4 ms·
Extracting and burning for energy is leaking.
by panacea 14y ago
Extracting and burning for energy is leaking.
- smackay 14y agoMethane is 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide so you really need to burn it rather than just let it escape. Of course it just might be better to leave it frozen at the bottom of the ocean.
- Retric 14y agoMethane unlike CO2 is unstable and breaks down fairly quickly producing CO2. So, it's really a short term problem.
- smackay 14y agoYes, that is true. The lifetime of methane in the atmosphere is 8 years compared to 100 years for carbon. The possible problem with extracting it is destabilizing the hydrates so you get a very large eruption which would release colossal quantities of the gas in a very short period of time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane has lots of useful information and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis has some interesting info on methane hydrate eruptions. Edit: got my eruptions and irruptions in a twist.
- Retric 14y agoExtraction can lead to leaks and what would amount to localized coal fires. However, to get a meaningful eruption, on the global scale, you need to change sea temperatures over a large area. Which requires insane amounts of energy making it vary hard to do accidentally as part of said extraction.
- Gravityloss 14y agoThough, the "25 times" takes the limited lifetime into account. The short term effect is much more. For example the so called "20 year global warming potential" is 72, compared to CO2's 1. More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global-warming_potential http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global-warming_potential