
Coal mines emit more methane than oil-and-gas sector, study finds - doener
https://www.carbonbrief.org/coal-mines-emit-more-methane-than-oil-and-gas-sector-study-finds
======
qwerty456127
It is also well-known coal power plants emit way more radiation than nuclear
ones. And air pollution caused by coal burning (e.g. in Ulan Bator) is beyond
any reason. The very fact people still burn coal in cities in the 21st century
is mind-boggling.

~~~
credit_guy
One thing to mention is that nuclear power plants _do not_ emit radiation. So,
sure, coal power plants emit more radiation, and bananas too.

~~~
maxerickson
There's enough radiation released as a result of the activity of operating
nuclear plants for your emphasis to be a bit off.

"usually do not directly emit radiation" is pretty defensible.

~~~
credit_guy
> There's enough radiation released as a result of the activity of operating
> nuclear plants

"An operating nuclear power plant produces very small amounts of radioactive
gases and liquids, as well as small amounts of direct radiation. If you lived
within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant, you would receive an average
radiation dose of about 0.01 millirem per year. To put this in perspective,
the average person in the United States receives an exposure of 300 millirem
per year from natural background sources of radiation."

[1] [https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/related-
info/faq.htm...](https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/related-
info/faq.html#9)

~~~
lsb
That 0.01 millirem is roughly 1 Banana Equivalent Dose, the radiation you get
from eating a banana.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose)

------
makomk
The whole idea that switching from coal to gas is bad for the environment
because of methane emissions always smelt a bit dubious for exactly this
reason: coal mining emits lots of methane.

~~~
hannob
This certainly gives a new twist to the story, but it doesn't change the fact
that natural gas is no real solution and that the greenhouse gas emissions of
natural gas have been underestimated in the past.

It's not that switching from coal to gas is bad for the environment. It's
simply that both are bad and we need something else.

~~~
AtlasBarfed
solar/wind is cheaper than coal. In fact it is cheaper to build a new
solar/wind farm than keep an EXISTING coal factory running.

When solar/wind pass natural gas, which hopefully happens in the next few
years, a glimmer of hope to stabilize global warming sparks.

~~~
ThomPete
Solar and wind cant give us the power we need and its not cheaper because it
will need backup from coal, oil, gas or nuclear. In fact the more wind and
solar the more expensive it becomes exactly for this reason. Wind and solar
provides less than 1% of our energy needs.

~~~
CameronNemo
In many areas of the world, wind and solar have complementary power profiles.

Energy storage mechanisms are also being developed and scaled in a major way.
Not just batteries. Geothermal energy stores, heated and pressurized water
chambers, and moving water to a higher elevation to store potential energy are
all viable options.

~~~
azernik
Sure, but if you want a good price comparison you have to include the cost of
the necessary storage.

~~~
AtlasBarfed
Ok walk a couple more years down the cost curve they are following, especially
since battery tech is being heavily invested in for EVs and grid storage.

And if (or I should say when) grid storage becomes cheaper than peak power
generators, then you still can save money shutting down the extra power
plants.

~~~
azernik
Oh I agree we're getting there. I just think excluding storage from the cost
equation gives the wrong impression of where we are right now.

------
olivermarks
23.5% of US electricity production is from coal

'In 2019, about 4,118 billion kilowatthours (kWh) (or about 4.12 trillion kWh)
of electricity were generated at utility-scale electricity generation
facilities in the United States.

1 About 63% of this electricity generation was from fossil fuels—coal, natural
gas, petroleum, and other gases. About 20% was from nuclear energy, and about
18% was from renewable energy sources'.

[https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3)

~~~
api
That's much lower than it was even 20 years ago, and the renewable number is
far higher.

California is a bit unique but its not rare for the state to be getting up to
40% of its power from solar at midday.

We are moving in the right direction, but probably not fast enough.

~~~
makomk
The almost complete shutdown of the global economy due to Covid-19 is
massively disrupting the roll-out of renewables. Factories have been
shuttered, installations delayed, and who knows where the funding is going to
come from now anyway. It's probably going to cost at least a year, maybe more.

------
defterGoose
Is this based on reported emissions from oil/gas sites or actual emissions?
Because there was a big report recently that showed that many gas and oil
processing operations are routinely emitting far more methane than they claim,
due to leaks and other faulty equipment.

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/12/climate/texas...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/12/climate/texas-
methane-super-emitters.html)

~~~
ncmncm
Yes, the numbers for methane pollution in both coal and oil extraction are
entirely untrustworthy, and a headline comparing them is just clickbait.

