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Carbon Mapper Coalition launches Tanager-1 satellite to drive transparency of methane and CO2 super-emitters and prompt global action

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VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif., Aug. 16, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Today, the Carbon Mapper Coalition’s first satellite, Tanager-1, was successfully launched into orbit on the SpaceX Transporter-11 Rideshare mission. The satellite was developed by Planet Labs (NYSE: PL) with technology from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The launch marks a critical milestone in Carbon Mapper’s work to drive local action on methane and CO2 super-emitters, globally.

The Tanager-1 satellite will grow transparency of methane super-emitters — pinpointing leaks so society can act now to stop them.

Tanager-1 is the first of a series of satellites being developed and deployed through a unique public-private partnership powered by philanthropy that brings together diverse technical, scientific, engineering and policy expertise to accomplish bold emission reduction objectives. The coalition, led by the nonprofit Carbon Mapper, includes JPL, Planet Labs, RMI and Arizona State University alongside philanthropic supporters including High Tide Foundation, Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and Zegar Family Foundation, among others.

“There is more momentum than ever to act on climate. But a lack of public and private investment in global methane and CO2 monitoring has left gaps that leave many emissions untracked and unaddressed,” said Richard Lawrence, Founder and Executive Chairman of High Tide Foundation. “With the launch of Tanager-1 we are scaling up high impact monitoring to drive transparency of super-emitters everywhere and grow society’s collective capacity to be a big part of the solution.” 

“Data from this satellite will dramatically improve our ability to pinpoint leaks of methane and CO2 and ensure action is taken to stop them,” said Michael R. Bloomberg, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions and Founder of Bloomberg L.P. and Bloomberg Philanthropies. “It’s a great example of how new technology can lead to more transparency and faster progress in cutting emissions — which is needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.”

Methane is over 80 times more powerful at retaining heat in the atmosphere than CO2, contributing to about 30% of global temperature rise to date. Given its outsized climate impact and relatively short lifespan (methane lasts about a decade in the atmosphere), addressing methane is best down payment society can make today to slow the rate of global temperature rise.  

Tanager’s unique capabilities complement other emissions-detecting sensors in orbit by zooming in on methane super-emitters — facilities or equipment that emit >100 kilograms per hour — across the fossil fuel, waste and agriculture sectors. The Tanager-1 satellite will provide observations with unprecedented granularity to empower industry, policymakers, regulators, and civil society to take actions that reduce emissions at the source. In addition to slowing climate change, mitigating methane will dramatically improve air quality by reducing co-emitted toxic air pollutants, protecting vulnerable communities and improving public health.

“Methane super-emitters represent a disproportionate climate risk and opportunity — contributing up to 20–60% of a region’s total emissions in some sectors. We have shown that finding and fixing these emissions can result in large reductions that, with sustained monitoring, can stay mitigated,” said Riley Duren, Carbon Mapper Co-Founder and CEO. “Observations from Tanager will enable Carbon Mapper to grow its publicly available data, and this first satellite is an exciting step toward our goal to scale up a full constellation of satellites to detect and track up to 90% of super-emitting sources globally with daily frequency or better.”

Through years of regional demonstration pilots leveraging aircraft equipped with imaging spectrometers (including Arizona State University Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science’s Global Airborne Observatory and JPL’s AVIRIS-NG), Carbon Mapper found that nearly half of super-emitting events flagged for state agencies and operators were previously unknown, and once identified, were able to be mitigated.

“The launch of Tanager-1 continues the crucial work of locating greenhouse gas emissions sources with a degree of resolution that will enable stakeholders to take action,” said James Graf, director of JPL’s Earth Science and Technology Directorate. “We are excited to see the JPL imaging spectrometer technology providing direct societal impact. We also see great promise in tackling other environmental challenges through public-private partnerships as demonstrated by the Carbon Mapper Coalition.”

“The Tanager-1 mission will use incredible technology to pinpoint emitters and guide action to stop them. This is a remarkable coalition that we are incredibly proud to be a part of,” said Will Marshall, Co-Founder and CEO of Planet. “Combining cutting-edge imaging spectrometer technology from JPL with an innovative smallsat bus from Planet and data processing from Carbon Mapper, the consortium itself is a powerful example of actors coming together to solve hard world challenges. We expect its impact on methane emitters to have a lasting, positive impact on the planet.”

