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Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

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Re: Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

#91

Post by scq »

CrazyStat wrote: post #80
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested in a quantitative analysis here. Methane is much worse, but sunlight has broken most of it down after a decade or so. CO2 is comparatively forever. Presumably there's a point where the lines cross and leaking green methane is still a win. I guess it just comes down to where those lines cross and whether we deem that an acceptable goal.

Sunlight breaks methane down into CO2, so I don’t think there’s much of a win there.

Of course there is. CO2 and methane are not equally bad, methane is about 100x worse initially. After about 60-70 years the lines cross and the impact of a tonne of methane released is less than a tonne of CO2 released at the same date.

Re: Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

#92

Post by mkobit »

kartoffelmos wrote: post #37

How will this address methane leakage, which is a substantial source of athmospheric greenhouse gas emissions? Converting Co2 to methane is not carbon neutral if/when leaked...

I've been watching a YouTube channel named Climate Town that recently did a video talking about natural gas, and leakage was a focus point in the video. It's like a documentary-style comedy channel, and I quite enjoy both the content and the format. It reminds me a bit of Jon Stewart and John Oliver.

Video link: https://youtu.be/K2oL4SFwkkw

Re: Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

#93

Post by bamboozled »

tombert wrote: post #51
kartoffelmos wrote: post #37

How will this address methane leakage, which is a substantial source of athmospheric greenhouse gas emissions? Converting Co2 to methane is not carbon neutral if/when leaked...

You beat me to it, because I was going to say the same thing; wouldn't it only be carbon neutral if you had some means of guaranteeing that there's no leaks? It seems like converting CO2 to methane could actually make things worse...

If we're converting CO₂ that already exists in the atmosphere, how could it make things worse?

Isn't problem making new CO₂ from burning fossil fuels, not converting existing Co2 into other things?

Re: Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

#94

Post by tgtweak »

tombert wrote: post #51
kartoffelmos wrote: post #37

How will this address methane leakage, which is a substantial source of athmospheric greenhouse gas emissions? Converting Co2 to methane is not carbon neutral if/when leaked...

You beat me to it, because I was going to say the same thing; wouldn't it only be carbon neutral if you had some means of guaranteeing that there's no leaks? It seems like converting CO2 to methane could actually make things worse...

Even if it all leaks out, you're still back at 0 essentially.

Re: Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

#95

Post by api »

tombert wrote: post #51
kartoffelmos wrote: post #37

How will this address methane leakage, which is a substantial source of athmospheric greenhouse gas emissions? Converting Co2 to methane is not carbon neutral if/when leaked...

You beat me to it, because I was going to say the same thing; wouldn't it only be carbon neutral if you had some means of guaranteeing that there's no leaks? It seems like converting CO2 to methane could actually make things worse...

Methane has a much shorter atmospheric half life than CO2-- years as opposed to millennia. It does end up getting oxidized into CO2 and H2O, just not nearly as quickly as when it's burned.

Leaks would happen to a small degree, but since a leak represents money drifting away there's a strong incentive to fix them. Methane leaks of any size are fairly easy to detect. There's been an effort to put up satellites for this purpose.

If using this technology helps us to phase out fossil fuels, it would be a huge net win. This could effectively let us repurpose all our existing natural gas storage, transport, and generation infrastructure into a battery to store surplus renewable or off-peak nuclear energy.

This could also allow renewable energy to be shipped as LNG, allowing the gigantic amounts of solar power in places like the Sahara to be harnessed and exported. The only other way to do this is extremely long distance superconducting or incredibly high voltage transmission lines that would probably be more expensive and very vulnerable.

Re: Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

#97

Post by michael1999 »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #38

What are some applications where its worth taking the highest grade energy (electricity) and turning it into a lower grade (eg liquid fuels), rather than electrifying the application? Electricity to motion is significantly more efficient per input energy than burning fuel->heat-> gaseous expansion->drive a piston->convert to rotation chain. What am I missing about this?

- heating a zillion legacy homes using existing gas pipelines

- running all the existing fertilizer and other chemical plants

- gas peakers/backups for resiliency. Gas storage is much cheaper than batteries.

Even if all new construction is electric, we have decades of infrastructure built around gas. Replacing the furnace in every German house with a heat pump just isn't going to happen in 10 years.

Re: Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

#98

Post by jtsiskin »

bamboozled wrote: post #93
tombert wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You beat me to it, because I was going to say the same thing; wouldn't it only be carbon neutral if you had some means of guaranteeing that there's no leaks? It seems like converting CO2 to methane could actually make things worse...

If we're converting CO₂ that already exists in the atmosphere, how could it make things worse? Isn't problem making new CO₂ from burning fossil fuels, not converting existing Co2 into other things?

Yes if you're considering the terms 'carbon neutral' at face value; but in terms of global warming, methane traps a lot more heat per carbon atom

Re: Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

#99

Post by marcosdumay »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #6
playingalong wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Terraform stinks" seems to match both.

> "Terraform stinks" seems to match both. As compared to what, IaC-wise?

Looks like a bad joke made by somebody confused about the composition of farts.

Re: Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

#100

Post by _Microft »

tgtweak wrote: post #81
joe_the_user wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks good. I wish their headline was "natural gas from solar power" 'cause many things labeled "carbon neutral" wind-up being conventional petrochemicals plus some worthless "offsets" baloney.

In theory you can use any power source - hydroelectric, geothermal, nuclear, wind - but the benefit to solar is that you can fully utilize it when the sun is shining and store the output (compressed natural gas) for storage, transportation and use off-hours. You could also technically use this as a grid-battery, taking in excess grid energy when it is cheap and converting it into natural gas that can be run back thro…

> On that same note though - in some free and open energy markets it is not unheard of to buy at $200/mWh at peak on-demand - plenty of margin for arbitrage there - as the tesla megapack facilities have demonstrated in Australia. In comparison a 4mWh megapack facility (2MW in/2MW out) is priced at $1.9M before installation [2]

m means milli, M is mega.

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