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NASA Flew Gas Detectors Above California, Found ‘Super Emitters’
- azernik 7y agoThe most interesting sentence isn't the headline, but rather: > Landfills accounted for 41% of the source emissions it identified, manure management 26% and oil and gas operations 26%. i.e. perhaps the best reason to recycle or compost is to avoid the methane emissions from natural decomposition.
- vlahmot 7y agoWouldn’t composting have the same issue as tossing it in the dump though?
- new_realist 7y agoLandfills are actually better, in that in many cases commercial operators can recover the gas and turn it into renewable fuel.
- joshvm 7y agoThere are now a few startups trying to make home/DIY anaerobic digesters that you can collect the gas from. Would be interesting for e.g. keeping a greenhouse warm year-round without the electricity spend. For example (I have no idea how competent the product is): https://www.homebiogas.com/Products/HomeBiogas2 https://www.homebiogas.com/Products/HomeBiogas2
- adrianN 7y agoPut a compost pile inside your greenhouse and you get warmth and CO2 for your plants: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/reinventing-the-greenhouse.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/reinventing-the-gree...
- thinkcontext 7y agoThis is of no use in the developed world for a normal house. Try getting your home owners insurance to pay off a claim against an accident involving this. Also, according to its specs you can get 2hrs of cooking per day if you supply 5 gallons of animal manure. That's a tiny amount of energy compared to modern energy needs. For most people this would be a novelty, maybe you could run an outdoor grill off of it.
- hanniabu 7y agoI'm sure most families can gather 5 gallons of organic waste per week, which would provide them enough gas to have a BBQ once a week.
- peteradio 7y agoAerobic vs anaerobic decomposition produces different byproducts.
- azernik 7y agoIn a landfill, only anaerobic bacteria can survive. These are unable to break down organic material as cleanly as the aerobic bacteria in a managed compost pile. See my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21483584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21483584 for links to sources.
- Spooky23 7y agoThat sort of undermines some of the carbon arguments used against recycling.
- azernik 7y agoMaybe, maybe not. Some of the things we recycle (metals and plastics) aren't biodegradable and hence won't release methane if dumped in the ground.
- scottlocklin 7y ago> i.e. perhaps the best reason to recycle or compost is to avoid the methane emissions from natural decomposition. Uhhh, I think you may want to rethink that. Rotting things, whether in a landfill or in your ecologically principled compost heap in your back yard releases methane.
- ses1984 7y agoYeah methane is released inside a compost pile but some of it is consumed by the compost pile by other reactions. That is literally the point of a compost pile versus just a pile of garbage.
- azernik 7y agoMethane is produced by anaerobic decomposition; composting is defined by the regular aeration (and sometimes watering) of the compost pile, which allows aerobic bacteria to break down the pile more cleanly. You do still get some GHGs, but much less. See: https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/climate-change/composting-avoid-methane-production https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/climate-change/composting-avoid-... https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/compost/compost.htm https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/compost/compost.htm
- scottlocklin 7y agoYour own references point out that aerobic and anaerobic composting are different processes; the latter, which is most of backyard composting (if your heap ain't hot, it ain't aerobic), produces about as much methane as a landfill does, without the ability to collect and burn off the methane. It boggles me that people emotionally or tribally react to a fact about how chemistry works, google things which support their emotional reaction, and ... don't read what was in their citation.
- azernik 7y agoThe first reference does not refer to anaerobic methods as "composting", but as fermentation: > Decomposing organic material in anaerobic conditions — by microbes in the absence of oxygen — releases methane into the atmosphere. Anaerobic fermentation is common in landfill and open stockpiles such as manure piles [azernik: Manure piles are the second big contributor to methane emissions listed in OP.] The second one just refers to "anaerobic decomposition". In both cases this is something they mention as the alternative to composting, i.e. they literally define composting by its use of aerobic decomposition methods. And yes, I agree that this is a complicated biochemical process that should be done by professionals in dedicated facilities (EDIT: which is where most composting happens in California), not in people's backyards. Where did you hear me arguing for amateur backyard piles?
- mc32 7y agoManure is pretty manageable, transportable, etc., are they can they use this to produce energy rather than just let it dissipate into the atmos?
- azernik 7y agoThey can; this is generally referred to as "biogas" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogas). It's equivalent to Carbon Capture and Storage, but for all of these methane releases. It's only used on a relatively small scale in rural areas, mainly to save money on natural gas (which is also basically just methane) and its related distribution infrastructure; I haven't heard of any successful projects to harvest biogas on the large scales required to really cut down agricultural and landfill emissions. The main challenge seems to be purification, as biogas has all kinds of nasty contaminants that are bad for people and machinery.
