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Gray-Wolf

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #950 on: February 27, 2019, 06:56:19 PM »
Some of us posting here might do to think about their own health from time to time and maybe take a back seat for a while lest we 'burn out'?

It's the old Pink floyd Wall's " banging your head against some mad buggers wall!" feeling!

If you start to feel that knot tighten in your tum maybe time to go for a run?, tidy the yard?, watch a few clouds?

This is all scary stuff and 'fear' is not a thing to habitualise to!!!

Take a break , chillax a while, be well!  :)
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VIRESCIT VULNERE VIRTUS

Sciguy

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #951 on: February 28, 2019, 01:48:48 AM »
Fear is the most important emotion to reach if we want people to defend themselves from climate change. Fear and only fear activates the fight or flight response. But that scientist is worried that he  becomes a scaremonger.

His resistance to becoming a scaremonger has nothing to do with the severity of climate change or protecting people. He just wants to protect his reputation and not feel fear himself.

I agree. At least someone noticed. :)

If you read that post on Realclimate.org you'll see that fear is actually a bad way to motivate people:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2019/02/the-best-case-for-worst-case-scenarios/

Quote
The last point is similar in appearance to the previous, but has a very different basis. Recent social science research (for instance, as discussed by Mann and Hasool (also here)) suggests that fear-based messaging is not effective at building engagement for solving (or mitigating) long-term ‘chronic’ problems (indeed, it’s not clear that panic and/or fear are the best motivators for any constructive solutions to problems).

The article linked to in that quote is here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/doomsday-scenarios-are-as-harmful-as-climate-change-denial/2017/07/12/880ed002-6714-11e7-a1d7-9a32c91c6f40_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.009bc6aba270

Quote
Doomsday scenarios are as harmful as climate change denial


By Michael E. Mann , Susan Joy Hassol and  Tom Toles
July 12, 2017 

Michael E. Mann is distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University and director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center. Susan Joy Hassol is the director of Climate Communication LLC. Tom Toles is the editorial cartoonist for The Post.

It is easy to understand why advocates for climate action have become somewhat dispirited in recent months. In the space of less than a year, we’ve seen the United States go from playing a leading role in international climate negotiations to now being the only nation in the world to renege on its commitment to the 2015 Paris climate accord.

It is in this environment of defeat and despair that we’ve witnessed a dramatic rise in the prominence of climate doomism — commentary that portrays climate change not just as a threat that requires an urgent response but also as an essentially lost cause, a hopeless fight.  Some of the more egregious examples can be found among fringe characters such as ecologist Guy McPherson —a doomist cult hero who insists that exponential climate change likely will render human beings and all other species extinct within 10 years.

Such rhetoric is in many ways as pernicious as outright climate change denial, for it leads us down the same path of inaction. Whether climate change is a hoax (as President Trump has asserted) or beyond our control (as McPherson insists), there would obviously be no reason to cut carbon emissions.

oren

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #952 on: February 28, 2019, 02:28:55 AM »
I'll take a quick OT detour:
IMHO fear is a great motivator for immediate problems and actions. A very bad motivator for long-term/chronic problems with no discernible course of immediate action and no immediate negative outcome. Recasting climate change as a world war and the solution as moving to a war economy is IMHO a good approach. But I know many people who say "it's a long time from now, what do I care", and "I heard of these problems decades ago and nothing happened". So there's a limit to the fear people can take before they become numb.

Back to methane in the arctic.

Archimid

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #953 on: February 28, 2019, 02:51:51 AM »
Quote
panic and/or fear

Panic and fear are two very different things.

Fear is a normal human reaction to danger, real or perceived. Fear activates the fight or flight response that allows humans to act against danger. Without fear we wouldn't have evolved as we would have ignored threats and perish. Fear feels very uncomfortable to humans but when properly handled fear enhances our senses and wits and gives us an edge against adversity. If not properly managed, fear may become panic.

Panic is fear gone bad. When panic sets, mistakes are made on the fight or flight reaction, decreasing the chances of survival. Panic can manifest in different ways. In the case of climate change induced panic it can lead anywhere to severe depression to climate change denial. Fear without any hope of success may increase the chances of panic.


Historically fear is an excellent motivator. Dictators and unscrupulous leaders use fear of non existent threats because it works. Climate change is a real threat. Whoever doesn't fear it is because they don't understand it. Fear of climate change is the appropriate reaction to the understanding of climate change and the only thing that will motivate people into the appropriate action.

It is not immoral to scare people about real dangers. It is the natural order to tell people the truth even if it is scary, no,  specially if it is scary. That is the only way people will jump into action. It is immoral to hide the dangers, because it blunts the reaction.

Leaders are believing the fallacy that as long as they know about climate change a solution will be found without "scaring" the people.

Guess what, most people can take it. Most people will react properly upon understanding the true scope of climate change. A few won't. That's a fact of life. But those who do react properly will do something. Some will do a lot, some a little, leaders emerge, work is accumulated and the stupid climate change problem is solved.

But since climate change is a problem for 2100, who cares.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

be cause

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #954 on: February 28, 2019, 08:06:27 AM »
fear seperates .. love unites .. love is far more useful .. love your fellow man and you will care for him too .. and work toward everyone's wellbeing .. b.c.
Conflict is the root of all evil , for being blind it does not see whom it attacks . Yet it always attacks the Son Of God , and the Son of God is you .

magnamentis

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #955 on: February 28, 2019, 08:35:56 PM »
fear can be and is permanently abused and leads to anarchy as well as ultimately wars and disruption.

i'm really not a man of any church (institutional religion) but in fact solutions are written in the bible, over and over again when someone comes up with a really good idea, solution or approach i think, where did i read that again and again, it's in the bible (new testament) and the only solution is love and it's derivatives like respect, modesty, patience, knowledge, forbearance and goodwill.

where i come from we say that fear is a bad counselor, it only serves for immediate and adrenalin driven action but not to find sustainable solutions. (as oren already hinted/wrote)

Shared Humanity

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #956 on: March 01, 2019, 03:08:51 AM »
WTF has happened to this thread?

Rod

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #957 on: March 01, 2019, 05:29:58 AM »
WTF has happened to this thread?

I have a lot to say about this, but none of my draft messages are coming out right.  So I will just say that I hope Wherestheice changes his mind.  Ignore the trolls.  We can all read the papers and see what they say.  I think there might be some people from WUWT on here intentionally misrepresenting the papers and trying to frustrate people. 

