this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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I am not an expert, but I try to be pragmatic. Here's what socalgas.com says about the topic.
You're right that natural gas is methane and that leaks are bad. However I think a nuanced view is important here for a few reasons.
Many developed countries have the infrastructure and workforce in place to not just safely deliver methane to buildings as an energy source but also to correct leaks.
Methane can be produced via a variety of sources both at a large and small scale. I've toyed with the idea of making a black soldier fly larvae farm and methane would be a by product
Gas tanks to hold methane have maximum a lifespan of 10 years. However many other methods of storing potential energy have a much shorter maximum lifespan, making methane a decent backup energy source in cases of emergency.
I don't know how good the energy conversion rate of burning methane is but I would be surprised if it is low.
Personally I think we should leverage every option, especially the lower hanging fruit before dismissing these options as being not ideal when the alternative is continuing to do worse.
It's not about methane stored in gas tanks - the problem is methane trapped underground which we intentionally release in order to store it. The way we release it is far from a controlled process and it's impossible to capture all of the released methane. In any developed country they are required to monitor (and minimise) methane releases however there are widespread allegations of under-reporting and failures to capture as much as they could.
If you ask the gas mining companies, they claim it's a minor issue but if you actually measure methane in the atmosphere, which we are doing (it's easy to do), then it's pretty clear this is a massive problem. There's far too much methane in our atmosphere for all of it to be coming from other sources.
When you burn gas, it becomes CO2 and is released into the air. When methane is released without being burned, it's so much worse than CO2 that even with very low rates of methane release it still has a bigger impact on the climate than all of the burned gas in the world.
Exactly how much methane is released by mining is unclear but what we do know for sure is how much methane is in the atmosphere right now, and we know that it accounts for about a third of the climate change we are experiencing.
Having said that - gas is still better than coal. There are several reasons but one of them is coal mining also releases methane.
Thank you, these are all great points.