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NASA Flew Gas Detectors Above California, Found ‘Super Emitters’

bloomberg.com

31–40 of 196 posts

Re: NASA Flew Gas Detectors Above California, Found ‘Super Emitters’

#31

272,000 sites surveyed. 0.2% of the sites account for 46% of emissions. 272,000 sites * 0.002 = 544 sites. 544 sites account for 46% of the state's emissions. Yet the article states, "A handful of operations are responsible for the vast majority of methane emissions."

> 0.2% of the sites account for 46% of emissions.

Sounds like "a handful" to me. In as much as a metaphorical measurement can be accurate..

Re: NASA Flew Gas Detectors Above California, Found ‘Super Emitters’

#32
post #31

272,000 sites surveyed. 0.2% of the sites account for 46% of emissions. 272,000 sites * 0.002 = 544 sites. 544 sites account for 46% of the state's emissions. Yet the article states, "A handful of operations are responsible for the vast majority of methane emissions."

> 0.2% of the sites account for 46% of emissions. Sounds like "a handful" to me. In as much as a metaphorical measurement can be accurate..

I think the issue is with using "vast majority" to mean "46%".

Extremely disproportionate, but not a vast majority.

Re: NASA Flew Gas Detectors Above California, Found ‘Super Emitters’

#33
post #13

So what can be done about landfills? Burying stuff seems expensive/energy intensive.

It's not that much. People do landfills all over the world without much economic impact.

And you can recover the methane from them, what requires a small investment, and has a low, but positive ROI.

Re: NASA Flew Gas Detectors Above California, Found ‘Super Emitters’

#34
post #2

The most interesting sentence isn't the headline, but rather: > Landfills accounted for 41% of the source emissions it identified, manure management 26% and oil and gas operations 26%. i.e. perhaps the best reason to recycle or compost is to avoid the methane emissions from natural decomposition.

Compost IS natural decomposition, my dude.

Re: NASA Flew Gas Detectors Above California, Found ‘Super Emitters’

#37
post #2

The most interesting sentence isn't the headline, but rather: > Landfills accounted for 41% of the source emissions it identified, manure management 26% and oil and gas operations 26%. i.e. perhaps the best reason to recycle or compost is to avoid the methane emissions from natural decomposition.

Compost IS natural decomposition, my dude.

sure, but at least the compost doesn’t go to waste :)

Re: NASA Flew Gas Detectors Above California, Found ‘Super Emitters’

#38
post #13

So what can be done about landfills? Burying stuff seems expensive/energy intensive.

Many landfills [0] now recover the methane, and treat it, or burn it in generators to create power. They can sell the power, and change the methane to carbon dioxide (which is less of a greenhouse gas)

In Madison, WI, [1] they create enough power to offset all the energy the county operations use, plus create CNG for their heavy equipment at the landfill to run on.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfill_gas_utilization

[1] https://isthmus.com/news/news/dane-county-might-sell-the-met...

Re: NASA Flew Gas Detectors Above California, Found ‘Super Emitters’

#39
post #2

The most interesting sentence isn't the headline, but rather: > Landfills accounted for 41% of the source emissions it identified, manure management 26% and oil and gas operations 26%. i.e. perhaps the best reason to recycle or compost is to avoid the methane emissions from natural decomposition.

Compost IS natural decomposition, my dude.

A composting operation could potentially capture its gasses though, compared to landfills.

Re: NASA Flew Gas Detectors Above California, Found ‘Super Emitters’

#40

Some very smart friends of mine do this with airplanes to find leaks in natural gas plants and pipelines: http://kairosaerospace.com/

This project is also using aircraft: https://avirisng.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html

Yes, AVIRIS is the instrument that was used to take the data for that paper. Same group.
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