NASA Flew Gas Detectors Above California, Found ‘Super Emitters’ • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by NeedMoreTea » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 9:03 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #150

cameronh90 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another argument for a comprehensive GHG emissions tax...

Taxes aren’t the solution to everything. Just causing prices to rise has a lot on unintended consequences. If you raise taxes on a bakery and it has to shut down, you just lost jobs as well as a source of bread, this making bread more expensive which hits hard for those people that now no longer have jobs. If you eliminated all gasoline cars tomorrow, there isn’t enough infrastructure to support electrics. When cars…

> If you eliminated all gasoline cars tomorrow...

A carbon tax would not eliminate all petrol cars tomorrow, would it? It would increase the price of fuel, which would encourage some to make their next vehicle an EV in place of ICE. It would inevitably encourage cities and petrol stations to add EV infrastructure too.

Not entirely sure how the US taxes vehicles, but personally I would put some combination of fuel (carbon) tax, increasing monthly well in excess of inflation and a vehicle tax that cost some combination of vehicle weight and emissions. The combination effect of which would be to discourage ICE, pickups and 4x4s whilst encouraging smaller EVs.

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

#152

Post by briandear » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 9:06 PM UTC

hanniabu wrote: post #90

punnerud wrote: post #78

In Norway we place plastic over the (food) landfill, gather the methane and use it for electricity production. When there is no more methane the same landfill is used as soil for food production.

That's a great idea, but also requires an organized garbage collection system where items are separated at the source (consumer). Unfortunately the US doesn't have such a system in place, which is partially a social issue.

We have sort at the source in Mountain View, CA and across the Bay Area. I don’t personally care about going into great detail separating minutiae. I have better things to do. Recology (the company that handles waste for much of the Bay Area,) has a billion dollars in revenue and a no-bid contract with San Francisco, let them figure it out. They make a profit that’s twice the industry average and as an ESOP, they avoid most corporate income taxes. The president of Recology even said that competitive bidding would put him out of business. I dutifully put my plastics and cardboard into the correct bin, but I’m not going to go out of my way to help some private company making money hand over fist with a corrupt sweetheart deal with the city: a no-bid, no franchise fee deal with San Francisco in perpetuity. They want the money, they can sort the f!$@ing garbage.

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/10/us/10bcstevens.html?_r=0

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

#153

Post by cptskippy » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 9:06 PM UTC

jws wrote: post #83

lukifer wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only recently learned the history of "anti-littering" marketing campaigns [0], conceived to push responsibility for waste onto consumers rather than producers, who were switching from metals and glass to much cheaper (but no longer reusable) plastics. Whatever individuals can do to reduce inefficiency and carbon footprint is surely a good thing; but it's no replacement for systems thinking, and applying incentives…

There is a narrative developing about the anti-littering marketing campaigns which I think tries to paint it as a cynical ploy by businesses. Just to frame things as someone alive at the time in one part of America… single serving glass bottles were not returned to the store, they had no deposit. They were thrown away. Beer cans had no deposit. They were thrown away. (Steel soda cans weren't a thing, they stayed in b…

I think you misunderstood what the op said. They weren't saying that littering wasn't a thing, but rather the narrative around litter is that it is solely the responsibility of the consumer.

This article talks a little more about what I think the op was speaking to: https://theintercept.com/2019/10/18/coca-cola-recycling-plas...

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

#154

Post by NeedMoreTea » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 9:06 PM UTC

samcheng wrote: post #97

hanniabu wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a great idea, but also requires an organized garbage collection system where items are separated at the source (consumer). Unfortunately the US doesn't have such a system in place, which is partially a social issue.

It's very common in the bay area to put biodegradable compost (paper towels, food waste, pumpkins, etc.) into the third green bin, along with the yard waste. The other two bins are for recycling and other garbage. It's not very difficult to segregate compostables, and I'm confident the rest of the US will catch up soon.

The UK came up with an even more ridiculous system. Many regions were nicely moving to a system with separated organic waste - kitchen scraps, garden waste and so on, which were composted. Tory party austerity meant many regions have subsequently scrapped, or charge homeowners for the organic waste collection.