- jobseeker990 7y agoCompost IS natural decomposition, my dude.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- n1000 7y agosure, but at least the compost doesn’t go to waste :)
- lotyrin 7y agoA composting operation could potentially capture its gasses though, compared to landfills.
- dilyevsky 7y agoThere are landfills that capture methane too. Some even turn it into onsite power source (in which case it’s re-emitted as co2 but oh well)
- thombat 7y agoIt's still good news, since methane is a more potent greenhouse gas - depending upon the timeframe and calculation method it's generally reckoned to have between 30 and 100 times the warming potential of C02 [1]. Moreover a power station then has a CO2-rich exhaust stream, which is probably the best place for industrial carbon capture. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-bad-of-a-greenhouse-gas-is-methane/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-bad-of-a-gree...
- mslev 7y agoSunnyvale does this! The "Sunnyvale Materials Recovery and Transfer Station" (SMaRT Station) is out by the bay, and there is a waste water treatment plant right next door. Methane is captured from "capped" landfills and is used to power the treatment plant. I believe the plant is nearly 100% powered by these captured gases. Doesn't smell great over there, but it sure is interesting and pretty smart!
- aphextim 7y agoStill waiting on Elon Musk to make "WasteX" which will take vast amounts of garbage from landfills and fly it directly into the Sun.
- nan0 7y agoMy friend and I were seriously thinking this was a good idea until we read an article [0] destroying it completely. Lol 0:"Here's Why We Can't Just Throw Our Garbage Into the Sun" https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a19666/we-cant-just-throw-our-garbage-into-the-sun/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a19666/we-cant-just-t...
- aphextim 7y agoThank you for this link! I always assumed it would be ridiculous, and the fact someone broke it down is awesome!
- whoopdedo 7y agoAnother explanation[1] that shows how it's not just the cost of escaping Earth gravity (which is high enough already) but the delta-v required to de-orbit. It's easier to throw the garbage out of the solar system than it is to descend into the Sun. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHvR1fRTW8g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHvR1fRTW8g
- jessaustin 7y agoIt would be much less costly to just throw it all at Venus. b^)
- dwaltrip 7y agoTurns out, it is very hard to get to the sun.
- Aaronstotle 7y agoThat idea reminds me of Patrick Star's solution to escape the terror of the Alaskan Bull Worm (Take X and push it somewhere else).
- TrevorAustin 7y agoSome very smart friends of mine do this with airplanes to find leaks in natural gas plants and pipelines: http://kairosaerospace.com/ http://kairosaerospace.com/
- apawloski 7y agoThis project is also using aircraft: https://avirisng.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html https://avirisng.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html
- drmattyg 7y agoYes, AVIRIS is the instrument that was used to take the data for that paper. Same group.
- donarb 7y agoHere's a talk one of their guys did at the last US PyCon that described how they collected the data using airplanes then analyzed it. They sell the service to oil companies to identify leaks from capped wells. https://pyvideo.org/pycon-us-2019/fighting-climate-change-with-python.html https://pyvideo.org/pycon-us-2019/fighting-climate-change-wi...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- AWildC182 7y agoTheir wing strut mounting of that sensor pod causes me a lot of concern... I don't think Cessna ever expected crazy torque loads on strut meant for tension.
- 14 7y agoI have a cousin that works building fire fighting water bombers. The planes were never engineered for that application as well. They are literally taking these planes and gutting them, add giant pumps and plumbing and other devices some of it literally off the shelves of stores any one of us could use. These devices were never made "for air plane application". But they ultimately have an engineer who decides what is safe and signs off on the design. I have no doubt that this company either has the same or paid the price to have that pod engineered on to the existing limits of the plane.
- gniv 7y agoSo what can be done about landfills? Burying stuff seems expensive/energy intensive.
- ars 7y agoYou can burn the garbage for energy instead. Then you don't need as much oil from the ground. It also takes care of the plastic problem, since it burns the plastic very cleanly.
- toomuchtodo 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification is slightly better than incineration, although more costly to implement.
- marcosdumay 7y agoIt's not that much. People do landfills all over the world without much economic impact. And you can recover the methane from them, what requires a small investment, and has a low, but positive ROI.