A core part of Carbon Mapper’s mission is making its methane and CO2 data and insights available on its public online portal for noncommercial use. Today, the portal includes tens of thousands of plumes observed from air and space and soon will include methane data from Tanager-1. With this powerful tool, the organization is advancing data transparency and accessibility that can strengthen societal awareness on the exact sources of emissions, prompt mitigation action, improve accountability, prioritize solutions and investments, and help us reduce emissions quickly to meet bold climate goals.

Special Note to Reporters:
More information, including image and video footage can be found in our press package here.

About Carbon Mapper
Carbon Mapper is a nonprofit based in Pasadena, CA with the mission to drive greenhouse gas emissions reductions by making methane and carbon dioxide data accessible and actionable. Carbon Mapper is focused on filling gaps in the emerging ecosystem of methane and CO2 monitoring systems by delivering data at facility scale that is precise, timely, and accessible to empower science-based decision making and action. The organization leads a public-private partnership including Planet Labs, PBC, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Air Resources Board, RMI, and Arizona State University among others focused on developing and deploying a constellation of satellites capable of detecting, quantifying, and verifying methane emissions worldwide. Data from these satellites will offer the next major step in scaling up the thousands of methane plumes and CO2 plumes already publicly available on the Carbon Mapper data portal. Learn more at carbonmapper.org, view our data at data.carbonmapper.org, and follow us on Twitter @carbonmapper.

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SOURCE Carbon Mapper Inc.

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Gigawatt AI acquires Data Fusion Solutions to accelerate its Power module and expand utility outage intelligence

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38 minutes ago

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November 3, 2026

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The acquisition of Data Fusion Solutions adds 11 years of U.S. outage history, nationwide outage tracking, and geospatial capabilities to advance utility outage visibility and communications.

CHICAGO, Nov. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Gigawatt AI, the AI-native software suite purpose-built for regulated utilities, today announced its acquisition of Data Fusion Solutions (DFS), a provider of outage tracking, geospatial mapping, and data services. The acquisition accelerates Gigawatt’s Power module for utility outage management, strengthening its foundation for outage visibility, customer communications, and predictive intelligence.

Customers need clear power status, restoration estimates, and updates they can trust, and that requires outage, meter, and customer information to work together.

Data Fusion Solutions brings an 11-year U.S. outage archive containing 26 million distinct incident points, with coverage spanning 1,200 utility operating companies and representing 96% of electric consumers in the United States. Its products include outage dashboards, alerts, geospatial map services, and custom data feeds. DFS’s professional outage dashboard collects outage information every 15 minutes.

For utility operations and customer service leaders, Gigawatt’s Power module is designed to reduce routine outage inquiries, improve notification accuracy, and give customers and agents clearer visibility into power status. Through the Utility Data Fabric, it connects outage, meter, and customer information across public maps, utility websites, and agent views. Configurable rules govern outage communications alongside existing outage management and billing systems.

“Customers need clear power status, restoration estimates, and updates they can trust,” said Joe Berti, Chief Executive Officer of Gigawatt. “That requires outage, meter, and customer information to work together. DFS brings the historical depth and geographic coverage to accelerate that connected experience through Power.”

The acquisition advances three areas of Power’s development:

Historical outage context: DFS’s archive adds historical context for outage analysis, complementing premise and customer data from connected utility systems.Nationwide outage coverage: DFS’s national data footprint supports broader outage visibility, complemented by premise-level intelligence from connected utility systems.Predictive intelligence: Historical incident data provides a foundation for developing and validating models for restoration timing.

“DFS brings established outage data, mapping products, and domain expertise that directly accelerate Power,” said Reid Snyder, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy at Gigawatt. “The acquisition strengthens our foundation for connecting outage intelligence with utility workflows.”

“Understanding an outage requires both current information and the geographic and historical context behind it,” said Patrick Willging, Chief Technology Officer of Data Fusion Solutions. “Joining Gigawatt creates an opportunity to connect that context with customer communications and agent workflows, helping utilities provide clearer information from the first report through restoration.”

To learn more about Gigawatt Power for utility outage management, visit gigawatt.ai/power.

About Gigawatt

Gigawatt AI provides an AI-native software suite purpose-built for regulated utilities. Its Customer, Revenue, Service, Procurement, Power, and Market modules support essential utility functions through an AI-native Utility Data Fabric. Utilities can deploy modules incrementally alongside existing customer information, enterprise resource planning, and operational systems, improving defined workflows without first replacing core technology. Founded by utility and AI transformation leaders and developed with direct input from top-tier utilities in the United States, Gigawatt supports secure, governed, and scalable AI adoption across regulated utility operations. Gigawatt has locations in Chicago, Nashville, and Austin. For more information, visit gigawatt.ai.

