitude balloon rig.

Skytruthing mission over the massive Bakken shale oil and gas fields in western North Dakota using a sensor package strapped to a high altitude balloon rig.

Skytruthing mission over the massive Bakken shale oil and gas fields in western North Dakota using a sensor package strapped to a high altitude balloon rig.

Paul Woods
Paul Woods
Paul Woods
Paul Woods
1 Campaign |
Shepherdstown, United States
$3,100 USD 65 backers
124% of $2,500 Flexible Goal Flexible Goal

UPDATE:

We are amazed and extremely thankful for all of our generous supporters who helped us reach our funding goal! Our first blog on the project is live here, and above is the trailer for the final video we are working on now. 
We still have a lot of work left to process the data and produce the video, and any funding not needed for this project will go into a new "special projects fund" we're establishing to help enable us to cover the costs of future missions like this one. Sponsoring the project will also secure your place in the credits and you can get some fantastic memorabilia like our limited edition mission patch.Thank you!

The Project

SkyTruth is teaming up with Space for All  for a skytruthing mission over the massive Bakken shale oil and gas fields in western North Dakota.  We're planning to launch a sensor package from the ground to the edge of space tethered to a high altitude balloon rig, courtesy of Space for All.  We will combine on the ground observations with detections from the balloon rig and measurements we are making from space to measure the amount of natural gas flaring there.  This will help us test the accuracy of our satellite-based flaring detections so we can do a better job of monitoring and reporting on the amount of environmentally damaging (and unnecessary and wasteful) flaring that happens in the Bakken and elsewhere in the world.  The more good data we can collect on when, where, and how much, the more we can help groups that are working to reduce and eliminate it. This is what we mean by skytruthing – using remote sensing and mapping to understand and change the world. 

Read more about the Bakken and oil shale fracking in this great piece by National Geographic: The New Oil Landscape

SkyTruth's  view of the Bakken from space.  The red stuff at the upper left is rig lighting and flaring from oil and gas drillers working the Bakken Shale.  The bright area on the right is the city of Minneapolis.

Here's what flaring in the Bakken looks like from the ground

This is what the balloon rig looks like in flight

What We Need

So what we need to do is buy all the gear, get our dedicated and all-volunteer team out to Williston, ND, assemble the sensor rig, get the helium we need for the balloons, launch the rig, collect the data and make a fun-filled video of the whole thing.  Then we come back to Shepherdstown to crunch the data, publish our data,  edit the mission video and congratulate ourselves on a job well done, while we figure out which jacket to put our stupendous new mission patches on.


What we're asking you to help with is the cost of transportation for our team of 5 volunteers and the equipment we need to buy for the mission.  

  • $1,000 for out of pocket travel costs (we're carpooling on the road trip out there, living in tents, and we don't eat much) 
  • $1,500 for equipment (balloons, helium, electronics for the sensors, cameras)

All told we need $2,500 to cover the base cost of the mission


But... if we can raise an additional $4,000 then we can get this super cool FLIR e40 infrared camera that will help us tell the difference between flaring and rig lights, as well as helping us look for methane releases.

And if we raise even more than that, we can do another mission!  Next time maybe over the Athabascan Tar Sands in Canada, mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia, or maybe just somewhere tropical...

What's the Point?

At SkyTruth, our motto is "If you can see it, you can change it"  By making the impacts of oil and gas drilling more visible and more measurable, we believe that we (that's we the concerned public) can change them.  Most of the wasteful flaring and venting can be dramatically reduced by obligating operators to capture the gas and related liquids and turn them in to useful products, thereby offsetting new natural gas drilling elsewhere in the country.  Or they can generate electricity on site with it.  Actually there are loads of good alternatives available, it's just that flaring off the gas is the cheapest (and dirtiest).

How Can I Help?

Please support our passionate and talented engineers as they devote their skills, time and energy to making the world a better place.  You can make a donation by selecting your contribution level on the right. We are a 501c3 nonprofit, so if you live in the United States your entire contribution is tax deductible, except for the cash value of the mission patch, which we will have for you by the time we ship them.

If you're totally jazzed and want to help, but you just don't have the cash, we total understand.  You can still help out.   Share this page with as many people as you can.  Read the recent Washington Post coverage of SkyTruth and share that.  And if you want to try a little skytruthing yourself, you can contribute a little bit of your time and energy to our FrackFinder project.

Mission Patch

The Limited Edition Mission Patch will look something like this .  So ok - it's just a doodle on  a whiteboard, but we have a real volunteer designer working on it, we promise. It's going to be totally awesome.


The SkyTruth Team,  left to right:  David Manthos, Teri Beibel, Paul Woods, and founder John Amos.

Space for All team and volunteers, launching a balloon rig



Looking for more information? Check the project FAQ
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Choose your Perk

Project Supporter

$15 USD
We will publicly acknowledge all project supporters in a post-mission blog post and in a special event to be help at the Old Opera House in Shepherdstown where we will screen the mission video
9 claimed

SkyTruth and Mission Stickers

$25 USD
Get acknowledged as a project sponsor, and also get a pair of 3x4 stickers, one with the SkyTruth Logo on it, and one with the same graphic that appears on the mission patch.
Estimated Shipping
September 2013
11 out of 100 of claimed

Mission Video Sponsor

$50 USD
As a Mission Video Sponsor, you get acknowledgement in the credits of our mission video that will be published online as soon as we can get it edited after the mission and screened at the Old Opera House in Shepherdstown
8 claimed

Limited Edition Mission Patch

$100 USD
A special one of a kind embroidered mission patch being created exclusively for this mission. Only one batch of these patches will ever be made and they are going to be totally awesome.
Estimated Shipping
September 2013
7 out of 50 of claimed

SkyTruth Sustaining Supporter

$1,000 USD
Donate $1,000 or more and be acknowledged as a Sustaining Member for the next year on the SkyTruth website. Oh, and you get a mission patch and a shout out on the blog too. And a thank you call from SkyTruth founder John Amos.
0 claimed

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