Methane vs CO2 Impact

The cluster debates the climate effects of methane emissions compared to CO2, focusing on methane's higher potency as a greenhouse gas and whether burning it to produce CO2 is environmentally beneficial.

📉 Falling 0.1x Science
3,129
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#8657
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2007
2
2008
15
2009
11
2010
12
2011
7
2012
15
2013
46
2014
50
2015
67
2016
137
2017
189
2018
189
2019
392
2020
312
2021
334
2022
494
2023
412
2024
332
2025
105
2026
8

Keywords

EPA NH4NO3 scientificamerican.com GHGI CO2 GHG ozone.html SI envchemgroup.com factcheck.org methane co2 greenhouse gas carbon atmosphere emissions natural gas burning fossil

Sample Comments

khuey Nov 1, 2022 View on HN

The way methane "exits" the atmosphere is by becoming CO2, so it's strictly worse.

bryanlarsen Mar 10, 2020 View on HN

The methane is burnt and turned into CO2, it's not released.

mschuster91 Oct 22, 2015 View on HN

The methane burns off so it's "just" CO2.

snovv_crash Jun 19, 2022 View on HN

Doesn't methane break down much more rapidly than CO2?

mrfusion Nov 20, 2016 View on HN

We're talking about methane not carbon.

6d6b73 Aug 16, 2019 View on HN

It is if you're on the receiving end of the methane emissions :)

dharma1 May 19, 2017 View on HN

Not just CO2 - methane is about 25x as potent in terms of global warming as CO2

tedk-42 Jun 26, 2022 View on HN

Surely the methane they produce far outweighs any carbon sink benefits

jordan0day May 2, 2014 View on HN

I'm not at all knowledgeable in this subject, but wouldn't those methane emissions occur, regardless of if this method is used?

arcanemachiner Apr 3, 2024 View on HN

Methane is a 30x stronger greenhouse gas than CO2. So if 4% of the converted methane leaked into the atmosphere, you would be worse off (from a climate heating perspective) than if you had done nothing.https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/...