Media Contact

Thiers Ferreira, Gigawatt AI, 55 31995174259, thiers@gigawatt.ai, https://gigawatt.ai/

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How the NIH Common Fund Data Ecosystem Could Accelerate Scientific Discovery

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November 3, 2026

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CU Anschutz researchers play a major role in evaluating research data from 18 programs to help scientists uncover relationships across studies and make better use of existing research.

AURORA, Colo., Nov. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Scientists generate vast amounts of research data, but connecting information across studies can be difficult. The NIH Common Fund Data Ecosystem is working to change that by making research datasets from 18 NIH programs easier to find, connect and analyze.

The initiative brings together research resources spanning human genetics, the microbiome and emerging technologies, helping scientists explore relationships that might otherwise remain hidden across separate studies.

A new paper published in Patterns describes the ecosystem’s development, infrastructure and tools, as well as efforts to evaluate its impact.

“The challenge is no longer just generating more scientific data. It’s making the data we already have work together in ways that help researchers answer questions they couldn’t tackle before,” said Casey Greene, PhD, professor of biomedical informatics at CU Anschutz and study senior author. “When information is connected across research programs, scientists have more opportunities to identify patterns, explore new relationships and build on discoveries made by others.”

The goal is to make complex datasets easier to find, interpret and analyze, including for researchers without advanced programming or bioinformatics expertise.

How Can Connecting Research Data Help Scientists Make New Discoveries?

Understanding a disease or identifying a promising drug target may require scientists to connect genetic information with molecular measurements, tissue data and results from drug-screening experiments. A drug target is a molecule or biological process that researchers investigate as a potential point of action for a treatment.

When these resources can be explored together, researchers may be better equipped to understand biological mechanisms, identify meaningful patterns and investigate promising directions for further study.

“Scientific discovery rarely happens in isolation. A finding in one dataset may become much more meaningful when it can be examined alongside evidence from another study or another area of biology,” said Julie A. Jurgens, PhD, associate director of scientific delivery for the Knowledge Portal Network at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and study corresponding author. “Building the connections between these resources can help researchers spend less time navigating fragmented systems and more time asking important scientific questions.”

By making existing research easier to access and combine, the ecosystem aims to help scientists build on findings from multiple programs rather than examining each dataset in isolation.

Evaluating Effectiveness

Researchers at CU Anschutz contribute to the initiative’s coordination and evaluation efforts, helping assess how effectively the shared research infrastructure supports scientists and delivers value across research programs.

The work examines whether connecting datasets across programs helps researchers find and use information in ways that separate public repositories cannot.

The team is also evaluating indicators of research engagement and impact, including how often scientists use the ecosystem’s online resources and cite related publications. Preliminary findings suggest that related research publications may receive more citations than comparable papers, although additional analysis is needed to understand the significance of those differences.

These evaluation efforts are intended to help determine how the ecosystem can remain useful, accessible and valuable to researchers over time.

How Could Connected Research Data Support Artificial Intelligence?

As artificial intelligence becomes more prominent in scientific research, well-organized and connected datasets could also help computational tools analyze scientific information more effectively.

The ecosystem offers an opportunity to explore how infrastructure designed to help people navigate scientific evidence might also support emerging AI-driven approaches to research.

“The long-term opportunity is to create a research environment where valuable data don’t sit in separate repositories waiting for someone to make the right connection,” said Sean Davis, MD, PhD, professor of bioinformatics at CU Anschutz. “By making those connections easier to discover and explore, we can help scientists get more value from existing research and create new opportunities for future discoveries.”

By making existing evidence easier to find, interpret and combine, the NIH Common Fund Data Ecosystem aims to help researchers uncover meaningful connections, explore new scientific questions and make more effective use of the research investment already made.

The Common Fund Data Ecosystem and corresponding publication are the product of a multi-institutional, multidisciplinary collaboration across 5 centers, 18 programs, and multiple partnerships.

Key Points:

Connecting research across programs: The NIH Common Fund Data Ecosystem is working to connect research resources from 18 NIH programs, making information easier to find, analyze and combine.Supporting scientific discovery: Researchers could use connected genetic, molecular, tissue and drug-screening data to investigate biological mechanisms and identify new research directions.Evaluating research impact: CU Anschutz researchers are helping assess the ecosystem’s use, value and long-term effectiveness.Exploring future AI applications: More accessible and connected scientific data could support emerging AI approaches to biomedical research.