We have lost too many good people lately, and I miss all the great science that this forum offers. 

With that said, and still off topic (sorry Shared Humanity)  I want to give a shout out to Tealight, Interstitial and Tor Bejnar for their work regarding the disintegration of A68. A scientist recently posted an article on twitter and I'm pretty sure he was using your stuff.  Too bad he did not give you credit!   Keep up the good work!   Thank you to all the people posting good science.  I really look forward to seeing what you have to say each day. 

Even though it gets frustrating when people are obviously obfuscating the science, just ignore them and keep doing your thing.

morganism

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #958 on: March 03, 2019, 10:26:31 PM »
Seen in the wild, another general article on the uptick in methane

https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-methane-atmosphere-accelerating-20190301-story.html

Very strong atmospheric methane growth in the four years 2014‐2017: Implications for the Paris Agreement

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2018GB006009


Sciguy

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #959 on: March 04, 2019, 07:49:57 PM »
Seen in the wild, another general article on the uptick in methane

https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-methane-atmosphere-accelerating-20190301-story.html

Very strong atmospheric methane growth in the four years 2014‐2017: Implications for the Paris Agreement

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2018GB006009

The LA Times article Morganism provided a link to is a very good plain-language overview of the science studies discussing possible reasons for the recent increases in methane emissions. 

Quote
Nisbet and his team examined whether any of these hypotheses synced up with the changing chemical signature of methane in the atmosphere.

Some molecules of methane weigh more than others, because some atoms of carbon and hydrogen are heavier than others. And lately, the average weight of methane in the atmosphere has been getting lighter.

That seems to implicate biological sources such as wetlands and livestock, which tend to produce light methane. Daniel Jacob, an atmospheric chemist at Harvard who was not involved in Nisbet’s study, said that explanation squares with his own research. His results suggest most of the additional methane comes from the tropics, which are home to vast wetlands and a large proportion of the world’s cattle.

Estimates of emissions from coal mines and oil and gas wells suggest that fossil fuel contributions are rising too, but those sources usually release heavier molecules of methane, which would seem to conflict with the atmospheric observations.

Some researchers have proposed a way to resolve this discrepancy. Fires create an even heavier version of methane, and agricultural burning — particularly in developing countries — appears to have decreased over the last decade. A drop in this source of ultra-heavy methane would make atmospheric methane lighter on the whole, potentially masking an increase in emissions from fossil fuels.

Finally, reactions that break down methane eliminate more of the lighter molecules than the heavier ones. If that process has slowed down — causing methane to build up in the atmosphere — it would leave more light gas behind, possibly helping explain the overall trend.

Nisbet and his colleagues concluded they can’t rule out any of these explanations yet. “They might all be happening,” he said.

One possibility is conspicuously missing from the list. Scientists have long feared that thawing Arctic sediments and soils could release huge amounts of methane, but so far there’s no evidence of that, said Ed Dlugokencky, an atmospheric chemist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who worked on the study, which will be published in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles.

Quote
Regardless of what’s behind the recent increase, scientists say there are ways to reduce methane concentrations. And the benefits will accrue quickly because methane has a shorter lifetime than CO2, lingering in the atmosphere for only about a decade.

Humans account for as much as 60% of methane emissions, and nearly half of that may come from the fossil fuel industry, Jacob said.

One priority is to plug leaks from oil and gas wells, he said. Methane is the primary ingredient in natural gas, so companies have a financial incentive to try to capture as much as possible.

Often, a few culprits bear most of the blame, “which is both scary and a good thing,” because they represent big opportunities, Wunch said. At the Barnett Shale in Texas, 2% of the facilities produce half of the field’s methane emissions. In Southern California, the Aliso Canyon leak released roughly 100,000 tons of methane in 2015 and 2016 — the equivalent of burning 1 billion gallons of gasoline.

sark

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #960 on: March 04, 2019, 09:45:55 PM »
I find it a bit funny that it's not necessary to invoke permafrost to explain all the methane.  What the frack!

Shared Humanity

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #961 on: March 04, 2019, 10:57:44 PM »
What does it matter where the methane is coming from?

https://www.methanelevels.org/

vox_mundi

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #962 on: March 05, 2019, 05:57:15 PM »
Disappearing Rice Fields Threaten More Global Warming
https://www.bangor.ac.uk/news/research/disappearing-rice-fields-threaten-more-global-warming-40010

All over China, a huge change has been taking place without any of us noticing. Rice paddies have been (and are being) converted at an astonishing rate into aquaculture ponds to produce more protein for the worlds growing populations. This change risks creating an unexpected impact on global warming.

International researchers, including Prof Chris Freeman from Bangor University, have found conversion of paddy fields to aquaculture is releasing massive amounts of the greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere.

It was always assumed that because rice paddies are already a huge source of atmospheric methane, nothing could happen to make a difficult situation worse.

When describing their work which appears in “Nature Climate Change”, Prof Chris Freeman commented: “We were amazed to discover that methane production from the converted rice paddies was massively higher than before conversion.” ... The conversion increased associated global warming potentials from 8.15 ± 0.43 to 28.0 ± 4.1 Mg CO2eq ha−1, primarily due to increased CH4 emissions.

Junji Yuan et al. Rapid growth in greenhouse gas emissions from the adoption of industrial-scale aquaculture, Nature Climate Change (2019)
« Last Edit: March 06, 2019, 07:31:37 AM by vox_mundi »
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kassy

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #963 on: March 05, 2019, 08:48:37 PM »
That is an interesting find and possibly part of the methane mentioned in the article
AGU Very  strong atmospheric methane growth  in the  four  years 2014 -2017 in #943 in this thread.

The abstract does not mention when the conversion began but the article cites two sources and the second of those is the China Fisheries Yearbook 2013 so at least by then it was a factor so it shows up at the right time to contribute.

If anyone who has access could quote some data on the historical growth numbers and estimated emissions from those that would be nice.
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Shared Humanity

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #964 on: March 05, 2019, 09:51:52 PM »
The potential emissions reductions worldwide could stabilize methane levels in the atmosphere as was the case in the late 1990s.

