A methane leak detector that can be mounted on a drone is one of a number of projects being funded by the US Government as part of a research initiative to reduce the costs of the technology . The initiative from the Department of Energy 's Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy ( ARPA - E ) is called the Methane Observation Networks with Innovative Technology to Combat Reductions ( MONITOR ) programme . As it was blind test, they did not know where the leak was or how big it was, but Zimmerle said they had a lot of flexibility to operate. It is spending $ 30 m to fund 11 new projects , each of which will reach certain performance levels whilst reducing basic costs to just $ 3,000 per year per well site from between $ 75,000 and $ 100,000 today .
A methane leak detector that can be mounted on a drone is one of a number of projects being funded by the US Government as part of a research initiative to reduce the costs of the technology . The initiative from the Department of Energy 's Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy ( ARPA - E ) is called the Methane Observation Networks with Innovative Technology to Combat Reductions ( MONITOR ) programme . It is spending $ 30 m to fund 11 new projects , each of which will reach certain performance levels whilst reducing basic costs to just $ 3,000 per year per well site from between $ 75,000 and $ 100,000 today .