- tpurves 7y agoBury the trash deeper, so the methane is effectively sequestered?
- ohples 7y agoNot sure how effective it is, but it's possible to collect methane from landfill and use it to generate heat and electricity. From my understanding the emission from burning it are way better then just letting it leak into the air. My university had a big methane line run from a landfill 2 towns over and used it in the cogen plant to generate power and steam for heat.
- briffle 7y agoMany landfills [0] now recover the methane, and treat it, or burn it in generators to create power. They can sell the power, and change the methane to carbon dioxide (which is less of a greenhouse gas) In Madison, WI, [1] they create enough power to offset all the energy the county operations use, plus create CNG for their heavy equipment at the landfill to run on. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfill_gas_utilization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfill_gas_utilization [1] https://isthmus.com/news/news/dane-county-might-sell-the-methane-its-landfill-produces-to-/ https://isthmus.com/news/news/dane-county-might-sell-the-met...
- mthoodlum 7y ago272,000 sites surveyed. 0.2% of the sites account for 46% of emissions. 272,000 sites * 0.002 = 544 sites. 544 sites account for 46% of the state's emissions. Yet the article states, "A handful of operations are responsible for the vast majority of methane emissions."
- sorenn111 7y agois your contention that 46% does not constitute a majority? I think the distribution is pareto enough that the headline is not so crazy.
- empath75 7y agoif it has a pareto distribution, isn't that sort of tautological? If they eliminated all of those those sites, they'd reduce emissions by 46%, but of the remaining, wouldn't the top .2% still be producing roughly 50% of emissions?
- softwaredoug 7y agoTo be a pedant it might be a plurality (biggest one), but not a majority (>50%)
- lm28469 7y agoIt depends on how you define a "handful" (which is a terrible term in that context, we're not talking about hazelnuts..). But for sure 46% isn't "the vast majority" of anything.
- archi42 7y ago"If it's only 46%, then that's OK then?" Not that you're saying exactly that, but it's pretty close... The article gives 10%/2720 of the 272000 account for >50% of the emissions, that's still pretty bad. The 0.2% is however good, in the sense that, it's probably easier/more efficient to make a few hundred huge changes instead of a hundred thousand small ones.
- pjc50 7y ago> 0.2% of the sites account for 46% of emissions. Sounds like "a handful" to me. In as much as a metaphorical measurement can be accurate..
- danielfoster 7y agoAs an individual I'm happy to make sacrifices for the greater good, and this is an example of why we should not accept the narrative that consumers bear the brunt of reducing emissions. Maybe California should do a few more of these flights before finding something else to ban?
- bravo22 7y agoPer the article, most of the sites were landfills, dairy farms, and natural gas facilities. All of those are directly controlled by consumer demand.
- schnable 7y agoThat's true, but perhaps the emissions can be mitigated in a targeted way beyond just reducing demand.
- bravo22 7y agoNot really possible. Ultimately it is human demand that is driving climate change. Even if you have a magical technology that cuts all emissions today by 25% -- which would be truly magic -- you only need a 25% growth* in population to offset that and put us back to square one. At the current rate of 1.2% that's only ~18 years.
- kube-system 7y agoThe comment you replied to said 'mitigated', not 'solved'. Emissions controls already have, and still can, make enormous impacts on many consumer devices. Given that emission controls are a whole lot easier to implement than eliminating a huge portion of the world's population, I'd say it's a more realistic goal to pursue.
- ClumsyPilot 7y agoI wouldn't claim it's difficult per se, we've done it before. But I do suggest people advocating it join the front of the queue.
- kaycebasques 7y ago80/20 rule [1] strikes again? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
- therealdrag0 7y agoI feel like this is brought up every time a minority number is responsible for a majority number, regardless of how far off 80/20 it is. That seems silly.
- punnerud 7y agoIn 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.
- hanniabu 7y agoThat'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.
- samcheng 7y agoIt'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.
- blacksmith_tb 7y agoYes, same in Portland, OR. In our case we're incentivized by having compost and recycling pick ups weekly, but garbage only every other week. So people who choose not to sort suffer...
- ihaveajob 7y agoThat's a genius approach, and one that I think would be pretty reasonable to most folks. Fairly often I don't put out the gray trash bin because it's not even half full, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.
- Frondo 7y agoOh, and I was there when they made that switch, and you wouldn't believe the complaints people had. Endless litanies about how awful it was that trash was only going out once every two weeks. In time, of course, everyone adapted. But it was pretty amazing at the time, for such a relatively painless change in behavior. You'd think they were being asked to cut off a limb and put it out every week.
