Perfectly combusted butane only releases CO2 and water, too. The point of that experiment is showing nothing burns perfectly. Even 100% pure methane burning at 100% efficiency releases CO2, which has measurable toxicity in humans.
That being said, largery hydrocarbons will generally burn less perfectly then smaller ones. Methane has 1 carbon. Butane has four. Gasoline has 8-10, lower grade fuels have more, tars get to 20-30. Coal is a mixture of tars and hydrocarbons with even longer carbon chains.
So natural gas powerplants with sufficient exhaust scrubbers are having a substantial effect on atmospheric pollutants? I feel like we keep getting off of the main question here. Like to stoves and lighters and such. I get nothing burns perfectly clean but seems like just an engineering hurtle to me. With natural gas I’m typically more concerned about the hydro fracking aspect. There’s really not a solution to groundwater contamination in fracking beyond them saying it didn’t happen.
Well, I think we could easily start by synthesizing high purity methane. As long as you do it very slow and in small amounts, you can at least get rid of hereroatoms. After that, we could have several stages of carb/exhaust loops to ensure complete combustion. Of course, you’re going to need to heat the last few stages.
Then you just spent 10x the energy you’ll get from the natural gas just making it clean. Checkmate, liberals.
I feel like there’s a reasonable optimization. Everything has an environmental cost, even the production of green energy infrastructure. I think we can reasonably compare and contrast the probable lifetime impact of an energy source, including decommission and possible recycling. That is nothing is perfect but it’s about what’s the best we can manage given what the market can financially support.
Yes, that is my point. It is completely unreasonable to make gas clean enough to not affect air quality. We do what we reasonably can. And that results in pollution.
I’m still not fully sold that it appreciably does affect air quality, I’m aware it’s not zero but is it causing like cancer and birth defects in people around the powerplant? I think you and I are more aligned than the others on this thread.
Scrubbers cannot possibly capture all of it. It’s not just an engineering hurdle. It’s physics. Just like burning it can never be 100% efficient, scrubbing it cannot either.
Even if it were possible to somehow scrub 100% of the CO2 and other methane byproducts, it would be unbelievably expensive. Not only is it something that frankly shouldn’t even be focused on any more when we already have cheap, green, renewable energy, but do you expect the capitalist billionaires to care enough to pay for the new scrubbers (which, by the way, in this context, do not even exist?)
Perfectly combusted butane only releases CO2 and water, too. The point of that experiment is showing nothing burns perfectly. Even 100% pure methane burning at 100% efficiency releases CO2, which has measurable toxicity in humans.
That being said, largery hydrocarbons will generally burn less perfectly then smaller ones. Methane has 1 carbon. Butane has four. Gasoline has 8-10, lower grade fuels have more, tars get to 20-30. Coal is a mixture of tars and hydrocarbons with even longer carbon chains.
So natural gas powerplants with sufficient exhaust scrubbers are having a substantial effect on atmospheric pollutants? I feel like we keep getting off of the main question here. Like to stoves and lighters and such. I get nothing burns perfectly clean but seems like just an engineering hurtle to me. With natural gas I’m typically more concerned about the hydro fracking aspect. There’s really not a solution to groundwater contamination in fracking beyond them saying it didn’t happen.
Yeah. Of course, the phrase “sufficient exhaust scrubbers” is about as reasonable as “100% perfect combustion” in this context. Engineering or no.
So it’s physically impossible or just beyond our current level of technological ability?
Well, I think we could easily start by synthesizing high purity methane. As long as you do it very slow and in small amounts, you can at least get rid of hereroatoms. After that, we could have several stages of carb/exhaust loops to ensure complete combustion. Of course, you’re going to need to heat the last few stages.
Then you just spent 10x the energy you’ll get from the natural gas just making it clean. Checkmate, liberals.
I feel like there’s a reasonable optimization. Everything has an environmental cost, even the production of green energy infrastructure. I think we can reasonably compare and contrast the probable lifetime impact of an energy source, including decommission and possible recycling. That is nothing is perfect but it’s about what’s the best we can manage given what the market can financially support.
Yes, that is my point. It is completely unreasonable to make gas clean enough to not affect air quality. We do what we reasonably can. And that results in pollution.
I’m still not fully sold that it appreciably does affect air quality, I’m aware it’s not zero but is it causing like cancer and birth defects in people around the powerplant? I think you and I are more aligned than the others on this thread.
Yes it is.
Then again everything causes cancer. Aging causes cancer.
Scrubbers cannot possibly capture all of it. It’s not just an engineering hurdle. It’s physics. Just like burning it can never be 100% efficient, scrubbing it cannot either.
Even if it were possible to somehow scrub 100% of the CO2 and other methane byproducts, it would be unbelievably expensive. Not only is it something that frankly shouldn’t even be focused on any more when we already have cheap, green, renewable energy, but do you expect the capitalist billionaires to care enough to pay for the new scrubbers (which, by the way, in this context, do not even exist?)