Users in energy and mineral resources deal with the harvesting of energy from renewable resources and extractive industries including oil and gas and raw materials. EO information helps them in exploring locations where to build new mines or power plants, in identifying risks from infrastructure and in managing the environmental impact of their operations.
Uses that apply to the extractive industries: study of landforms, structures, and the subsurface, to understand physical processes creating and modifying the earth's crust.
The users in alternative energy consist of Solar energy providers, Wind energy providers, Tidal energy providers, Hydroelectric energy providers, Energy and Carbon traders, Local and regional planners, and National policy makers. Energy providers need information about the state of the environment to make the most use out of natural resources. Planners and policy makers have to weigh up whether and which type of alternative energy is justifiable and sensible for a specific region.
EO data can be used to build maps that show resource information. For solar energy, those maps contain information about solar radiation, but also shadowing effects. Forecast products for irradiance are available to be able to plan the energy production for the coming days. Tidal waves can be depicted by sea surface heights. As tidal currents are periodical, they can be predicted well by the initial state of sea surface heights. In addition, also the speed of tidal waves can be determined by EO measurements. In the wind energy sector EO data is analysed to plan and monitor wind farms. Maps can show areas, where winds are suitable for wind energy production. After the construction of a wind farm, wind strength and direction during operation can be monitored. Finally, for hydroelectric power stations EO is used to monitor water reservoirs. As well hydrometeorological data is used to forecast water-related events and to monitor drought or floods.
The EO/GI user community in oil & gas consists of offshore exploration and production, on-shore exploration and production, drilling and support services, oil and gas commodities trading, and energy planners. Due to their activities both on-shore and offshore their need for EO-derived information about the land, the ocean and the atmosphere. They need EO-derived information about geological features (for exploration), for asset infrastructure monitoring, construction and buildings. Safe offshore operations (ocean&atmosphere: forecast and monitoring current movement and drift, monitor sea-ice and icebergs, detect and monitor hurricanes and typhoons; land: map and assess flooding, detect wildfires . A large set of information needs results from their need to adhere to environmental regulations. They have to assess and monitor their environmental impact, ocean quality and productivity, land ecosystems and biodiversity, groundwater and run-off
Many problems faced by oil, gas, including the selection and development of exploration areas, detection and mapping of illegal mining activities, or monitoring dams, pipelines and terrain movements, can be efficiently addressed by extracting information from geospatial imagery. Remote Sensing based applications reduce the need for field work, minimize environmental impacts, and ultimately safe costs, to help achieve results faster during exploration, extraction, and remediation/reclamation stages.
The EO/GI community in minerals and mining consists of mining and quarrying companies, exploration and survey specialists, commodities traders, exploration and extraction equipment suppliers, drilling, excavation and support services, and regional planners / policy makers.
Typical spatial questions for the users in minerals and mining are concerned with prospecting, e.g. "Where can we find the minerals that are worth exploitation?", and operation of mining sites: "How much material has already been excavated in the mine and how much material was deposited in dedicated dump areas?". Additionally relevant are arising risks through mining activities, e.g. "How do the mining activities affect settlements in the vicinity?" or "How do the mining activities affect the environment?". Concequently, the EO/GI users in minerals and mining benefit from EO information through mapping geological features, monitor mineral extraction, measure land use statistics, assessing environmental impact of human activities, detect and monitor ground movement, and monitor land pollution.
Energy transition is a thematic area whose EO experts are proficient in relevant EO data and its processing methods and infrastructure to derive information for energy transition [and its regulatory context, etc.]. The expertise of each expert may be very specialized. In sum, the experts have: The relevant domain knowledge (knowledge about type of monitored entities and their properties, e.g. reflectance properties of sea ice and related EO sensors for detecting them), and The relevant workflow knowledge and processing skills for extracting and providing targeted information for energy transition. [may share strategic objectives… such as „gaining thorough understanding of Energy transition“, „foster usage of EO information for energy transition“]