Let's say I have free time on my hands. How could I maximally remove methane from the atmosphere?
Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout
191–200 of 244 posts
Re: Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
>In Massachusetts, Lost and Unaccounted for Gas (LAUG) is estimated per mile of pipe, rather than evaluated by regulators or even industry. It is a simple multiplication problem with little bearing on reality Isn't both ends of a pipe metered? Even if not every pope is metered, at the very least there should be metering at the point of bulk purchase (eg. from a LNG ship) to the end user (gas meter at a home). How har…
Measurement error in gas networks can be 15% of volume, so not precise enough for this work.
When accurate metering is called for we have the tech to do it just fine to far less than <1% error. This is a classic case where regulation is required. Rational capitalist enterprise is not going to fix this on their own. They don't currently have the right incentives.
Re: Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout
#193Is carbon the Great filter?
Maybe on Venus. I've read a convincing case that Venus can never be terraformed, simply because there is too damned much carbon.
Re: Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article was written in 2019 before a number of extraordinarily significant events with major climate policy impacts: - a noticeable and rapid dip in emissions has proven to be viable due to COVID lockdowns - Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced Europe and the US to accelerate plans to diversify energy generation away from natural gas - China’s insanely rapid growth in green energy production domestically It seems…
2023 is 37.4, which is a fair increase on 2019. More importantly the chart that matters is total CO2 in atmosphere. You can't even see 2020 on here. That was a one off 5% decrease. Imagine if you had $1,000,0000 in your bank account and were spending $100,000 per year, except one year you spent $95,000. That's 2020. This methane news is on top of CO2 as it has its own added impact. Proper optimism that we can do it f…
Interesting - thanks for the CO2 concentration link. I am curious what prior to 2019 looked like (eg: if it was a comparable size, yet dipped in 2019-2021) and is back to normal.
Re: Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only time will tell. But the things to do to try to avert looming disaster are the same things to do to be a better person in times of no crisis. Be kind and loving, develop compassion. That's pretty much it. The point is not to make it or not. Entropy is the enemy and it will win in the end. So what? No one here gets out alive. The point is to be a better person, to help others, to make things better. If we are goin…
> The point is not to make it or not. I fundamentally and vociferously disagree. The point is to ensure sapience and intelligence survive the heat death of the universe.
I'm sympathetic to your view, but I feel you're talking science-fiction or perhaps religion. By definition the Heat Death means there's nothing left to be the substrate for sapience and intelligence, eh? (If you like to discuss metaphysics I'm game.)
Anyway, intelligence without love is less than pointless.
Re: Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
CO2 is a red herring, yes it matters but it's only one thing in a long list of things our lifestyle impacts https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/09/death-by-hockey-sticks/ . Regarding energy transitions and carbon capture: > Energy transition aspirations are similar. The goal is powering modernity, not addressing the sixth mass extinction. Sure, it could mitigate the CO2 threat (to modernity), but why does the fox care wh…
That’s significantly moving the goal post. Yes, it’s a given that biodiversity will take a hit for a pretty long time due to human activity but frankly, so what? I personally care more about avoiding millions dying of starvation but you do you. I understand that said millions being mostly in Nigeria and India make some in the west care less about them that cute animals, but still.
This attitude towards other life sucks ass.
Re: Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wrote about why saying it's their fault and not ours is not admitting our own fault is... bullshit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41015413 > that middle class is going to want to enjoy the spoils of materialistic consumerism (the true root cause of human-induced climate change) just as much as our grandparents did, our parents did, and we do. The last 3 words is key there. WE also don't want to give up those…
>But hey, it's not happening in our country, so we're fine? No, but even if the US and Western Europe went net zero, that's still not enough to offset global GHG emissions coming out of China to prevent catastrophic climate change. If you, a wealthy westerner, want to tell billions of people in China to stop enjoying middle class luxuries for the first time because it's bad for the environment, be my guest. I have no…
> No, but even if the US and Western Europe went net zero, that's still not enough to offset global GHG emissions coming out of China to prevent catastrophic climate change.
Show me the math/source, if you want to claim this, please. US and W. Europe outsource their emissions because they buy their electronics and clothes from e.g. China and Bangladesh. What is a US/WE net zero? They stop buying Chinese product, and China stops producing them for US/WE?
Re: Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
>China and India emit significantly less CO2 per capita Which would be great if CO2's heat trapping properties depended on the per capita emissions of their nation of origin. Unfortunately CO2 molecules don't know where they came from and can't adjust their heat trapping properties accordingly, and instead it's about absolute amounts as ppm of the atmosphere. But there's a silver lining for China and India - which is…
Just no. In terms of bang for buck it's easier to reduce emissions in rich countries with high emissions per capita. Unless by "buck" you mean the number of decisions that need to be made, but that's hardly the limiting factor. Country sizes are arbitrary. With your logic if China was to split into a bunch of smaller nations their emissions wouldn't matter any more? Per-capita emissions is the only reasonable way to…
If the Earth's population was 1 billion, 10 billion, or 100 billion, but the emissions were the same, in each of those cases we would be cooked to death by our own atmosphere. Even though they have wildly different per capita emissions.
Or to put it a different way, if all I knew were the parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere, and all you knew were per capita consumption figures, I would know when the atmosphere was truly cooked and you wouldn't.
Re: Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Government owning the utility would be the answer. But politicians like to have a 3rd party to blame for price hikes and poor service .
I’m unconvinced that a change to new management, government-run or not, would automatically get technically competent people hired and give them the decision-making power to do things right. Sure, it might, but it’s hardly guaranteed.
I think a lot of this boils down to the fact that you can make large multiples of the amount you'd make working on this kind of thing by working on something relatively non-productive like finance, consulting, adtech, etc. A large percentage of my engineering class went into one of those. One of the smartest guys I knew there, who studied nuclear engineering, now does healthcare private equity.
The incentives are all messed up. We should do some combination of making these jobs more attractive and making those relatively extractive jobs less attractive.
Re: Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
They collectively still emit substantially more than the US and Western Europe, and much more importantly, GHG emissions have been declining in the US and Western Europe for over two decades. In that same time period, they have done nothing but grow rapidly in China and India. All the information we have so far suggests that India will continue to grow rapidly in this regard even after China plateaus on carbon emissi…
> We can play semantic games with per-capita consumption, but the fact of the matter remains that even if the entirety of the planet, except China and India, went 100% carbon neutral overnight, it would still be impossible to avoid hitting catastrophic climate change thresholds due to GHG emissions from those two countries alone. Of all the countries China is doing the most to curb its emissions. > Global annual rene…
>Of all the countries China is doing the most to curb its emissions.
China "doing the most" to curb emissions is perfectly compatible with them "doing the most" of the actual emissions. At high enough scales, no matter what you're doing, you'll be doing "the most" of it, in both directions.
What matters at the end of the day is emissions in absolute terms.