Ultimately, natural gas and oil use will be reduced to minimal levels to support industrial applications being replaced by renewable electricity powering buildings and transportation.  Since methane's residence time in the atmosphere is about a decade, we can expect to see the concentrations in the atmosphere decrease during our lifetimes.

Of course, there is nothing in the short term or long term trends that supports your statement that "natural gas and oil use will be reduced to minimal levels."

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/pdf/nat_gas.pdf

If you ignore recent developments then the case looks bleak.  Fortunately, the economics for renewables have improved greatly in recent years, to the point that they are now cheaper than fossil fuel plants.



You counter my suggestion that oil and gas consumption will continue to climb with a response that focuses almost entirely on electricity generation using fossil fuels which will have little if any impact on the consumption of oil which is transportation based.

I will repeat. There is very little evidence that...


Ultimately, natural gas and oil use will be reduced to minimal levels...

If you want to understand the trends in transportation which is driving growth in oil consumption, I've posted a lot of industry data on the cars thread. EV's are simply not growing fast enough to prevent another couple of decades of growth in oil consumption. Although I suppose if you use ultimately to mean 40 years out, this statement may be true.

But then, since we need to be carbon neutral by 2050, this would mean that, ultimately, we're screwed.

Sciguy

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #965 on: March 06, 2019, 01:11:31 AM »
What does it matter where the methane is coming from?

https://www.methanelevels.org/

It matters because methane emissions from anthropogenic sources can be reduced.  I've cited the results that can be obtained by better detection of leaks from oil and natural gas drilling and distribution.  The article on conversion of rice paddies to aquaculture ponds indicated that aeration of the ponds can reduce the emissions.

And the fact that methane is 25 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas means that small reductions in human emissions of methane can have as much of an impact on reducing future temperature increases as larger reductions in carbon dioxide.  (As Shared Humanity notes, we do have to reduce those to net zero by 2050 to 2070 to keep the temperature increase to less than 2 C).

Sciguy

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #966 on: March 06, 2019, 01:26:58 AM »
The potential emissions reductions worldwide could stabilize methane levels in the atmosphere as was the case in the late 1990s.

Ultimately, natural gas and oil use will be reduced to minimal levels to support industrial applications being replaced by renewable electricity powering buildings and transportation.  Since methane's residence time in the atmosphere is about a decade, we can expect to see the concentrations in the atmosphere decrease during our lifetimes.

Of course, there is nothing in the short term or long term trends that supports your statement that "natural gas and oil use will be reduced to minimal levels."

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/pdf/nat_gas.pdf

If you ignore recent developments then the case looks bleak.  Fortunately, the economics for renewables have improved greatly in recent years, to the point that they are now cheaper than fossil fuel plants.



You counter my suggestion that oil and gas consumption will continue to climb with a response that focuses almost entirely on electricity generation using fossil fuels which will have little if any impact on the consumption of oil which is transportation based.

I will repeat. There is very little evidence that...


Ultimately, natural gas and oil use will be reduced to minimal levels...

If you want to understand the trends in transportation which is driving growth in oil consumption, I've posted a lot of industry data on the cars thread. EV's are simply not growing fast enough to prevent another couple of decades of growth in oil consumption. Although I suppose if you use ultimately to mean 40 years out, this statement may be true.

But then, since we need to be carbon neutral by 2050, this would mean that, ultimately, we're screwed.

The days of the internal combustion engine (ICE) are numbered:

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/02/25/the-osborne-effect-on-the-auto-industry/

I posted a summary of this article in the Cars, Cars, ... forum in the Policy and Solutions area a few days ago.  Here's the key chart from the article:



The costs for battery electric vehicles (BEV) are continuing to decrease, mainly due to the decrease of battery costs and improvements in battery technology.  Meanwhile, ICE vehicles are a mature industry that have seen costs slowly increase over time. 

Also, some countries have laws or policies that will restrict the sales of ICE vehicles in the future.

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-that-will-ban-gasoline-cars.html

China, the world's largest auto market, has set aggressive goals for the adoption of BEVs as noted in this story from 2018.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2018/05/30/chinas-all-in-on-electric-vehicles-heres-how-that-will-accelerate-sales-in-other-nations/#6ca00b38e5c1

Quote
Chinese consumers are on track to buy more than 1 million electric vehicles (EVs) this year after sales grew 53% in 2017.  And China’s leadership is charting a course to an all-electric future, targeting 2 million annual EV sales by 2020 and a complete ban on internal-combustion engines, which officials predicts will happen before 2040.

China’s EVs enthusiasm is driven by domestic considerations, but by committing to electric transportation, the world’s largest vehicle market will accelerate global EV adoption.


Sciguy

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #967 on: March 06, 2019, 06:33:59 PM »
That is an interesting find and possibly part of the methane mentioned in the article
AGU Very  strong atmospheric methane growth  in the  four  years 2014 -2017 in #943 in this thread.

The abstract does not mention when the conversion began but the article cites two sources and the second of those is the China Fisheries Yearbook 2013 so at least by then it was a factor so it shows up at the right time to contribute.

If anyone who has access could quote some data on the historical growth numbers and estimated emissions from those that would be nice.

It's challenging to reconcile methane emissions from various sources based on economic data (bottom's up estimates) with the calculated emissions to arrive at the concentrations in the atmosphere and the annual growth rate in the concentrations combined with field measurements taking air samples over emitting sources (top down estimates).  The changes in estimated natural emissions from El Nino/La Nina shifts and the impacts of the precipitation on tropical wetland emissions can overwhelm changes in emissions from human sources.  And that doesn't take into account the debate on how much methane is being emitted from the ESAS, as we've been discussing in this forum over the past few months.  The estimates for the ESAS emissions range from 2 to 17 Tg per year, depending on how measurements over a small part of the ESAS are estimated to apply to the entire ESAS.

