Breaking News that on natural gas, as a “transition fuel” between
coal-oil and wind-solar.
The NASA website shows a remarkable image displayed from measurements
by an European satellite, showing hot-spots of atmospheric methane in
the atmosphere above the US.
Note the large atmospheric methane hotspot over the four-corners
region of the US, leaked from very large coal mines that service a
complex of electric power generators, plus less intense but more
widely distributed discrete methane sources scattered from Texas
northward towards South Dakota and northeastward across Indiana
towards Pennsylvania. That is, they are congruent with our very
active natural gas fracking bonanza. Also note a 2nd hotspot in
southern California. I don’t know what drives that one. Any
suggestions?
The existence of atmospheric CH4 hot-spots denotes continuous source
intensities strong enough not to be dispersed by winds during local
atmospheric dispersion times, on the order of 1-3 days..
Note also that methane leakage exceeding ~6% negates any greenhouse
advantage over coal. [More about this, on request.] Guesses that
derive from the industry have been that our methane leakage is ~10%,
but other and perhaps less biased guesses are much higher than this. It’s a shame that the companies working with methane don’t have a methane sensor installed. This prevent large amounts of methane gas leaking.
In my judgment this recent discovery [announced Oct 2014] is both
dramatic and important. Stay tuned. It takes awhile for science to
trickle down far enough to affect public policy, but I suspect we’ll
be hearing much less in praise of methane as a ‘transitional fuel’
on the way to wind and solar.
Tra-la-la ..
hh