The Dangers of Marketing Methane as a 'Natural Gas'

[@samanthagibson5791]

In England we are taught that natural gas is mostly methane at school. No-one I know would think natural gas is a green energy source

[@Whayles]

Great video, I new natural gas is methane myself, but don’t realise how unknown it was for others, especially the Greenwashing success of the “natural”part.

[@praks07]

The term was coined in the 1800's for crying out loud. How was that greenwashing

[@Slim_Chiply]

To be honest though it has been called natural gas for a very long time about a hundred years before there was any discussion in the public space about climate change.

[@dcttd8022]

@@praks07I think these people are just plain brainwashed to a degree.

[@praks07]

@@dcttd8022 I think that they are trying to greenwash their brainwash

[@AkPK369]

instead what gas should use ?

[@CanadianRose]

Electric. Zero emissions.

[@AkPK369]

​@@CanadianRose i am from India i never heard ginger rose 🤔

[@AkPK369]

​@@CanadianRose electric produce heat it's also cause global warming

[@CanadianRose]

@@AkPK369 It's NOWHERE near what fossil fuels and emissons from ICE vehicles are causing.

[@ProgressiveEconomicsSupporter]

I'm afraid you got the numbers wrong, we're are they from? According to recent research and the IPCC methane might be about 28 to 32 times more potential in the atmosphere. However methane is present or released into the atmosphere by at least a factor of 200 or more. So methane is not as dangerous as CO2. Nevertheless we shouldn't allow much more to be released. At least we don't need to erase our cattle stocks extremely, but the additional methane we release by fracking or drying up wet lands is tremendous and not to be ignored.

[@MattLindon-wv8jy]

Well could be a discrepancy in what is actually being compared between specific heat capacity vs global warming potential. The latter combines additional variables such as persistence rate of compounds to determine risk to warming potential as opposed to focusing on just one variable.

[@ProgressiveEconomicsSupporter]

@MattLindon-wv8jy maybe, we just need to stay careful to not bend the truth too much to sound implausible, even for the good cause

[@Paulo44.01]

Those are different numbers. If you look at the impact over 100 years, yes, methane is ~25 times worse than CO2. But over 20 years, it's 84 times worse. The difference comes from the fact that methane only lasts a couple of decades in the atmosphere before it breaks down into CO2. However, the increase in temperature that we see now (1.2C) is about 30% from methane, so it's a REALLY important problem to solve

[@pedromoura1446]

I hate to be that guy (being an environmental engineer and all) but methane is 80x more intense as a Greenhouse gas until it's burned. For each 1 ton of methane burned you get 2 of co2. It's actually preferable to Burn it. It's also not 100% methane. Most natural gas is a mix of 40-60% methane and the rest is still butane and octane (which has more energetic but also all around worst to be near). On a side-side-note 90% of all hydrogen is made from natural gas which is made from oil so they can greewash it. so when anyone tells you hydrogen is the future ask them: How would it be sustainable or viable to LOSE energy by turning water into hydrogen just so we burn it afterwards? The answer is: it's not. It's only viable to use hydrogen IF it comes from a more rich source of hydrogen (ie. Natural gas). Use the electricity directly, update electric grids and get batteries as buffers or just make more nuclear power plants to avoid battery usage. Everything else is bull.

[@MattLindon-wv8jy]

I dont know if id go as far to say everything else is bs. It was startling to find that the federal government under the biden administration converted the US DOE's Hydrogen Assessment Program to focusing all of its eggs into one basket of solar electrolysis, but imo technologies such as biomass gasification and methane prolysis did show sufficent progress to be an alternative to steam reformation if given enough resources. I still have no idea why the Biden Administration made that decision (never really been explained by anyone), but it was also interesting to see the planning under the DOE for a transition in the hydrogen manufacturing sectors both short term and long term. In addition to long term alternatives of thermochemical water splitting (predominately supported by VHTR/AHTR/GCFR/MSAHTR, but also some research into CSP options) they also forecasted potential R&D growth for photobiological water splitting, photocatalytic water splitting, photofermentation, and ferrosilicon methods.

[@p1nkfreud]

👍

[@p1nkfreud]

You are correct about natural gas not being the end of the world but most fossil fuels really are disastrous

[@pedromoura1446]

@@p1nkfreud sorry about the long rant XD

[@Paulo44.01]

You're right that once it's out of the ground, it's better to burn it. The problem is that when you produce it, a small part leaks in leaky wells, incomplete flaring, leaky pipes, etc. And just a ~3% leakage can make it almost as bad as coal. And to be sure, replacing coal with gas is still good, because coal also releases even more harmful stuff like mercury

[@cindy1568]

This was some very interesting conversations, thxs

[@nathanscott5978]

I vote you disown using anything made from natural gas. You may find yourself with no microphone, camera, and KZbin. Also possibly freezing with no clothes. You go girl! We're waiting for your better idea. The sun doesn't always shine, and the wind doesn't always blow, so green energy needs help.