Here's a study from 2018 discussing agricultural sources of methane emissions.

https://daneshyari.com/article/preview/4758866.pdf

Quote
1750. There are
many sources of CH4 in the terrestrial biosphere. Global CH4 sources,
which include unmanaged and managed sources, have been estimated
at 678 Tg CH4 yr−1 with a range of 542–852 for the 2000–2009 decade.
Wetlands are the main unmanaged source and they account for
217 Tg CH4 yr−1 of global CH4 emissions (IPCC, 2013). Managed
sources originate primarily from fossil fuels (96 Tg CH4 yr−1), ruminants
(89 Tg CH4 yr−1), landfill/waste (75 Tg CH4 yr−1), rice
(36 Tg CH4 yr−1)
and biomass burning (35 Tg CH4 yr−1) (IPCC, 2013).
There are very large uncertainties in these estimates. In Canada,
emissions from wetlands range from 16 to 29 Tg CH4 yr−1 depending
on the study (Thompson et al., 2017). Agriculture accounts for about
1.4 Tg CH4 yr−1, approximately 88% are from enteric fermentation and
the remaining 12% are from manure management systems
(Environment Canada, 2015b; Karimi-Zindashty et al., 2012). Little is
known about the magnitude of the CH4 emissions from wetlands within
the agricultural landscape.

The article below estimates that the inbalance of methane emissions (causing the increase in concentrations of methane in the atmosphere since 2007) is 25 million tons (or 25 Tg).  They estimate that increased fossil fuel production since 2017 is responsible for 17 million tons (or 17 Tg) of the increase.  So compared to the increase in emissions from fossil fuel production, the increase from additional aquaculture is probably about an order of magnitude (10 times) less.

Here's the article from January 2018 summarizing the study on increases in methane emissions from fossil fuels.

https://rmi.org/2018s-pressing-energy-challenge-methane-emissions/

Quote
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has shown that since preindustrial times, methane has been responsible for 20 percent of global warming and nearly 40 percent of the climate forcing, a direct measure of the amount that the Earth’s energy budget is out of balance. Methane currently contributes almost 40 percent to the heat-trapping effect of all human-produced greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

And this problem is only getting worse. As NASA explains, since just 2006, methane concentrations in the atmosphere have risen sharply and are currently causing an overbalance of more than 25 million tons per year. Clearly this cannot continue if we have any hope of limiting global temperature rise to 2 or even 3 Celsius degrees, as outlined in the Paris Climate Accord.

Enter the recent NASA study. Its research confirms that 17 of the extra 25 million tons of annual methane emissions come from the fossil fuel sector—or nearly 70 percent of all new emissions! During this period, there has been a massive increase in hydraulically fractured oil and natural gas production while coal mining has remained constant. In addition, natural gas wasted in unproductive flares and vents to the atmosphere have been on the increase for the past eight years. By inference, the increase in both petroleum production and the intentional wasting of the associated gas provides a smoking gun to the spiking atmospheric concentrations of methane. Reliable methane emissions estimates in the oil industry are lacking since measurements of partial combustion and vents are close to absent, and measurements of gas leakage from transport and distribution are scarce.

Quote
Too many scientifically based studies have been published to continue to ignore the problem of methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. The time to fix this problem is now. Our best chance to address runaway methane emissions is to tighten up the oil and gas supply chain where large amounts of methane are intentionally vented and unintentionally leaked. Rocky Mountain Institute’s Global Race for Zero Methane Emissions Challenge is doing just that, aiming to reduce climate-change-causing methane impacts of the oil and gas industry by 5.6 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent emissions.

Starting with major oil and gas companies, methane reduction must become the oil industry’s priority, as opposed to being treated simply as a regulatory hurdle. To this end, there are some encouraging signs of commitment by certain companies that recently signed a set of Methane Principles. However, this commitment must be followed up with real action in the form of tens of thousands of methane abatement projects across the oil and gas supply chains.

To make these projects happen faster, petroleum ministries and national and international oil companies need to reexamine their 100-year-old business models and open up their protected markets to entrepreneurial forces. To solve the industry’s methane problem, the industry needs to mobilize a “gold rush” of activity that is supported by national budgets, multilateral financing, and commercial banks.

Another solution would be for people to press for Governments to limit or ban fracking for oil or natural gas.

Sciguy

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #968 on: March 06, 2019, 07:15:59 PM »
To further demonstrate how confusing studies of methane emissions can be, a different study on the conversion of rice paddies to aquaculture ponds published in 2018 found that the conversion reduced methane emissions.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231017308506

Quote
Inland aquaculture ponds have been documented as important sources of atmospheric methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), while their regional or global source strength remains unclear due to lack of direct flux measurements by covering more typical habitat-specific aquaculture environments. In this study, we compared the CH4 and N2O fluxes from rice paddies and nearby inland fish aquaculture wetlands that were converted from rice paddies in southeast China. Both CH4 and N2O fluxes were positively related to water temperature and sediment dissolved organic carbon, but negatively related to water dissolved oxygen concentration. More robust response of N2O fluxes to water mineral N was observed than to sediment mineral N. Annual CH4 and N2O fluxes from inland fish aquaculture averaged 0.51 mg m−2 h−1 and 54.78 μg m−2 h−1, amounting to 42.31 kg CH4 ha−1 and 2.99 kg N2O-N ha−1, respectively. The conversion of rice paddies to conventional fish aquaculture significantly reduced CH4 and N2O emissions by 23% and 66%, respectively.


Shared Humanity

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #969 on: March 06, 2019, 08:21:36 PM »
Total vehicles in China just topped 300 million.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/economy/article/2088876/chinas-more-300-million-vehicles-drive-pollution-congestion

Most are ICE's.

24 million new cars hit the roads in China in 2018.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/233743/vehicle-sales-in-china/

Most of these were ICE's.

Sciguy

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #970 on: March 06, 2019, 11:24:05 PM »
Total vehicles in China just topped 300 million.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/economy/article/2088876/chinas-more-300-million-vehicles-drive-pollution-congestion

Most are ICE's.

24 million new cars hit the roads in China in 2018.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/233743/vehicle-sales-in-china/

Most of these were ICE's.

I'll respond to this post here, but we should probably take further discussion to the Cars, Cars,... forum.

Yes, currently more ICEs are begin sold than EVs.  The question is for how long?  The article I posted predicts that in the mid-2020s, less than 10 years, more EVs will be sold then ICEs.

There's already evidence that EVs are cutting into demand for ICEs.

https://www.treehugger.com/cars/gas-car-sales-are-down-china-eu-us-electric-cars-blame.html

Quote
According to publicly available data, sales of fossil fuel-powered cars were down in China, Europe AND the United States last year, while sales of electric cars were significantly up.


Here's the view from China alone:


In the world’s largest auto market, China, total light duty vehicle (LDV) sales declined in 2018 relative to 2017. This was the first year-on-year drop since 1992. Yet, in this shrinking overall auto market, EV sales (including BEVs and PHEVs) almost doubled in volume to 1.1 million, from 600,000 in 2017.

