Image: Picarro
In the Green Inc. column I wrote for Monday’s New York Times and International Herald Tribune, I go hunting for greenhouse gases in the San Francisco Bay Area with Picarro, a Silicon Valley company that makes analyzers that measure CO2 and methane emissions in real-time:
SAN FRANCISCO — The recent Copenhagen climate talks faltered in part over how to verify that nations are actually reducing their carbon emissions. Likewise, the integrity of emissions trading markets, like the one under consideration by the U.S. Congress, will depend on the ability to accurately measure greenhouse gases.
That’s creating a burgeoning global business for Picarro, a Silicon Valley company that makes portable analyzers that take precise real-time measurements of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases. The machines also allow scientists to pinpoint the source of emissions.
To get a real-life demonstration of the machine’s potential to zero in on the source of carbon emissions, I went hunting for greenhouse gas emissions with Chris Rella, Picarro’s director of research and development.
Mr. Rella rolled up in a white Dodge Sprinter van and slid back a door to reveal a rack of Picarro analyzers connected to a video screen that was displaying the concentration of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, in the atmosphere around us.
A translucent tube connected to the analyzers snaked through the roof of the van to collect air samples, while a GPS device continuously tracked the van’s location and a wireless modem transmitted all the data back to the Picarro headquarters in Sunnyvale, California. It’s all very “Mission: Impossible.”
You can read the column here.
Green Wombat 
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