Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 175 posts

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#101

Post by ComputerGuru »

We’ve mainly been focused on carbon sequestration directly aimed at capturing atmospheric CO2, but ton-for-ton, methane isn’t significantly worse for climate change. I’m not aware of any ongoing (research, even) efforts for sequestering methane, does anyone know?

(As opposed to research into reductions which is also An extremely worthy cause (better to prevent 1 ton of methane than to sequester anywhere from 20 to 80 tons of CO2), although it seems no one is interested in any follow through. We’ve pretty much definitively identified a fairly low cost path forward to significantly reduce worldwide methane outputs related to food production by simply tweaking bovine diets, but it seems no one cares to actually implement it.)

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#102

Post by jbattle »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #101

We’ve mainly been focused on carbon sequestration directly aimed at capturing atmospheric CO2, but ton-for-ton, methane isn’t significantly worse for climate change. I’m not aware of any ongoing (research, even) efforts for sequestering methane, does anyone know? (As opposed to research into reductions which is also An extremely worthy cause (better to prevent 1 ton of methane than to sequester anywhere from 20 to 80…

From what I can tell, methane has an atmospheric PPM of ~2 (compared to 400++ for CO2). The lower concentration, and the fact that methane generation is very diffuse presumably makes sequestration Hard.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#103

Post by GVIrish »

MiroF wrote: post #19
caconym_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do we need more evidence to act? What are we waiting for? We're waiting for a reversal in the apparent worldwide collapse of liberal democracy, I guess. Probably climate change and said collapse will feed into each other. The way most oligarchs and their toadies are wired, I think they're more likely to look to pull the ripcord for themselves rather than spend big on best-effort change for everyone else. Dismantlin…

Your mistake is assuming that democratic consensus will spur the kind of action we really need. Once voters realize that this would take personal cost for benefits they won't see in their lifetime, I can't see them willfully voting for any substantial reversal.

> Once voters realize that this would take personal cost for benefits they won't see in their lifetime, I can't see them willfully voting for any substantial reversal.

Luckily renewable energy is getting to the point where it actually saves money over fossil fuel based energy. People might be loathe to move to electric or fuel cell vehicles, but costs are coming down there too, not to mention that many governments are banning ICE vehicles anyway. So the costs of shifting may not be that bad, and people will be able to realize some cost savings.

Right now we're at a point in history where shifting to a carbon neutral economy will be uncomfortable in some ways, but not horribly painful.

But the longer we wait, the more likely it is that we'll experience a lot of pain from climate change consequences. And the climate change will destroy a tremendous amount of wealth, cause massive refugee crises, and cause massive drops in food supplies. When those things happen it's going to much harder to make the shifts to clean energy because many will just be worried about surviving disruption in the short term.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#104

Post by yifanl »

alkibiades wrote: post #53
tom_wilde wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about their children and their children's children and ... (you get the idea) It s a bit myopic no?

1. you really don’t think in 100 years we’ll have better technology? look where we were 100 years ago. 2. once again it seems like they’ll just adapt as humans always have. my point is this apocalyptic behavior by activists is counter productive and offputting. it means we can’t have a reasonable discussion about solutions and trade offs because “the world is ending in 12 years”. this led to me just giving up because…

That's putting the cart before the horse. If we're here in 100 years then of course we'll have solved the problem... but we're not going to here in 100 years if we just decided it'd be solved in 100 years.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#105

Post by marcosdumay »

asah wrote: post #57
orbifold wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One technology is called “TREES”, actually scratch that a more advanced version is called “RAINFOREST” (that one sequesters far more CO2 per square meter than TREES alone). Unfortunately people have cut down a significant portion of both TREES and RAINFOREST because they are economically incentivized to do so.

JFYI this "tree" technology of which you speak, can only be deployed at the earth's surface. AFAICT, OP was asking about upper atmosphere, which doesn't mix much with the lower atmosphere. Perhaps trees plus some way to mix the atmosphere? Also, I believe we were talking about methane - and while these nifty "tree" things appear to sequester CO2, I believe these produce some amount of methane. Again, perhaps pair Tre…

The thing missing from upper atmosphere that destroys methane is water. Unfortunately, it's a greenhouse gas too, and relatively long-lived there too.

It's very likely best to focus in CO2 and let CH4 follow its short lived natural course.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#106

Post by ComputerGuru »

jbattle wrote: post #102
ComputerGuru wrote: post #101

We’ve mainly been focused on carbon sequestration directly aimed at capturing atmospheric CO2, but ton-for-ton, methane isn’t significantly worse for climate change. I’m not aware of any ongoing (research, even) efforts for sequestering methane, does anyone know? (As opposed to research into reductions which is also An extremely worthy cause (better to prevent 1 ton of methane than to sequester anywhere from 20 to 80…

From what I can tell, methane has an atmospheric PPM of ~2 (compared to 400++ for CO2). The lower concentration, and the fact that methane generation is very diffuse presumably makes sequestration Hard.

Yes, when measured at surface levels, but I believe that, unlike CO2, methane is extremely concentrated within a region of the stratosphere (being significantly lighter than CO2 and O2); it’s not hard to imagine strategically placed sequestration “facilities” being able to get to it better. But I’m on my phone and it’s hard to find out what the max ppm at the elevations it is most concentrated at are.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane#/media/F...

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#107

Post by caconym_ »

transreal wrote: post #78
Mikeb85 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm in Alberta, Canada, and I guarantee 95% of voters here would choose increasing oil production vs. any sort of climate action. We just had a pretty bad recession, our unemployment is still above typical levels, and we just had an unseasonably cold summer after a pretty cold winter. It's not an issue of being brainwashed, people really do prefer having jobs and homes over climate targets to fix a problem that…

This is why I really like Andrew Yang for 2020. He wants to give everyone in the US $1000/month so people don't constantly have "the economic boot on their neck". You can't worry about climate change when you are worried about paying bills and feeding your kids.

Basic income also means citizens can't be held as economic hostages by obsolete "too big to fail" industry players who've achieved significant regulatory capture. The labor market can't efficiently shift supply around when workers are trapped in crushing poverty and stressed to the breaking point.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#109

Post by vonmoltke »

GVIrish wrote: post #103
MiroF wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mistake is assuming that democratic consensus will spur the kind of action we really need. Once voters realize that this would take personal cost for benefits they won't see in their lifetime, I can't see them willfully voting for any substantial reversal.

> Once voters realize that this would take personal cost for benefits they won't see in their lifetime, I can't see them willfully voting for any substantial reversal. Luckily renewable energy is getting to the point where it actually saves money over fossil fuel based energy. People might be loathe to move to electric or fuel cell vehicles, but costs are coming down there too, not to mention that many governments ar…

> many governments are banning ICE vehicles anyway

I'm going to hold off on giving these governments credit until one of these bans actually goes into effect. Even the most aggressive of the measures that has passed still has a decade in which to be weakened, delayed, or reversed.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#110

Post by pohl »

MiroF wrote: post #19
caconym_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do we need more evidence to act? What are we waiting for? We're waiting for a reversal in the apparent worldwide collapse of liberal democracy, I guess. Probably climate change and said collapse will feed into each other. The way most oligarchs and their toadies are wired, I think they're more likely to look to pull the ripcord for themselves rather than spend big on best-effort change for everyone else. Dismantlin…

Your mistake is assuming that democratic consensus will spur the kind of action we really need. Once voters realize that this would take personal cost for benefits they won't see in their lifetime, I can't see them willfully voting for any substantial reversal.

I don’t think it’s a mistake, but a prerequisite. Oligarchs and autocrats only have their own interests in mind.
Post reply on HN