The numbers aren't quite as dramatic in the US and Europe, but they are both still moving in the right direction. In the US, for example, LDV sales were 17.274 million, up from 17.230 million the year before—but EV sales were up 160,000 to 360,000 during the same timeframe. In other words, increased market share and a decline in absolute terms of fossil fuel-powered cars. Meanwhile European LDV sales ticked up an even smaller 0.07 million to 17.75 million overall, but with 408,000 electric vehicle sales (up from 307,000 the year before), the entirety of that increase—and then some—was due to electrification.

vox_mundi

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #971 on: March 22, 2019, 06:54:33 PM »
Hundreds of Methane Bubble Streams Link Biology, Seismology Off Washington's Coast
https://phys.org/news/2019-03-hundreds-streams-link-biology-seismology.html



The first large-scale analysis of these methane gas emissions along Washington's coast finds more than 1,700 bubble plumes, primarily clustered in a north-south band about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the coast. Analysis of the underlying geology suggests why the bubbles emerge here: The gas and fluid rise through faults generated by the motion of geologic plates that produce major offshore earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest.

The study, from the University of Washington and Oregon State University, was recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth.



... "Although there are some methane plumes from all depths on the margin, the vast majority of the newly observed methane plume sites are located at the seaward side of the continental shelf, at about 160 meters water depth," Johnson said.

A previous study from the UW had suggested that warming seawater might be releasing frozen methane in this region, but further analysis showed the methane bubbles off the Pacific Northwest coast arise from sites that have been present for hundreds of years, and are not related to global warming, Johnson said.

H. Paul Johnson et al, Anomalous Concentration of Methane Emissions at the Continental Shelf Edge of the Northern Cascadia Margin, Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth (2019)

----------------------------------------

Chemical Tracers Untangle Natural from Agricultural Methane Emissions
https://phys.org/news/2019-03-chemical-tracers-untangle-natural-agricultural.html

With natural gas booming across the Front Range, drilling rigs may operate within feet from cattle farms. That shared land use can confound attempts to understand trends in methane, a greenhouse gas and air pollutant—the gases emitted from these different sources blend together.

To untangle them, a CIRES-led team has innovated a new, cost-effective technique to efficiently measure methane and a cocktail of associated chemicals in the atmosphere, and to create a kind of chemical identification tag for methane sources.

"Methane is an important greenhouse gas. But it has a high global concentration so it can be challenging to see its specific sources," said Natalie Kille, CIRES Ph.D. student and lead author on the study published today in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters. "This technique allows us to remove the background methane concentrations in our analysis to clearly see unique chemical tracers." ...

Natalie Kille et al. Separation of methane emissions from agricultural and natural gas sources in the Colorado Front Range, Geophysical Research Letters (2019)
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

morganism

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #972 on: March 30, 2019, 11:50:26 PM »
degradation of ethane: Single-celled organism that oxidises ethane on the seabed.

https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=36336&webc_pm=15/2019

"the archaeon is responsible for the oxidation of ethane to carbon dioxide, and the accompanying bacteria for reducing sulphate to sulphide.

Furthermore, they observed that Candidatus Argoarchaeum ethanivorans does not form aggregates with the partner bacteria during oxidation of ethane, in contrast to cultures degrading methane, propane or butane. "The archaeon and the two types of bacteria grow mostly as free cells. Intercellular connections by nano-wires that would mediate the transfer of electrons, as shown with other cultures, are missing"....

"We are now aware of the mechanisms underlying the degradation of short-chain hydrocarbons by 'alkyl'-CoM reductases, and we assume that the reverse reactions may be feasible. If demonstrated, this means biotechnologies to produce hydrocarbons using these or similar microorganisms," says Musat. This could mark the beginning of new biotechnological applications to produce synthetic fuels."

morganism

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #973 on: April 14, 2019, 01:19:52 AM »
Proliferation of hydrocarbon-degrading microbes at the bottom of the Mariana Trench

"Taxonomic profiling of metagenomic data based on the NCBI-nr database revealed that bacteria accounted for the majority of the population at all depths in both FL and PA samples, compared to archaea and eukaryotes"

"a Microbial community shifts at order level with depth. b Microbial community shifts at genus level with depth."

"However, the predominance of Oceanospirillales, along with MCP, alkB, and type IV pilus assembly genes in NBW, resembles the situation (dominant microbial communities and functional genes) in the Deepwater Horizon spill "

https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40168-019-0652-3

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #974 on: April 17, 2019, 05:20:47 AM »
The Arctic is also releasing Nitrous Oxide...twelve times as much as thought:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190415090848.htm

FrostKing70

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #975 on: May 07, 2019, 08:55:50 PM »
This was mentioned in the Greenland thread.  As I thought about it, I wondered if there would be a positive feedback loop with the methane release:

Greenland melts causing less gravitational pull on the waters near Greenland, the sea level drops lower, which results in the warmer surface water being closer to the seabed, then seabed warms faster, which releases methane, causing Greenland to melt faster (and repeat!?!)

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2626/evidence-of-sea-level-fingerprints/


FrostKing70

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #976 on: May 07, 2019, 09:02:05 PM »
A little more detail for background:

http://nautil.us/issue/62/systems/why-our-intuition-about-sea_level-rise-is-wrong-rp

You can Google to find other articles, this is the first one I found which had a number for the sea level drop near Greenland.




oren

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #977 on: May 07, 2019, 11:15:16 PM »
This was mentioned in the Greenland thread.  As I thought about it, I wondered if there would be a positive feedback loop with the methane release:

Greenland melts causing less gravitational pull on the waters near Greenland, the sea level drops lower, which results in the warmer surface water being closer to the seabed, then seabed warms faster, which releases methane, causing Greenland to melt faster (and repeat!?!)

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2626/evidence-of-sea-level-fingerprints/
A very good question. If the seabed becomes shallower even this alone could cause some methane release due to removal of water pressure, plus a shorter water column.
Some of the continental shelf could become completely exposed, depending on the bathymetry near Greenland. Again, methane implications.
I should point out that this is a very long process, and could play over centuries.

FrostKing70

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #978 on: May 08, 2019, 07:09:16 AM »
Good point, I hadn't thought about the lower pressure due to less water pressing down on the seabed.   As you say, this will take a long time, although I will admit my gut is telling me this is decades instead of centuries....

