313
Scientists unveil methane munching monster, 100 million times faster than nature
(interestingengineering.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
313 points (98.2% liked)
Technology
59377 readers
5724 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The atmospheric half life of methaine is just under 10 years. So if you release 1k lbs of methaine in 10 years there will be 500 lbs left 10 years after that ther will be 250 ect.
π‘
1k lbs is a perfectly cromulent unit of enbiggenment, colloquially known as "Calebs".
Give me washing machines or give me death
Indeed that's 10 hundredweight. Which maybe ironically enough is rather intuitive for me, Germany still uses pounds and hundredweight (Zentner) in informal and sectorial use, meaning 500g and 50kg.
I believe that's 80 stone
Not a fan of kilopounds, klbs?
It's a good replacement for the heavy-fridge unit.
America is slowly switching to the metric system: metric pounds, metric feet, you know...
I mean, itβs more clear than 0.5 tons, since βtonsβ doesnβt specify US or metric. Not that it would matter in this specific instance.
But if it doesn't matter, what's the problem with tons?
It's complicated. The breakdown of methane in the atmosphere depends on hydroxyl radicals that are created at a regular rate. If you have more and more methane released, and/or you have other chemicals that also react with those radicals, the overall average half life will increase. Both those things are happening, so the old half life really isn't as accurate as it used to be. Guess which number the IPCC still uses for its models though.
Goddam Hydroxl Radicals keep sending drones to attack US ships! Iran needs an ass-kicking!
Guess i remembered wrong.