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NASA finds super-emitters of methane

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: NASA finds super-emitters of methane

#251

Post by chitowneats »

pasabagi wrote: post #164
chitowneats wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're off coal because they're on Russian natural gas. Until this winter, I suppose. Natural gas is a biproduct of oil and coal production.

Not really? Germany is a mid-range, slow-moving sort of country, and they get about 40% of their energy from renewables. They still get 30% of their energy from coal, but it's being fairly steadily phased out. Energy sources are fungible. Solar power is cheaper than coal in a lot of places, as is wind, and the US has a ton of natural gas to make up for the intermittency problem. I think you're mistaking a political p…

I think you're mistaking political problems for being implementation details that are easily fixed.

Versus the reality in which they are the hardest problems that exist for humanity at the current moment.

Russian gas is literally not replaceable by liquid natural gas, or any other energy source, as imports for most of Europe this winter.

It's theoretically fungible on an infinite time frame. We do not live in a theoretical universe.

Re: NASA finds super-emitters of methane

#252

Post by hotpotamus »

chrisco255 wrote: post #150
ljf wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoting here but; Methane has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere. Even though CO2 has a longer-lasting effect, methane sets the pace for warming in the near term. At least 25% of today's global warming is driven by methane from human actions.

What is meant by 25% of today's global warming? 25% from what baseline? From what median? From what time period?

I'd assume the previous 10,000 or so years wherein humans created civilization up to about 1980.

Re: NASA finds super-emitters of methane

#253

Post by Robotbeat »

To put this in perspective, the 18300kg per hour from the Permian site is equivalent (over a 100 time horizon global warming potential) to a 500 Megawatt coal power plant's CO2 emissions (~1kg of CO2 per kWh of electricity) burning 24/7. Or, to put it another way, it accounts for the same emissions as about 0.3% of the entire US electricity grid.

Re: NASA finds super-emitters of methane

#254

Post by thinkcontext »

whatshisface wrote: post #173
mturmon wrote: post #24

Several questions ask to contextualize this measurement. Here's a highly-cited paper in Nature (including some of the researchers quoted in the OP) that describes how an earlier survey of California methane emissions went: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1720-3 If I remember right, the state of CA asked for this survey. It was carried out by an instrument similar to that of the OP, but airborne, not on ISS…

Who are they selling them to, and how will they get out from the responsibility?

Bottom feeder companies that will squeeze some money out of them before declaring bankruptcy. Because of inadequate bonding requirements taxpayers will wind up footing the bill for cleanup.

Its deja vu all over again with the coal industry.

Re: NASA finds super-emitters of methane

#256

Post by orthecreedence »

spoonjim wrote: post #248

All of the emissions reductions in the US aren’t going to do anything if China keeps emitting at pace. We should not be doing anything unilaterally.

At least they're building fission plants. The US hasn't figured out that little hack yet, like it's some big mystery. Also, Chinese emissions wouldn't be so high if every other country hadn't offshored all their production to them.

Re: NASA finds super-emitters of methane

#257

Post by orthecreedence »

possiblelion wrote: post #45

So - looking at this it seems Turkmenistan [a repressive, North Korea style dictatorship] is destroying our climate system at an order of magnitude faster than anyone else. I'm well aware of the legacy that Iraq/Afghanistan have left in terms of international interventions into other countries; but if it is our common future on the balance, shouldn't we do something? Something more than just politely asking to stop?

What's the carbon cost of yet another idiotic hostile intervention?

Re: NASA finds super-emitters of methane

#258

Post by Schroedingersat »

derefr wrote: post #236
Schroedingersat wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

World Uranium production: 45,000T Natural Uranium required to start a 1GW nuclear reactor: 7500t New Net Renewable generation in US: 5GW (this is hilariously low. Compare 75GW in china) Cost per GW of nuclear: $10bn -- maybe half that without NIMBYS if we assume how much the military industrial complex charges for stuff is the sameas tye juclear industry. Us military budget: $750bn Proportion of US military budget to…

I think your key assumption here is wrong: uranium isn't fundamentally expensive. It's expensive because there isn't enough current demand for it to bring more uranium mines and enrichment facilities online. Uranium used to be cheaper (adjusted for inflation) per gram than it is now, because there used to be more of those facilities online than there are now. With increased demand, it would be cheaper again.

> Uranium used to be cheaper (adjusted for inflation) per gram than it is now, because there used to be more of those facilities online than there are now.

This is both false and entirely irrelevant. The costs are driven by capital (and require supply chains that don't exist) not fuel. Minerals get more expensive to extract after you extract the easy stuff. Building out 100s of GW of new nuclear would require extracting the stuff that costs several times more than present -- to the point where fuel costs would be equal to the LCOE of solar.

What is relevant is the entirety of world reserves are not enough to provide even US electricity + transport energy in PWRs. Loading 800GW of reactors uses almost all of it. Reprocessed MOX and what's left might buy you 20 years of operation. Mines take quite some time to come online so the pace of production of new nuclear would be small compared to even the torpid rate of US renewable production.

The PWR industry is nowhere near the scale of renewables, and it's impossible for it to get there.

If you want to blow a trillion more dollars on trying to make it happen, put it into liquid sodium FNR research. At least that kinda-sorta works. You'll be quite disappointed when you finally get a design that is safe and scalable and see the price tag though. And even if you do go all in it will take decades to breed enough fissile material to make a dent.

Re: NASA finds super-emitters of methane

#259

Post by thinkcontext »

pkaye wrote: post #9
omgJustTest wrote: post #5

Stupid question: How much is this actually contributing to climate change? Any climate scientists who make active predictions about how much we don't know?

According to the article, it lasts shorter time in the atmosphere compared to CO2. > Since methane only lasts in the atmosphere for about ten years, compared to the centuries that carbon dioxide sticks around, reducing methane emissions could contribute to slowing global warming sooner,

Scientists tend to talk about greenhouse gases' global warming potential (GWP). A common figure used for methane is it has the GWP 20x that of CO2 over 100 year period. This takes into account that the methane at first traps a lot of heat and then it breaks down to CO2 and traps less heat.

Another consideration is that as the concentration of methane in the atmosphere rises the rate at which it breaks down slows.

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