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Natural gas flaring requires you to consider two things: 1. Flaring isn't efficient. You only burn about 90% of the gas, the rest leaks into the atmosphere. 2
by once_inc 3y ago
Natural gas flaring requires you to consider two things:
1. Flaring isn't efficient. You only burn about 90% of the gas, the rest leaks into the atmosphere.
2. Gas includes Methane. Methane is a 10x more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2, though it lasts considerably less long (about 10y i believe).
This means that a single well flaring methane is emitting just as much as 10 wells just releasing co2 into the air. To combat this, we need to install an internal combustion engine attached to something to bleed the energy generated by the engine into something else.
Traditionally, this is not something affordable. There is a significant upfront cost, and very few solutions to use the energy, as most of these installations are far removed from the grid.
Luckily, there is a new solution that can make this a profitable situation for everyone. It is rapidly seeing more interest, and it is even powering a system that can benefit everyone in the world: Bitcoin mining.
Bitcoin mining requires cheap, dependable energy. It doesn't require a grid connection, and adding a satellite connection is enough to start mining. You can drive a single container full of mining ASICs onsite, and maintenance is mostly possible off-site.
- iraqmtpizza 3y ago"Half of the difference is due to flares that aren’t burning[ at all]." So it's not flaring that's the problem--it's non-flaring. You could do the same analysis for wind turbines that don't turn, solar panels that don't sol. What we do know is that natural gas beats the shit out of coal on every measure climate bros claim to care about and it doesn't require digging up half the world's minerals to waste on early-stage renewable technology that is almost certain to require far less cobalt and God-knows-what else when the technology matures.