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NickWrightData t1_itthb4h wrote

Doesn't natural gas produce CO2?

And how is natural gas renewable!? I must be way out of the loop

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darth_nadoma t1_itthi44 wrote

They are producing it from manure.

I remember writing a paper in college on production of fuel methane from Food Waste.

There are big facilities that make methane from food waste and then use the methane to produce electricity in Barcelona, Catalonia.

Methane Gas from cow manure is how a lot of rural electrification was achieved in India 🇮🇳. It also allowed some peasants to produce their own gas to cook with.

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NickWrightData t1_itti3ie wrote

That's actually pretty neat! Thanks!

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Enlightened-Beaver t1_ituj25d wrote

Any organic matter can produce RNG: food waste, manure, crop residues, forestry residues, etc. many municipalities have passed rules to divert food waste from going to landfill, since this would produce methane and other GHGs when decomposing. So the waste either goes to composting or to one of these digesters to produce natural gas. We produce an insane amount of food and farm waste, this is putting it to good use. It’s renewable because we are constantly producing this waste. Combusting methane does produce CO2, but compared to the CH4 that would be created from this waste breaking down in a landfill, this is many many times less harmful for the environment. When people talk about reducing your carbon footprint it’s not just CO2, there’s carbon in methane too (CH4).

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Keeperofthe7keysAf-S t1_itv0qib wrote

It's actually beneficial because that carbon would be released anyways as part of the carbon cycle but you're skipping the first 20 years as methane and it's 80x more potent green house effect by burning it.

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joaopeniche t1_ittv6xt wrote

Some Indian metane gas bioreactor are some steam punk amazing things

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Enlightened-Beaver t1_ituiml9 wrote

There’s hundreds of similar facilities in North America too, and thousands across Europe. Biogas is not exactly a new thing.

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darth_nadoma t1_ituixc1 wrote

It’s over a hundred years old. But now it’s the heyday

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HurriedLlama t1_itv1h4z wrote

>Literally one click away from being in the loop

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NickWrightData t1_itvag79 wrote

GOOOOOOOD point. From near the very beginning of the article I could have just read:

>The RNG fuel it provides is intended as a replacement for diesel, and is sourced from methane in livestock manure. CEFC’s intention is an environmentally-friendly fuel, which it said cuts carbon emissions by around 300% when used instead of diesel in freight trucks.

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