• p1mrx@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    14
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    11 months ago

    There’s nothing thermodynamically wrong with burning methane, releasing the water, and putting the CO2 back underground. Sequestration does not require un-oxidizing the carbon.

    Though if we’re going to bury harmful waste underground, nuclear power reduces the quantity of waste by a factor of a million.

    • grue@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      There’s nothing thermodynamically wrong with burning methane, releasing the water, and putting the CO2 back underground. Sequestration does not require un-oxidizing the carbon.

      Maaaaybe if the CO2 is captured at the point source of the methane burner. But if you’ve already let it disperse into the atmosphere, forget about it ever making sense to try to compensate for that huge increase in entropy by collecting and re-concentrating it.

      • NielsBohron@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        11 months ago

        I’m not sure what you’re trying to convey here. Carbon sequestration is unarguably a way to mitigate climate change, and sequestration of CO2 is probably the most reasonable way to do so. It doesn’t need to be as a gas, as taking CO2 and exposing it to various oxides creates carbonates, which are generally very stable compounds like limestone.

        The other commenter simply said carbon could be captured as CO2 and sequestered without being reduced, which is absolutely true and frankly makes much more sense from a physics/thermodynamics POV.

        • Overzeetop@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          11 months ago

          You guessed right - without reductions or conversion it simply becomes a ticking time bomb. Anything secure enough to capture and contain a gas reliably for millennia without maintenance will be too expensive to be practical.

          • p1mrx@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            11 months ago

            Methane is a greenhouse gas more potent than CO2 that was stored underground for millennia. You would need actual data to conclude that storing CO2 is too expensive.

            • Overzeetop@sopuli.xyz
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              11 months ago

              There are no manmade Methane stores from before the Christian era and there never have been. If you’re going to argue that methane that was produced underground millions of years ago is a valid human goal, you may as well propose the simpler method of just increasing the Earth’s orbit by a few tenths of a percent to offset the heating due to CO2. Done and done.