4 ms·

I'm a hardline no-fossi-fuels ever kind of guy and yes, this is clean energy. If you collect the pollutants before emitting them and turn them into stable prod

I'm a hardline no-fossi-fuels ever kind of guy and yes, this is clean energy. If you collect the pollutants before emitting them and turn them into stable products, you aren't polluting. Ergo, clean.

jaggs 10mo ago
That sounds perfect. Except natural gas is a hydrocarbon, isn't it? Which means the processing is dirty at source? This idea of natural gas as a clean energy is rather the same as clean coal. In other words it's greenwashing.
- JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
  > Except natural gas is a hydrocarbon, isn't it? Why is that disqualifying? The problem is combustion’s emission of sequestered carbon. If you don’t have that you don’t have this problem.
  - jaggs 10mo ago
    Nice job conveniently ignoring the dirty processing problem.
    - JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
      > ignoring the dirty processing problem You concluded it’s processed dirtily at the source based on that premise (“which means”). If you’re independently asserting that, you’d have a point.
  - cmrdporcupine 10mo ago
    The problems with natural gas are definitely not confined to combustion. Methane leakage is a huge problem. That and if you just encourage more exploration, and it's cheaper to just burn the stuff anyways, guess what happens in the price conscious free market?
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- adrianmonk 10mo ago
  This also produces carbon nanotubes, which they claim can be used in construction. Given that construction currently uses a huge amount of concrete, and given that concrete emits huge amounts of CO2[1], if this could partially replace concrete in construction, it might actually be clean. At least compared to what we're doing now. I doubt foundations are going to be made out of carbon nanotubes, but they might be useful for the structure (columns, beams, etc.). --- [1] "4-8% of total global CO2" according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_concrete https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_concre...
bmacho 10mo ago
There will be more atomic C in the upper layers of the Earth if you dig deep and pump out natural gas. How long will the C atoms in those "stable product" stay there? Burning wood is clean energy: it does not increase the number of atomic C in the upper layers. Natural gas is not, unless you find a way to store those C.
- adrianN 10mo ago
  Charcoal is stable for hundreds of years in the upper layers of the soil
cactacea 10mo ago
Resource extraction is pretty much never a clean process. That gas came from somewhere.

I'm a hardline no-fossi-fuels ever kind of guy and yes, this is clean energy. If you collect the pollutants before emitting them and turn them into stable products, you aren't polluting. Ergo, clean.

jaggs 10mo ago

That sounds perfect. Except natural gas is a hydrocarbon, isn't it? Which means the processing is dirty at source? This idea of natural gas as a clean energy is rather the same as clean coal. In other words it's greenwashing.

JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
> Except natural gas is a hydrocarbon, isn't it? Why is that disqualifying? The problem is combustion’s emission of sequestered carbon. If you don’t have that you don’t have this problem.
- jaggs 10mo ago
  Nice job conveniently ignoring the dirty processing problem.
  - JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
    > ignoring the dirty processing problem You concluded it’s processed dirtily at the source based on that premise (“which means”). If you’re independently asserting that, you’d have a point.
- cmrdporcupine 10mo ago
  The problems with natural gas are definitely not confined to combustion. Methane leakage is a huge problem. That and if you just encourage more exploration, and it's cheaper to just burn the stuff anyways, guess what happens in the price conscious free market?
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
adrianmonk 10mo ago
This also produces carbon nanotubes, which they claim can be used in construction. Given that construction currently uses a huge amount of concrete, and given that concrete emits huge amounts of CO2[1], if this could partially replace concrete in construction, it might actually be clean. At least compared to what we're doing now. I doubt foundations are going to be made out of carbon nanotubes, but they might be useful for the structure (columns, beams, etc.). --- [1] "4-8% of total global CO2" according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_concrete https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_concre...

bmacho 10mo ago

There will be more atomic C in the upper layers of the Earth if you dig deep and pump out natural gas. How long will the C atoms in those "stable product" stay there? Burning wood is clean energy: it does not increase the number of atomic C in the upper layers. Natural gas is not, unless you find a way to store those C.

adrianN 10mo ago
Charcoal is stable for hundreds of years in the upper layers of the soil

cactacea 10mo ago

Resource extraction is pretty much never a clean process. That gas came from somewhere.