That said, methane emission associated with coal extraction is very large, and
is another good reason (piled on the rest) to put an earlier stop to it.

~~~
kyralis
Did either you or the parent read the article? It's explicitly based on a new
scientific study attempting to use the areas where there _is_ good data to get
better estimates on the incidental methane releases than we've had before.

------
api
The climate problem isn't entirely a coal problem, but coal is by far the
single largest contributor. It's also quite replaceable. Phasing out coal
remains the simplest, most straightforward mitigation. Once we do that we can
tackle the other stuff.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Once we do that we can tackle the other stuff.

We kind of have to do it all at the same time. It's pretty easy at this point
to stop generating power from coal, but that doesn't do anything about ICE
vehicles, or oil and gas used for heating.

And a lot of this stuff has long lead-times. If you manufacture an ICE car
instead of an electric car, it's on the road for another 20 years. If you
install a new oil furnace in a building, it too has a lifetime measured in
decades.

Getting people to crush a three year old ICE car is not realistically going to
happen, but why are we still making new ones?

~~~
dylan604
>We kind of have to do it all at the same time.

I totally disagree. The all or nothing concept means nothing will be done.
There will always be a single reason someone can come up with to not do
something. Why let that one thing stop other advances?

I much prefer the accomplish a goal, move to the next goal concept. In the
70s, it would literally rain acid. Luckily, we realized that making a few
small changes would have a drastic affect. The ozone layer was getting
destroyed, and again we make a few small changes with great affect. The proof
is there that incremental changes are worthwhile.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Why let that one thing stop other advances?

Is somebody suggesting that we stop replacing coal fired power plants because
we could replace ICE cars with electric cars _instead_? The entire point is
that we have to do both.

They don't both have to be in the same bill (though a carbon tax would _do_
both), but they have to be done in parallel rather than sequentially because
we don't have time to entirely solve one of them before starting any work on
the others.

~~~
api
We shouldn't _not_ do other things if we can. I was just arguing that coal is
more than 50% of the problem and that getting rid of it is do-able. If we can
phase out coal we're halfway there.

Electrification of transport is happening for multiple reasons: climate, high
oil prices (they've fallen for now but they'll go back up), the maturing of
modern EV tech, and the fact that IVs actually drive better and are lower
maintenance.

The drive better part is no joke. It's just physics. I have an older 2013
Leaf, which is a wimpy EV, and it can out accelerate a lot of higher end cars
if I want it to.

------
_bxg1
Coal _mining_? Wouldn't have thought of that. Luckily the coal industry seems
to be on a steep downslope already (much more so than the rest of fossil
fuels).

~~~
mordymoop
Coal is basically extremely heavy oil, so it should offgas an enormous amount
of volatile hydrocarbons.

------
hatmatrix
> The fossil-fuel industry is understood to be one of the biggest sources of
> atmospheric methane, primarily due to leaks from the production of oil and
> gas.

> However, a new paper published in the Journal of Cleaner Production suggests
> that coal mining may actually be a bigger contributor to levels of the
> greenhouse gas, with emissions set to grow considerably in the coming years.

Isn't coal and coal mining part of the fossil fuel industry?

~~~
Jedd
Wording may not be ideal -- I read it as the TFA suggesting 'bigger
contributor than previously estimated' rather than 'bigger contributor than
fossil-fuel'.

I don't think TFA is trying to separate coal from fossil fuel industry.

------
monadic2
Coal makes Chernobyl look downright mild.

------
Tempest1981
"it is clear that methane from closed mines will be a problem for years to
come.”

And only 1% comes through the ventilation systems.

------
admiral33
How does this compare to uranium mining?

~~~
marcosdumay
Granite doesn't have a lot of reactive carbon to turn into methane.

~~~
twomoretime
You mine orders of magnitude less uranium ore. It probably doesn't compare at
all.

Also coal itself biogenic source of gas and probably surrounded/connected to
other gas generating lithology. So when you expose a coal seam to the
atmosphere it will naturally release some amount of gas depending on exact
composition and cook time. I'm just guessing here, my experience is in oil and
IIRC coal is typically way past the "oil window" but probably comfortably
within the very generous gas window.

Uranium is inorganic.

~~~
rsync
"You mine orders of magnitude less uranium ore."

I suspect this is true, but the amount of material you need to turn over to
get this uranium ore is tremendous. I wouldn't be surprised to learn it is
roughly equal to coal mining.

There is a fairly detailed chapter in the excellent William T. Vollmann book
_No Immediate Danger: Volume One of Carbon Ideologies_ where he describes in
fine detail the process of mining and refining uranium - it is much more
energy intensive than I imagined ...

~~~
ncmncm
Huge, but still orders of magnitude behind coal. It is impossible for normal
people to comprehend the scale of everything associated with coal.

------
sudoaza
Including fracking?

------
beders
Keep.it.in.the.ground. All of it!

------
aerodog
Walls coming down on coal. Good riddance.

~~~
dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

~~~
pacamara619
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

~~~
dang
You're right, of course, but the system doesn't regulate itself without
moderation comments and unfortunately my job involves posting them. They're a
necessary evil, in the same way that some medicines are toxic: one uses them
when the alternative is worse.

If it helps at all, such comments are even more tedious to write than to read.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20tedious%20write%20read&sort=byDate&type=comment)

