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Rapid Rise In Methane Emissions In 10 Years Surprises Scientists (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane have surged in the past decade, threatening to thwart global attempts to combat climate change. Scientists have been surprised by the surge, which began just over 10 years ago in 2007 and then was boosted even further in 2014 and 2015. Concentrations of methane in the atmosphere over those two years alone rose by more than 20 parts per billion, bringing the total to 1,830ppb. This is a cause for alarm among global warming scientists because emissions of the gas warm the planet by more than 20 times as much as similar volumes of carbon dioxide. In the meantime, emissions of carbon dioxide -- the main component of manmade greenhouse gases in the atmosphere -- have been leveling off. The new research, published in the peer-review journal Environmental Research Letters, suggests that the world's attempts to control greenhouse gases have failed to take account of the startling rises in methane. The authors of the 2016 Global Methane Budget report found that in the early years of this century, concentrations of methane rose by only about 0.5ppb each year, compared with 10ppb in 2014 and 2015. The scientists speculate that agriculture may be the main source of the additional methane that has been recorded. However, they cannot be sure of all the sources, owing to a lack of monitoring. At least a third of methane comes from the exploitation of fossil fuels, including fracking and oil drilling and some coal mining, where methane is viewed as a waste gas and is frequently allowed to escape or, in some cases, flared off, which is less harmful. Unlike carbon dioxide emissions, however, which have been tracked in various ways since the 1950s, emissions of methane are poorly understood and could represent a threat that scientists have still not accounted for.
Most likely the cause is fracking. Mining companies have been under-reporting and trying to cover up the levels of methane released by fracking for the past decade. We know this from several scientists in the United States that have done ground water testing and shown entire water supplies which can be lit by a match.
I vaguely remember something about a huge spill of methane in California US. Said to be 100.000 tons of methane gas, though I can't help but wonder if maybe the real number could be even higher.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35659947 ("California methane leak 'largest in US history'")
Sorry to interupt your impending doom
But methane has an incredibly short life in the atmosphere
Are you a fuckhead troll, or a dumbshit fuckhead? Methane has 20X the warming ability of CO2, it stays in the atmosphere for an average of eight years, and when it finally does break down it breaks down into carbon dioxide and water vapor.
Wait, you started a comment in the subject. You must be a dumbshit fuckhead.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"I" am not using, I'm citing the scientific work.
https://www.researchgate.net/p...
(C, thus K, not F)
it's in my head
The damn rate of increase leveled off. That means we have a constant linear increase instead of over linear. It is still increasing. This is what , the third or fourth time I see this error here ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Every kilowatt generated by wind stops coal from producing almost twice that in thermal power. So yes, it does have an impact on reducing carbon as soon as it is implemented.
Why? Technology has already adapted and it became viable to have LED lighting hit the market. This is an assumption that precludes adaptation by the market to fill a market niche.
This is not a political issue here, it's a question about if you have an open or closed mindset. Innovation happens all the time. Living standards will just change, and the idea of what a higher living standard is will change.
Nuclear is extremely carbon intensive in the mining phase to extract the ore using traditional mining methods, if you are not pumping mega litres of sulfuric acid to do in-situ extraction (and destroying water tables in the process). 500tons of ore for 1 kilo of uranium, ~150 tons of uranium for the core of one reactor, 1/3 refuel every 18 months or so IIRC. It's roughly one third of the energy the reactor will produce over its lifetime.
Nuclear is extremely carbon intensive in the enrichment process as CFC114 is much more potent than methane as a greenhouse gas. IIRC, thousands of times more potent. You can't *not* enrich the fuel either.
Nuclear is extremely carbon intensive in the decommissioning and demolition phase, an energetic cost yet to be realized by the industry, because traditional methods of demolition cannot be used.
On the other hand the way wind scales is probably the biggest thing it has in it's favour, because existing sites can be retrofitted with upgraded technology, which lowers the energetic cost of maintain wind capacity.
Why not in parity with the Price-Anderson act, which has been extended repeatedly since the dawn of time for the nuclear industry which needs government assistance to cover its insurance liabilities. Or, why don't we just repeal the act and see how long the nuclear industry can remain?
One of Roosevelt's core 'New Deal' Act the PUCHA was repealed to benefit the nuclear industry with little fanfare from the press. Only for it to be subverted by the coal and oil industry who use proposals to build nuclear plants so they can get tax breaks for not building them. This is corporate welfare on a scale that makes social welfare looks like a kids pocket money. PUCHA was put in place to prevent a re-occurrence of the US depression from utilities doing *exactly* what they are doing now to raid the taxpayers wallets.
You can read it here in the 2005 US energy policy act SEC 600-635, and at the end of the document for the repeal of PUCHA.
me thinks you assume too much.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Also, the preindustrial CO2 concentration was 280ppm so my 'hypothetical sheet of solid CO2' was 2.3mm about 150 years ago and we added 1.0mm since then.