patrick.net

My question is; What would be the carbon footprint of an industry set up to capture methane?

Light a match.

HEY YOU says

What would be the carbon footprint of an industry set up to capture methane?

Brilliant question: it might use carbon to harvest methane, while at the same reducing the greenhouse effect.

"Pound for pound, the comparative impact of CH4 on climate change is 25 times greater than CO2 over a 100-year period."

So, if you output 5 tons of CO2 to capture and burn one ton of CH4, you reduce greenhouse effects by 80% even while increasing carbon use and output.

BTW, the largest source of methane in the USA is animal agriculture, accounting for more than 30% of all methane emissions, so Captain Poundass is doing his darndest to submerge Florida.

If, however, frozen methane is not harvested, then climate change may cause CH4 sublimation to become an even larger source of greenhouse effects. Collecting and using it as fuel would increase CO2 output but reduce greenhouse gas effects, so it doesn't fit either side's narrative: the "left" wants to stop burning fuel, while the "right" wants to deny greenhouse gas effects entirely. Neither faction seems much interested in the actual science, but I am honestly trying to understand whether it might be possible to collect frozen or sublimating methane as an energy source.

There is a question of density. So far I don't think anyone came up with a workable solution to gather enough of it.

Heraclitusstudent says

There is a question of density. So far I don't think anyone came up with a workable solution to gather enough of it.

I wonder if a technology similar to fracking might work. I think some clathrates are actually visible on the ocean floor, so a robotic crab might harvest them.

I just don't see much investment in developing "a workable solution," relative to the spending on other proposals. For example, I've seen reported promises that the USA and other "rich" countries should transfer $100bn/yr to other countries to "compensate" them for the effects of climate change, and there seems endless funding to document or deny the existence of climate change, but hardly anything to develop a workable solution.

"Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it."

I'm sure there were *some* investments. If the density of deposits is not high enough, it may be that it's just too energy intensive to go after them.
It's not a given that more investments would help.

Interesting. This is totally different, but there IS a large scale project underway to extract the methane and CO2 trapped at the bottom Lake Kivu in Africa. Smaller scale projects have been operating at various times during the past decade.

EBGuy says

This is totally different, but there IS a large scale project underway to extract the methane and CO2 trapped at the bottom Lake Kivu in Africa. Smaller scale projects have been operating at various times during the past decade.

Thanks - MIT Technology Review is great, I haven't kept up with it lately but am glad to see it:

Dissolved within Kivu, which straddles the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), are approximately 60 billion cubic meters of methane and 300 billion cubic meters of carbon dioxide. The gases, which come from nearby volcanic activity and bacteria decomposing organic material in the lake, represent both danger and economic potential.

Just as critical, removing Kivu’s methane may prevent a possible catastrophe. With methane concentrations rising, scientists warn that Kivu will eventually experience a deadly phenomenon known as an overturn. Also known as a limnic eruption, an overturn can occur if the pressure of the gases in a lake exceeds the pressure of the water at a given depth, causing a chain reaction that releases them with violent results. Only two limnic eruptions are known to have occurred in recorded history—both in small lakes in Cameroon in the 1980s. In the deadlier of the two episodes, at Lake Nyos in 1986, more than 1,700 people were asphyxiated when a cloud of carbon dioxide, which burst from the lake along with a 100-meter fountain of water,spread as far as 25 kilometers from shore.

Years ago, I saw a report on the methane clathrates on the ocean floor off the southeastern United States, and suggesting that this phenomenon might even explain some of the shipping losses in the Bermuda Triangle.

If I read the MIT report correctly, investment in the project depends on the expected economic return from generating electricity.

I haven't seen any proposal to subsidize similar projects as a way to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations. To the contrary, the side that acknowledges the existence of climate change seems averse to scientific solutions, e.g. geo-engineering. As often happens, the partisan response is to monetize the problem rather than solving it, creating a perpetual patronage revenue model. It's a pity really, because the energy industry can benefit from CH4 as an energy source, and using it might reduce greenhouse gas effects more efficiently than trying to reduce CO2 output.

You know what this means....

Yes.

Time for Washington and Oregon to develop their own offshore operation to capture natural gas.

Then convert to hydrogen and be truly energy rich, and energy free.

It's all them rotting pumpkins.