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> Burning methane is even better Actually, burning is probably the best way to deal with any excess methane. Methane has a significantly higher warming potenti
by kijin 7y ago
> Burning methane is even better
Actually, burning is probably the best way to deal with any excess methane. Methane has a significantly higher warming potential than CO2 does. So if there's any methane we're venting into the atmosphere, we should burn it to convert it into CO2. Bonus points if you can use the generated energy to capture the CO2 as well.
- relieferator 7y agoFrom what I can recall, landfills produce more methane than any other process. How about we build a carbon capture next to every landfill, divert the methane and burn it to run the DAC?
- SystemOut 7y agoLandfills do collect and burn methane. Those pipe like structures you see sticking out of a completed landfill are part of the process. https://archive.epa.gov/climatechange/kids/solutions/technologies/methane.html https://archive.epa.gov/climatechange/kids/solutions/technol...
- tedk-42 7y agoTIL. Now we just need to execute the second part of his plan to capture the carbon from the energy produced
- fastbeef 7y agoOr capture the methane, upgrade it and run generators/cars/busses of it. It's existing tech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogas
- TomMarius 7y agoThis scheme is used in real life in Czech Republic
- 4w5gfder 7y agoWhy bother for landfills? If the landfill can generate electricity that would otherwise be generated, it will convert the CH4 more efficiently than a bus and you don't expand energy upgrading it. You can power the bus with the already high quality CH4 you extracted from the ground that you would have otherwise burned in to generate the electricity.
- bobthepanda 7y agoBuses have different power requirements than cars; they need a lot more range because they run throughout the day. I was reading somewhere that in buses in cold climates, heating is actually what eats up all the energy in an electric bus. ICE buses just use the waste heat from a combustion engine.
- xorfish 7y agoOr you just burn the trash directly.
- virmundi 7y agoFrom what I can see, yes, methane is abstractly a worse greenhouse gas. However its absorption band is within that of water vapor. Since water vapor is plentiful around the blue marble, methane doesn’t really cause any problems.
- mturmon 7y agoThis is incorrect, it’s well established that methane is a more potent GHG. See the reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21485738 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21485738
- virmundi 7y agoWhat’s not taken into conservation with that comment is that methane at those altitudes does not impact much because the energy is radiate back to space.
- mturmon 7y agoYou have doubled down on a casual assertion ("methane is not a significant greenhouse gas") because you don't understand radiative transfer in the upper atmosphere. It's OK, radiative transfer is complex. Your options are to accept this consensus, or do a lot more study than you have.