[@dandantheideasman]

Natural Gas is in fact Methane, Butane and Propane mixed and not just pure Methane unfortunately. However, it does have a major benefit going for it, when not burnt. It can be, without burning, turned into both Hydrogen and high grade Carbon - the latter is great for making graphene and graphite. So if we just stop burning the stuff we can get both energy and building materials for a cleaner future. Kudos on the infotainment though, as I had no idea how little people actually knew about the stuff they cook with, heat their homes with, create energy with and now transport with. 😅

[@eric4946]

The consumption of it as fuel has no impact on its cost for use for those applications. If anything it makes it cheaper thanks to scaling. We can’t just not burn fuel. There’s still no viable renewables to take its place. Natural gas is incredibly important as a load balance tool. Natural gas combined cycle can spool up in less than a minute. If we want wind and solar etc may gas is extremely important.

[@MissMeganBeckett]

I didn’t know it was methane, but I knew it was a byproduct of oil extraction, and that it was a fossil fuel that was found in a gaseous state, I guess that’s why they can use the methane captured from garbage dumps and manure in anaerobic digesters in the same way, and with the same effects, as with the kind that they get when drilling for oil.

[@lorenzoblum868]

In politics, euphemism is often the rule.

[@charliemarkovic4301]

In activism, nihilism is the rule.

[@dudeguy7347]

How does LP compare to gas?

[@eric4946]

Propane is around 4 vs methanes 25 . It’s better but it’s also not nearly as common a fuel. Natural gas is also easy to pipe. The fact it doesn’t liquefy under pressure is a huge advantage when you have pipelines.

[@cindy1568]

​@@eric4946 how about butane?

[@leer.2137]

Alternative? Lifestyle change? Fill us in......

[@kathleen7825]

You Go Emily !!!! 🙏💗🌎🌍🌏💗🙏 A-PRECIOUS-MEN 🙏💗🙏💗

[@praks07]

Sigh! To all the people who didn’t know natural gas was mostly methane , what did you learn in school?

[@charliemarkovic4301]

I’m going to cook a nice sirloin on my gas stove today.

[@lorenzoblum868]

What is unfortunate is that we focus on the sources of energies and neglect the use of the energy. Can we call a 100% renewable energy "green" if it is going to be used to produce more junk, weapons and such...? All energies are "decent" if they are produced ethically because we have the technology to reduce pollution to a minimum amount. We do not apply this technology because Greed which intrinsically induces corruption and consumerism is our motto. There is no such thing as 100% clean energy but there is such thing as ETHICS. Of course we are late in the race into diversifying our energy source but we must keep in mind that Reduce Reuse Repair Replant Redistribute Recycle Ride ( a bicycle) Rejoice Are the first steps to a better world. Feel free to Rrrr some more.

[@praks07]

Well it was coined "natural" gas in the 1800's to distinguish itself from coal gas , which was quite deadly to human life as it consisted of a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. So sure it was the better alternative at the time.

[@eric4946]

Natural gas is important for energy production till a better alternative is found. It’s pretty meaningless to talk about things like this when you completely ignore what its purpose is which is heat and power. When you go north heating with electricity is not practical. Heating with fuel is far more efficient when you have really cold temperatures and currently allows people two options to heat their homes. Electricity if for some really terrible reason the Nat gas went out or natural gas if the power goes out. Realistically electricity is a last resort backup compared to natural gas. You know what’s really bad for the environment. Billions in damage when your power grid goes down and pipes freeze like they did in Texas.

[@dcttd8022]

Propaganda

[@darthmaul216]

“Propaganda = facts that I don’t like” -you

[@dcttd8022]

@@darthmaul216 But Methane is a “natural gas” whether is it “dirty” or not, the way she phrases the video is that Methane isn’t a natural gas, which simply is not true.

[@dcttd8022]

@@darthmaul216She is also being extremely misleading. An example is when she said that natural gas is over 80 times more potent than CO2 when it is released into the atmosphere, and while that is true, to actually burn the methane and gain energy from it, it is actually burned into CO2.

[@Matt-fl8uy]

NG providers are working to end Methane leaks.

[@lilmsgs]

She has stuff coming out of her nose