Tor Bejnar

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #979 on: May 08, 2019, 03:04:36 PM »
From some information I posted elsewhere (here and here), it appears that sea level around Greenland is lowering at roughly the same rate as sea level is rising 'globally', at least as long as the continental ice sheet melt is dominated by West Antarctica and Greenland (and not East Antarctica).  On a rough scale, when global average sea level rises 2 meters (about 2080-2100?), sea level 'near' Greenland (within 2,000 km, but diminishing with distance) will lower about 2 meters.

How much 'less pressure' would this represent?
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

oren

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #980 on: May 08, 2019, 04:12:02 PM »
Tor, I think this is not the case. It should be a factor of about 5 between Greenland sea level drop and global SLR. I think the explanation is that part of the global SLR is due to other glaciers worldwide, changes in hydrology, and thermal expansion.

Tor Bejnar

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #981 on: May 08, 2019, 04:29:47 PM »
I'm all ears, Oren, and have some questions.  As this is a Methane Release thread, I've cross-posted our posts to Sea Level Rise Projections and Maps and asked my questions there.
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

morganism

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #982 on: May 18, 2019, 12:10:49 AM »
Discovery illuminates how bacteria turn methane gas into liquid methanol

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2019/05/methane-consuming-bacteria-could-be-the-future-of-fuel/

“While copper sites are known to catalyze methane-to-methanol conversion in human-made materials, methane-to-methanol catalysis at a monocopper site under ambient conditions is unprecedented,” said Matthew O. Ross, a graduate student co-advised by Rosenzweig and Hoffman and the paper’s first author. “If we can develop a complete understanding of how they perform this conversion at such mild conditions, we can optimize our own catalysts.”

There is also a new catalyst design that may help in direct conversion of CO2 to hydroxyls and bicarbonate, for atmo reduction. This design is a physical construction that maybe could be incorporated directly into the physical frame or structure of solar cells or wind turbines.

"Via mesostructure design to tune the electric field distribution in the electrode, it is demonstrated that the Cu–In alloy with an inverse opal (CI-1-IO) structure provides efficient electrochemical CO2 reduction and allows for sensitive detection of the CO2 reduction intermediates via surface-enhanced Raman scattering."

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2019/TA/C9TA02288K

http://www.rsc.org/suppdata/c9/ta/c9ta02288k/c9ta02288k1.pdf
« Last Edit: May 18, 2019, 11:13:22 PM by morganism »


gerontocrat

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #984 on: May 22, 2019, 11:48:41 PM »
This should be good!

https://cage.uit.no/2019/05/21/new-leonardo-dicaprio-documentary-includes-scientists-from-cage-premiers-at-2019-cannes-film-festival/?fbclid=IwAR1BEdYqIDhbVySSjQ8PfS9L-JyED7xj9IdIybVH8rMbScSEuQJSRsNepmc
Any publicity of the mess we are in is good. But I cannot resist the temptation to....


"Methaneggedon!!!!" the Hollywood disaster movie to end all disaster movies.

Our young, brilliant, but difficult scientist (with a raft of personal problems) warns the scientific establishment that there are vast pools of liquid methane close to the surface along the Arctic Ocean fringe. Global warming means that channels are opening up from the surface down to and between these vast deposits- and ignition of just one of these surface channels could......

He/she is discredited and humiliated at the IPCC meeting.

But MegaCorp has stolen her/his  research, and blindly seeks to drill to capture the methane. A careless mechanic, an electrical short - ignition, rapidly spreading. The tundra and the ocean are on fire. Lots of exploding icebergs and LNG container ships.

Can the planet be saved?
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

sidd

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #985 on: May 23, 2019, 06:00:57 AM »
Re: Can the planet be saved ?

You need reeducation, citizen. The proper question is, will the movie make money ? And what about syndication rights ? And sequels and prequels ? And TV spinoffs ? Is there a backend ? Hats, Stickers ? coffee mugs, T shirts ?

"Come in here dear boy, have a cigar ... "

sidd

longwalks1

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #986 on: May 29, 2019, 06:12:42 PM »
Natalia Shakhova  Igor Semiletov etc. 

Role of Salt Migration in Destabilization of Intra Permafrost Hydrates in the Arctic Shelf: Experimental Modeling

Quote
Experiments showed that the migration of salts into frozen hydrate-containing sediments activates the decomposition of pore gas hydrates and increase the methane emission.

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3263/9/4/188/htm
https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences9040188

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #987 on: May 30, 2019, 03:12:58 AM »

Sciguy

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #988 on: June 01, 2019, 12:22:33 AM »
This study published in April 2019 indicates that bacteria consume between 41% and 83% of methane released from thermokarst lakes.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2515-7620/ab1042/meta

Quote
First evidence for cold-adapted anaerobic oxidation of methane in deep sediments of thermokarst lakes

M Winkel1,2,4, A Sepulveda-Jauregui1,4,5,6, K Martinez-Cruz1,5, J K Heslop1,7, R Rijkers2, F Horn2, S Liebner2,3 and K M Walter Anthony1

 Published 3 April 2019 •   © 2019 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd
 Environmental Research Communications,  Volume 1,  Number 2   

Abstract
 
Microbial decomposition of thawed permafrost carbon in thermokarst lakes leads to the release of ancient carbon as the greenhouse gas methane (CH4), yet potential mitigating processes are not understood. Here, we report δ 13C–CH4 signatures in the pore water of a thermokarst lake sediment core that points towards in situ occurrence of anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM). Analysis of the microbial communities showed a natural enrichment in CH4-oxidizing archaeal communities that occur in sediment horizons at temperatures near 0 °C. These archaea also showed high rates of AOM in laboratory incubations. Calculation of the stable isotopes suggests that 41 to 83% of in situ dissolved CH4 is consumed anaerobically. Quantification of functional genes (mcrA) for anaerobic methanotrophic communities revealed up to 6.7 ± 0.7 × 105 copy numbers g−1 wet weight and showed similar abundances to bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequences in the sediment layers with the highest AOM rates. We conclude that these AOM communities are fueled by CH4 produced from permafrost organic matter degradation in the underlying sediments that represent the radially expanding permafrost thaw front beneath the lake. If these communities are widespread in thermokarst environments, they could have a major mitigating effect on the global CH4 emissions.