About the University of Colorado Anschutz
The University of Colorado Anschutz is a world-class academic medical campus leading transformative advances in science, medicine, education and patient care. The campus includes the University of Colorado’s health professional schools, more than 60 centers and institutes, and two nationally ranked independent hospitals – UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital and Children’s Hospital Colorado – which see nearly three million adult and pediatric patient visits each year. Innovative, interconnected and highly collaborative, CU Anschutz delivers life-changing treatments, exceptional patient care and top-tier professional training. The campus conducts world-renowned research supported by $890 million in funding, including $762 million in sponsored awards and $128 million in philanthropic gifts for research.

Find the latest CU Anschutz news here.

Contact: Kelsea Pieters, CU Anschutz
                Kelsea.pieters@cuanschutz.edu, Phone: (804) 314-1360

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Gradient Opens Its Doors to Tulsa for Global Entrepreneurship Week

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November 3, 2026

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Five days of free programming, November 16 to 20, celebrating the spirit of entrepreneurship in Tulsa

TULSA, Okla., Nov. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Gradient, recently named the world’s top Global Entrepreneur Support Organization by the International Business Innovation Association (INBIA), will open its doors November 16 to 20 for Tulsa’s Global Entrepreneurship Week. More than 20 sessions are free and open to the public, bringing together founders, students, creatives, investors, and anyone with an idea. Registration is open now at joingradient.com/gew.

“Every big idea starts somewhere, and you don’t have to figure it out alone. Bring your questions, pick a session, and jump in. Global Entrepreneurship Week at Gradient is your invitation to connect, explore ideas, and discover what’s possible, wherever you are on your journey,” said Devon Laney, President and CEO of Gradient.

Sponsored by Microsoft, the week is expected to draw more than 1,000 attendees to Gradient, 12 North Cheyenne Avenue. Programming spans every side of entrepreneurship. Highlights include:

Monday, Nov. 16: Opening breakfast at 8:30 a.m. with a proclamation from Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols; STARTedUP Foundation founder Don Wettrick and Tulsa Public Schools on entrepreneurship in the classroom; business finance; Campus to Company, 1 Million Cups Tulsa’s university pitch competition; raising smaller checks; and CO.STARTERS Intro to Entrepreneurship.Tuesday, Nov. 17: An Open House across the whole building; design and Canva classes; AI and automation tools; small business banking with Bank of Oklahoma; and Meet the Incubator.Wednesday, Nov. 18: Morning yoga; Substack writer Hunter Harris, former NPR leader Doug Mitchell and Tulsa Local News Initiative CEO Ziva Branstetter on the future of media; producers from the FX series The Lowdown on building a film industry in Tulsa; intellectual property with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office; and the Tulsa Entrepreneurship Town Hall, where State Representative Ronald Stewart and City Councilor Laura Bellis take audience questions.Friday, Nov. 20: The week closes in the evening with a 10-year celebration on the Garden Deck.

“Great entrepreneurial communities are built by the people who show up, share ideas, and take action. Global Entrepreneurship Week is our chance to bring Gradient’s global recognition home and invite all of Tulsa to be part of the momentum,” Laney said.

Tulsa’s program is part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, held November 16 to 22 in about 200 countries under the theme Entrepreneurs Thrive Here. It also falls in Gradient’s 10th anniversary year.

Registration and full schedule: joingradient.com/gew

About Gradient

Gradient is Tulsa’s hub for innovation and the sixth-largest tech and innovation hub in the country, with roughly 4,500 members spanning founders, investors, operators, and partners. In 2026, Gradient was named both Technology Entrepreneur Support Organization of the Year and Global Entrepreneur Support Organization of the Year, INBIA’s highest honor. Now in its 10th year, Gradient reports $1.76 billion in regional economic impact since 2021. Learn more at joingradient.com.

About Global Entrepreneurship Week

Global Entrepreneurship Week is a campaign to celebrate and empower entrepreneurs in every country and community around the world, especially those who face structural barriers or may have never considered launching a startup. Each November, 10 million people in 200 countries take part in tens of thousands of activities, competitions and events. Now in its 19th year, GEW is led by the Global Entrepreneurship Network and powered by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Learn more at genglobal.org/gew.

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