3 ms·

>100,000 tons of methane with a half life of less than 10 years. The math is complex and 1 ton of methane becomes more than one ton of CO2, You are downplaying

by opo 10y ago

>100,000 tons of methane with a half life of less than 10 years. The math is complex and 1 ton of methane becomes more than one ton of CO2, You are downplaying the impact of methane. As I quoted in the last post, the IPCC estimate is that over 100 years a given amount of methane is 34 times more potent as a heat-trapping gas compared to CO2. Over a 20 year period (which is probably more relevant considering where we are in climate change) methane is 86 times more potent. >...but the actual long term impact is fairly minimal vs the savings from not using Coal. That's the problem - there is enough methane being released by our new reliance on natural gas there is concern that we may be having just as much of an impact on climate change as if we went and burned coal. >...Remember that's ~100,000 tons / ~10,000,000,000 tons = 1/100,000 so yea methane is bad, but in this context it's 0.001% so it's still a rounding error even if it's 100 times that bad. The problem is that EVERY natural gas well, storage facility and pipeline leaks methane. This was just the largest one. As I quoted in the last post, "...Back in August, a NOAA-led study measured a stunning 6% to 12% methane leakage over one of the country’s largest gas fields — which would gut the climate benefits of switching from coal to gas." >... But, if we got to the point where peaking power from gas makes up ~10% of total electricity supply and the rest of that is renewable power then we will have made massive progress. Yea no kidding - 90% power from intermittent sources would be pretty remarkable. The problem is that 90% power from intermittent sources won't be possible unless there are major advances in grid storage technologies. In terms of having to use natural gas, nuclear power plants in France and in Germany operate in load-following mode, so there is no reason this can't be done elsewhere. Minimizing our use of natural gas when when you consider the climate changing negative externalities of natural gas, would be a good thing.

Retric 10y ago
That's just lying with numbers. 86 / 5 = 17.5 so average from year 20 to year 100 is 34 - 17.5 = 16.5x. And again the majority of that 16.5 is over years 20-40. Further, because of this decay increases in release rate don't stack at 86x year over year. You get a magnified increase in the first year and a smaller net increase every year after that until your down to the carbon content of methane. Under 10% total gen from peaking power is viable with over production of wind and solar and zero grid storage. It's not going to be 10% 24/7 but 0 most of the day, regular generation at part of the day, and rare spikes up to 50%. You can drop that under 5% with moderate grid storage of around 1h average demand, but you start needing vastly more storage the lower you want to take that number.
- Retric 10y ago
  Ed: Make that 5/4 * 16.5x or 20.6 However, again it becomes more than 1 CO2 by weight because the 2 O's in CO2 make up a larger fraction of total weight than 4 H's.
- opo 10y ago
  >That's just lying with numbers. No, those numbers are from the IPCC which represents the mainstream consensus. Take it up with them if you think you are right and they are wrong. Using the 20 years number is reasonable considering how far along we are in climate change. As the IPCC report states: "There is no scientific argument for selecting 100 years compared with other choices (Fuglestvedt et al., 2003; Shine, 2009). The choice of time horizon is a value judgement since it depends on the relative weight assigned to effects at different times." >...Under 10% total gen from peaking power is viable with over production of wind and solar and zero grid storage. Yea I hear advocates make such claims all the time. Unfortunately I never hear the same thing from people who actually run a major utility. We might get there someday, but for now I have to agree with Gates: "...What they mean is that at noon in Arizona, the cost of that kilowatt-hour is the same as a hydrocarbon kilowatt-hour. But it doesn’t come at night, it doesn’t come after the sun hasn’t shone, so the fact that in that one moment you reach parity, so what? The reading public, when they see things like that, they underestimate how hard this thing is. So false solutions like divestment or “Oh, it’s easy to do” hurt our ability to fix the problems. Distinguishing a real solution from a false solution is actually very complicated."

by opo 10y ago

Retric 10y ago

That's just lying with numbers. 86 / 5 = 17.5 so average from year 20 to year 100 is 34 - 17.5 = 16.5x. And again the majority of that 16.5 is over years 20-40. Further, because of this decay increases in release rate don't stack at 86x year over year. You get a magnified increase in the first year and a smaller net increase every year after that until your down to the carbon content of methane. Under 10% total gen from peaking power is viable with over production of wind and solar and zero grid storage. It's not going to be 10% 24/7 but 0 most of the day, regular generation at part of the day, and rare spikes up to 50%. You can drop that under 5% with moderate grid storage of around 1h average demand, but you start needing vastly more storage the lower you want to take that number.

Retric 10y ago
Ed: Make that 5/4 * 16.5x or 20.6 However, again it becomes more than 1 CO2 by weight because the 2 O's in CO2 make up a larger fraction of total weight than 4 H's.
opo 10y ago
>That's just lying with numbers. No, those numbers are from the IPCC which represents the mainstream consensus. Take it up with them if you think you are right and they are wrong. Using the 20 years number is reasonable considering how far along we are in climate change. As the IPCC report states: "There is no scientific argument for selecting 100 years compared with other choices (Fuglestvedt et al., 2003; Shine, 2009). The choice of time horizon is a value judgement since it depends on the relative weight assigned to effects at different times." >...Under 10% total gen from peaking power is viable with over production of wind and solar and zero grid storage. Yea I hear advocates make such claims all the time. Unfortunately I never hear the same thing from people who actually run a major utility. We might get there someday, but for now I have to agree with Gates: "...What they mean is that at noon in Arizona, the cost of that kilowatt-hour is the same as a hydrocarbon kilowatt-hour. But it doesn’t come at night, it doesn’t come after the sun hasn’t shone, so the fact that in that one moment you reach parity, so what? The reading public, when they see things like that, they underestimate how hard this thing is. So false solutions like divestment or “Oh, it’s easy to do” hurt our ability to fix the problems. Distinguishing a real solution from a false solution is actually very complicated."