Sciguy

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #989 on: June 01, 2019, 12:33:00 AM »
This study from January 2019 indicates that bacteria consume between 25% to 34% of methane from Arctic soils.

https://www.mdpi.com/2571-8789/3/1/7

Quote
Anaerobic Methane Oxidation in High-Arctic Alaskan Peatlands as a Significant Control on Net CH4 Fluxes

Kimberley E. Miller 1,2,3,*, Chun-Ta Lai 1, Randy A. Dahlgren 2 and David A. Lipson 1

1 Department of Biology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182, USA

2 Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA

3 Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs, Ohio University, The Ridges Building 22, Athens, OH 45701, USA

*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Soil Syst. 2019, 3(1), 7; https://doi.org/10.3390/soilsystems3010007

Received: 1 November 2018 / Revised: 13 December 2018 / Accepted: 28 December 2018 / Published: 9 January 2019

Abstract

Terrestrial consumption of the potent greenhouse gas methane (CH4) is a critical aspect of the future climate, as CH4 concentrations in the atmosphere are projected to play an increasingly important role in global climate forcing. Anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) has only recently been considered a relevant control on methane fluxes from terrestrial systems. We performed in vitro anoxic incubations of intact peat from Utqiaġvik (Barrow), Alaska using stable isotope tracers. Our results showed an average potential AOM rate of 15.0 nmol cm3 h−1, surpassing the average rate of gross CH4 production (6.0 nmol cm3 h−1). AOM and CH4 production rates were positively correlated. While CH4 production was insensitive to additions of Fe(III), there was a depth:Fe(III) interaction in the kinetic reaction rate constant for AOM, suggestive of stimulation by Fe(III), particularly in shallow soils (<10 cm). We estimate AOM would consume 25–34% of CH4 produced under ambient conditions. Soil genetic surveys showed phylogenetic links between soil microbes and known anaerobic methanotrophs in ANME groups 2 and 3. These results suggest a prevalent role of AOM to net CH4 fluxes from Arctic peatland ecosystems, and a probable link with Fe(III)-reduction. 

Wherestheice

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #990 on: June 02, 2019, 08:38:23 PM »
This pretty much confirms more of what I have been saying about methane releases from hydrates, even tho many choose to downplay or ignore

https://m.phys.org/news/2019-05-deep-sea-carbon-reservoirs-superheated.html
"When the ice goes..... F***

Serrara Fluttershy

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #991 on: June 03, 2019, 12:39:02 AM »
New info: https://www.skoltech.ru/en/2019/05/scientists-discover-an-entirely-new-reason-for-methane-venting-from-the-arctic-shelf/

Quote
Scientists from Skoltech, Tomsk Polytechnic University, and the Pacific Oceanological Institute of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) found that one of the reasons for extensive methane release from the bottom sediments of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is the destabilization of underwater permafrost gas hydrates. These interact with the salt solutions (seawater) migrating into the thawing submarine permafrost.

Quote
The authors of the paper were the first to prove experimentally that gas hydrates become unstable and start to decompose when interacting with salts even under permafrost conditions.

Sciguy

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #992 on: June 06, 2019, 06:55:22 PM »
Speaking of fracking:

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/The-Gas-Flaring-Crisis-In-The-US-Oil-Patch.html

Quote
In its relentless pursuit of oil, the shale industry continues to burn more and more gas into the air.

The rate of flaring in the Permian basin reached a record high in the first three months of this year, averaging 661 million cubic feet per day (MMcfd), according to Rystad Energy. That is more than double the amount of flaring for the same period from a year earlier.

There is little chance of a reduction in the next few months. “We anticipate that basin-wide flaring will stay above 650 MMcfd before the Gulf Coast Express pipeline comes online in the second half of 2019,” Artem Abramov, Head of Shale Research at Rystad Energy, said in a press release.

It’s an astonishing amount of gas that is being flared into the atmosphere. Rystad puts it into context, noting that the most productive gas facility in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico – Shell’s Mars-Ursa complex – produces about 260 to 270 MMcfd of gross natural gas. In other words, the most productive gas project in the Gulf of Mexico only produces about 40 percent of the volume of gas that is being flared and vented in West Texas and New Mexico every single day.

Things are not that much better in North Dakota. Bakken shale drillers flared and vented about 500 MMcfd in the first quarter of 2019, Rystad estimates. Together, the shale industry in the Permian and the Bakken flared or vented 1.15 billion cubic feet per day in the first quarter. “Converting to the metric system for comparative purposes, that represents 12 billion cubic meters of wasted gas per year, which exceeds the yearly gas demand of nations such as Israel, Colombia and Romania,” Rystad Energy concluded.

Quote
In North Dakota, state regulators have watched as drillers fail to comply with flaring limits. The state capped flaring at 15 percent in 2016, a limit that would lower to 10 percent by 2020. The current limit is 12 percent. However, the industry flared 20 percent in the first three months of this year. “Compliance with the state's flaring policy is not working,” Wayde Schafer, spokesman for the North Dakota Sierra Club chapter, told the AP last month. “We need to revisit the policy.”

Quote
The amount of gas flared in March in the Bakken is enough gas to heat all North Dakota homes ten times over, according to the AP, citing an analysis conducted by the North Dakota legislature.

Quote
Earlier this year, the Environmental Defense Fund estimated that methane emissions at oil and gas sites in the Permian are five times higher than what the industry is reporting to regulators. Separately, EDF found that flaring in the Permian is likely twice as high as the companies say.