- magic5227 7y agoSo most importantly, how can we follow up and ensure the state works to capture/fine these locations? The article is paywalled, is it likely this will be actively followed up on? Maybe all of us HN readers should write a note to Gov Newsom?
- jeffdavis 7y agoThe following says that methane is not an important greenhouse gas: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/11/methane-the-irrelevant-greenhouse-gas/ http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/11/methane-the-irrelevant... Can someone who knows better tell me if that's good science or not?
- donarb 7y agoA website that quotes Breitbart is a signal that they are not serious about providing accurate scientific information.
- jeffdavis 7y agoOK, let me change my question to: Some random person told me that the parts of the spectrum that are absorbed by CH4 are already absorbed by H2O, which is way more prevalent, so the CH4 doesn't matter much. Is that true/valid/scientific?
- mturmon 7y agoNearer the top of the atmosphere, the concentration of H2O is much less, and the argument breaks down, because it’s the top layers that radiate to space. Lower in the troposphere, photons are being absorbed and re-radiated, but not escaping. In general, this stuff is complicated, and it’s easy for people using “motivated reasoning” to come up with the answer they want. Lots of comments reflecting such misinformation appear on HN — it’s frustrating. So, listening to random people isn’t such a good idea. Much better to read a report from people who study this stuff, like: https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/ https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/, which I recommend to technically interested nonspecialists. (I eat lunch with one of the co-authors of the technical paper in Nature linked to the OP, the press release is: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7535 https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7535, paper is: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1720-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1720-3)
- jeffdavis 7y ago
- branchan 7y agoThere's also currently a push by many countries to have carbon monitoring satellites above their countries. For example: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/meet-the-satellites-that-can-pinpoint-methane-and-carbon-dioxide-leaks/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/meet-the-satellit...
- mtnGoat 7y agothis is interesting data... im not a scientist, but what causes the methane from the garbage dumps? rotting organics or just everything in general? is there not a better way to dispose of specific types of trash creating these gases? Obviously not a small problem to solve. I think if the gov started identifying and fining these emitters, they would invest more into these types of solutions.
- dev_dull 7y ago> The report doesn’t identify these “super emitters,” but notes that landfills give off more methane than any other source in the state. NASA’s equipment found that a subset of these landfills were the largest emitters in California and exhibited “persistent anomalous activity.” Is the problem here that the trash is breaking down, or it's breaking down in a suboptimal way (such as anaerobic activity) that's causing methane to be released instead of a more benign gas?
- FollowSteph3 7y agoAlmost feels like running a code profiler to find the hotspots
- totally 7y agoGreat example of gathering and using data to effect change.
- newnewpdro 7y agoWe really need automated continuous monitoring and alerting of these things. It doesn't take much time for an event to release huge quantities of what was thought to be contained gas into the atmosphere. I'm surprised to not see any reference to the Aliso Canyon leak in this thread yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliso_Canyon_gas_leak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliso_Canyon_gas_leak
- neonate 7y agohttps://outline.com/97yPNJ https://outline.com/97yPNJ
- jashkenas 7y agoHere’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-super-emitters https://observablehq.com/@jashkenas/californias-methane-supe...
- semerda 7y agoWhere is EPA in all this? Mountain View Shoreline (right behind Google HQ) used to be a landfill site for 3 decades before being turned into a park. Plenty of families visit it for the nature walks, kiddie play areas and water activities. Then few weeks back I heard a bang and hissing; a methane release valve opened https://youtu.be/kq3CnXU5OtU https://youtu.be/kq3CnXU5OtU I don’t know if this is normal for it to be so low but since then I’ve learnt the whole area has these to stop it from combusting. Methane is also a dirty gas that affects cognition. Add to this the SuperFund sites water & land pollution and one has to question what the heck is going on here. It gives a whole new perspective on how we are killing our earth hoping the problem will be solved by someone else in the future :(
- tjbiddle 7y agoAre there any composting services in the US? I'm living in Bali right now and I found a local service that gives me a bucket, I put all my organic waste into it, and once a week they come to replace it with a clean bucket. If I wanted, I could request the compost back - but I don't have any use for it and would rather other consumers get a bit extra. I pay ~$2/mo for the service (Again, Bali prices).
- jdavis703 7y agoYes, large and medium sized cities in California mostly have them.
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