Overall result is many homeowners now have a plastic wheelie bin they never use any more, and organic waste goes in the landfill bin. Putting us in a worse place than before we started.

Tory party is busy promoting how environmental they are in their electioneering ...

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

#155

Post by SirLuxuryYacht » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 9:10 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #134

tastyfreeze wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds very efficient. In the US organic and non-organic "kitchen" waste is often combined. While it is becoming more common to separate compostable materials from others it is still more of an exception. Many landfills do harvest methane from the combined heap of trash. However, after methane production ends we are still left with compost with tons of plastic.

You can think of the plastic as sequestered carbon!

Sure, if you forget the fact that it used to be much much more "sequestered" before we spent energy extracting those hydrocarbons. Not to mention that the plastic will eventually erode into the oceans since it isn't buried deep enough. Kinda like a time release pill, except for microplastic pollution.

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

#156

Post by jashkenas » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 9:32 PM UTC

Here’s a quick and dirty notebook that uses NASA’s published data to visualize where the ‘Super Emitters’ are located around California:

https://observablehq.com/@jashkenas/californias-methane-supe...

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

#157

Post by dubyah » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 9:37 PM UTC

punnerud wrote: post #78

In Norway we place plastic over the (food) landfill, gather the methane and use it for electricity production. When there is no more methane the same landfill is used as soil for food production.

Landfill gas to power used to be more prevalent, but an AQMD rule change to reduce NOx made them switch to flaring instead because it couldn't compete against subsidized renewables.

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-methane-gas-co...

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

#158

Post by bravo22 » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 9:59 PM UTC

sergiosgc wrote: post #84

bravo22 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it can be reduced, my point was that it is directly tied to consumer demand and human activity. It will still be a none-zero number after reduction. No business is out there emitting methane for shits and giggles. As I said elsewhere in this post, you can cut emission but population growth offsets all the benefits. You cannot address climate change without drastic long term reduction in human activity/po…

> You cannot address climate change without drastic long term reduction in human activity/population. Of course you can. You must change activities to be carbon neutral, but you can maintain the same level of comfort you have today. More than "can maintain", you "must". If you rely on sacrifice from the whole planetary population in order to tackle climate change, we are doomed. It will never happen, as it goes again…

Carbon neutrality is a necessity, as is population reduction. I am not advocating for one over the other. Either alone will not work, not short term certainly not long term.

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

#159

Post by soperj » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 10:00 PM UTC

sirsar wrote: post #132

soperj wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something I've always wondered (being someone who is heavily into compost), since the byproduct of aerobic decomposition is CO2, which is actually worse? Aerobic, or Anaerobic? Both produce GHGs, Methane is the worse one, but obviously if it was produced in smaller quantities then it would be more beneficial. Also what lasts longer in the atmosphere? CO2 or Methane?

Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas, and it naturally degrades into CO2 in the atmosphere. Burning methane it on the ground, even not for energy, helps mitigate the warming effect, because it is that much more potent than CO2.

I get that it's more potent, i wrote that in my comment. But if composting aerobically releases 50 times more CO2 than composting anaerobically does methane, then composting anaerobically is the better option.

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

#160

Post by bravo22 » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 10:02 PM UTC

BowBun wrote: post #80

bravo22 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it can be reduced, my point was that it is directly tied to consumer demand and human activity. It will still be a none-zero number after reduction. No business is out there emitting methane for shits and giggles. As I said elsewhere in this post, you can cut emission but population growth offsets all the benefits. You cannot address climate change without drastic long term reduction in human activity/po…

> You cannot address climate change without drastic long term reduction in human activity/population. Completely disagree. Reducing waste, recycling waste, and re-using waste are some of the ways to address climate change. Saying modifying human activity/population is the only way to solve a problem is as extreme as saying climate change isn't real. > No business is out there emitting methane for shits and giggles. N…

We're beyond incentives. We need taxation, aka carbon tax.

My point was that the "capitalist" is not running that production line in isolation, it is the end consumer demand that drives that pipeline. So yes consumer demand is the ultimate source of all this.

Carbon tax is but a first step but it is necessary as it will force the actors to take action. As you correctly pointed out they have no "incentive" to do so right now.