Sciguy

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #993 on: June 06, 2019, 07:03:39 PM »
The linked paper indicates that using the natural gas instead of flaring it could lead to significant greenhouse gas reductions.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211467X17300962

Quote
The potential role of natural gas flaring in meeting greenhouse gas mitigation targets

Author links open overlay panel Christopher D. Elvidge a, Morgan D. Bazilian b, Mikhail Zhizhin c, d, Tilottama Ghosh c, Kimberly Baugh c, Feng-Chi Hsu c

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2017.12.012

Abstract

In this paper, we compare 2015 satellite-derived natural gas (gas) flaring data with the greenhouse gas reduction targets presented by those countries in their nationally determined contributions (NDC) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Paris Agreement. Converting from flaring to utilization is an attractive option for reducing emissions. The analysis rates the potential role of reduction of gas flaring in meeting country-specific NDC targets. The analysis includes three categories of flaring: upstream in oil and gas production areas, downstream at refineries and transport facilities, and industrial (e.g., coal mines, landfills, water treatment plants, etc.). Upstream flaring dominates with 90.6% of all flaring. Global flaring represents less than 2% of the NDC reduction target. However, most gas flaring is concentrated in a limited set of countries, leaving the possibility that flaring reduction could contribute a sizeable portion of the NDC targets for specific countries. States that could fully meet their NDC targets through gas flaring reductions include: Yemen (240%), Algeria (197%), and Iraq (136%). Countries which could meet a substantial portion of their NDC targets with gas flaring reductions include: Gabon (94%), Algeria (48%), Venezuela (47%), Iran (34%), and Sudan (33%). On the other hand, several countries with large flared gas volumes could only meet a small portion of their NDC targets from gas flaring reductions, including the Russian Federation (2.4%) and the USA (0.1%). These findings may be useful in guiding national level efforts to meet NDC greenhouse gas reduction targets.

Quote
Methods for reducing gas flaring include transport as gas to a market, conversion to a liquid fuel similar to gasoline, on-site utilization for heat or electric power, and reinjection into underground strata. Reductions in gas flaring are an attractive option for stepping down greenhouse gas emissions because the gas is a marketable commodity. Utilization of the gas displaces other fossil fuels, thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

morganism

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #994 on: June 07, 2019, 09:43:39 AM »
Counter-intuitive climate change solution

"The basic idea is that some sources of methane emissions - from rice cultivation or cattle, for example - may be very difficult or expensive to eliminate. "An alternative is to offset these emissions via methane removal, so there is no net effect on warming the atmosphere,"

"Most scenarios for removing carbon dioxide typically assume hundreds of billions of tons removed over decades and do not restore the atmosphere to pre-industrial levels. In contrast, methane concentrations could be restored to pre-industrial levels by removing about 3.2 billion tons of the gas from the atmosphere and converting it into an amount of carbon dioxide equivalent to a few months of global industrial emissions, according to the researchers. If successful, the approach would eliminate approximately one-sixth of all causes of global warming to date."


http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Counter_intuitive_climate_change_solution_999.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0299-x

Methane removal and atmospheric restoration

"Zeolites and other technologies should be evaluated and pursued for reducing methane concentrations in the atmosphere from 1,860 ppb to preindustrial levels of ~750 ppb. Such a goal of atmospheric restoration provides a positive framework for change at a time when climate action is desperately needed."

morganism

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #995 on: June 07, 2019, 12:49:50 PM »
Industrial methane emissions are 100 times higher than reported

http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2019/06/industrial-methane-emissions-are-100-times-higher-reported-researchers-say

"The team discovered that, on average, 0.34% of the gas used in the plants is emitted to the atmosphere. Scaling this emission rate from the six plants to the entire industry suggests total annual methane emissions of 28 gigagrams – 100 times higher than the fertilizer industry’s self-reported estimate of 0.2 gigagrams per year.

In addition, this figure far exceeds the EPA’s estimate that all industrial processes in the United States produce only 8 gigagrams of methane emissions per year."

Estimation of methane emissions from the U.S. ammonia fertilizer industry using a mobile sensing approach

https://www.elementascience.org/articles/10.1525/elementa.358/

kassy

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #996 on: June 07, 2019, 03:01:56 PM »
But credit where credit is due the US is producing 0% of that in the Arctic.  8)
Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.

salbers

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #997 on: June 16, 2019, 10:43:01 PM »
Here's a recent paper by S&S in case it has yet to be posted: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3263/9/6/251

longwalks1

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #998 on: June 17, 2019, 05:06:13 AM »
Edit, mea culpa, this post is in reference to the above post #997.  I apologize.  original post follows.

I delayed posting about this paper.  I printed it out prior, been busy.  I had dug up a little about Evgeny Chuvilin in the previous paper of NaCl effects on hydrates and he appears to have written on several decent papers, he did some of the research with the Japanese team investigating hydrates off the coast of Japan. 

Understanding the Permafrost–Hydrate System and Associated Methane Releases in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf Natalia Shakhova 1,2,*, Igor Semiletov 1,3,4,5 and Evgeny Chuvilin

It is a very forceful paper in some ways, they raise questions about sampling methods of a couple papers and the early dismissal of outliers in another paper.  In the end,

Quote
To further improve estimates of CH 4 emissions from the ESAS, multi-level and multi-seasonal
investigations should be performed, aimed at quantifying different components of annual emissions
and defining the factors controlling them.


Quote
A new challenge is the unknown scale of the ice scouring mechanism
of CH 4 release; this mechanism could unroof an ascending gas front in the upper sediment layers,
opening gas-migration pathways for underlying gas [22]. The relative importance of the various flux
components should also be independently evaluated by detailed observations of atmospheric mixing
ratios throughout the year. In this regard, establishing a monitoring network (including non-coastal
observatories, satellites, unmanned aircraft, helicopter surveys, and summer cruises) over the entire
area of the ESAS is of critical importance.

Of course the devil is in the details of getting new long term research

It is one of several papers in a special issue.

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/geosciences/special_issues/gas_hydrate

Quote
Guest Editor
Dr. Evgeny Chuvilin

Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Moscow, Russia
Website | E-Mail
Interests: permafrost; gas hydrate; gas in permafrost; freezing process; hydrate formation; unfrozen water; properties of frozen sediments; experimental modeling; methane emission
« Last Edit: June 17, 2019, 05:27:15 PM by longwalks1 »

gerontocrat

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #999 on: June 17, 2019, 08:34:21 AM »

Understanding the Permafrost–Hydrate System and Associated Methane Releases in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf Natalia Shakhova 1,2,*, Igor Semiletov 1,3,4,5 and Evgeny Chuvilin

It is a very forceful paper in some ways, they raise questions about sampling methods of a couple papers and the early dismissal of outliers in another paper.

It seems that Shakhova and Semiletov have been banging their heads against the brick wall of consensus science for a long time. There seems to be little acceptance of the existence of vast quantities of CH4 under e.g. the ESAS or that large quantities could be released into the atmosphere from these shallow waters once warming compromises the frozen lid of gas hydrates.

Perhaps it is because if it happened as far as AGW is concerned all bets would be off.
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