This Explosive Gas Is Heating Our Planet. Can We Capture It? | Out of Our Elements
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- Опубліковано 14 чер 2024
- Methane. What does it have to do with climate change, and how can we capture it?
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Methane is a molecule that causes a bit of a conundrum: On the one hand, it’s a fuel that burns cleaner than coal or oil (it could be a bridge fuel to reach a renewable energy future, some believe). On the other hand, it’s a greenhouse gas that’s 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Controlling methane leaks and emissions, both climate scientists and activists say, is crucial for controlling global climate change.
Hosts Caitlin Saks and Arlo Perez Esquivel investigate this tricky molecule -- and its dancing abilities -- by tracing it to its source, both in nature and in the city. And they meet with Boston University’s Nathan Phillips and MIT’s Desiree Plata to figure out exactly why this molecule is so efficient at heating both our homes and our planet-and how scientists are trying to stem the flow of the molecule into the atmosphere.
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Note: An earlier version of this video misstated that the vibrational frequencies of methane overlap with the outgoing energy from Earth that is thermal in nature, heat energy. This is technically incorrect; the vibrational frequencies of methane overlap with the infrared radiation frequencies leaving Earth - this is light energy, not “heat energy.” This error has been corrected in the current version of the video.
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You can seek out our hosts here:
:: Caitlin Saks ::
Twitter: / caitlin_saks
:: Arlo Pérez Esquivel ::
Instagram: / perezarlo
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Produced and Hosted by: Caitlin Saks and Arlo Pérez
Associate Producer: Angelica Coleman
Associate Researcher: Christina Monnen
Science Advisor: Matthew Eddy
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Archival: Lillie Paquette / MIT School of Engineering; Maryland Astrobiology Consortium/NASA/STScI; NASA Johnson; Pond5; Shutterstock; Storyblocks
Music: APM
Funding for NOVA provided by the David H. Koch Fund for Science, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the NOVA Science Trust.
Original Production Funding for Out of Our Elements provided by
Anne Ray Foundation, a Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropy
Out of Our Elements is a production of GBH.
© 2021 WGBH. All rights reserved.
Not sure which was more dangerous: the methane or stopping and stepping out into Boston traffic! Great episode!
The bleach story 😱
I don't believe it. Just the smell of it will warn you not to drink it. Or it could mean that he had already lost his sense of smell before it.
Hi hi! Arlo here. Sorry I am two years late to respond. Here are some additional details:
I was 8-9 when it happened, I was getting home from basketball practice and I saw a water bottle on the kitchen table. I wass thirsty, had a flair for the dramatic, and my mom was in the kitchen, so naturally I decided I would show her how thirsty I was by trying to drink the entire water bottle in one swig. I had no reason to be suspicious, so I wasn't exactly smelling the bottle.
It took a few seconds for the bleach start burning, so I think I did 2-3 big gulps before I realized it was not water. I was very lucky my mom was there. As soon as I told her "Its bleach" she stuck her fingers down my throat and forced me to puke. The bleach coming back up burnt worse than it going down. Memory is a little fuzzy after that, but I remember a lof of throw-up and tears. It was about a week later that I noticed my sense of smell had been affected when I realzied I could not smell my parent's cooking.
Funny enough, just last week my GF came home to me accidentally leaving the burner on while I had been working form home all day.
@@naturewatcher7596
When I interned at the Hawai'ian Volcano Observatory, sometimes we would hike out to lava flows...for research or monitoring, sure, but also sometimes just for fun (lava is known to be an exceptional toy to play with...not dangerous at all, turns out). On one of these excursions, I discovered that if you put a dead tree branch (or other wooden item) into a lava flow, you can burn it anaerobically, producing methane. And if you puncture the opposite side of a lava "toe" with that branch (going through it), the gas escapes through the small opening and turns into your own personalized Bunsen burner.
This is all fun and games on a small scale (playing with lava is awesome), but it can actually create one of the more difficult to deal with volcanic hazards on a larger scale, as whenever you have a lava flow that enters a forest, for example, you are going to end up with trees that are buried before they can burn in normal air, and at lava temperatures, they will create a considerable amount of CH4 while "burning" underground. If it can escape slowly, no big deal, but methane explosions are common in these scenarios (when methane gets trapped and builds up before being ignited), launching both molten, and very hot solid rock into the air, threatening anyone within ~20 meters of the explosion site. I was going to say it is for this reason that you probably shouldn't be going near lava when it flows through a forest, but maybe it's just a bad idea to go near lava at all. That is, unless you either are someone who has been trained in these hazards and who accepts the unavoidable risks (like me), or are accompanied by such a person, and have been given enough information to give your own informed consent regarding the experience. Lava is amazing though...so it's worth it to find someone to expose you to it in (relative) safety.
That's really neat info! Thanks for sharing!
The common sense: if you see or hear a volcano you are too close to it. Don't be like a moth attracted to the fire. Pay some respect to the nature.
Love the mini helmet PSA in the middle of this- gotta keep up those PBS kids values!
Dude! I also have an impaired sense of smell and that whole intro perfectly sums it up! Everyone around you is always like "that's weird" or "(some gross thing happens that you don't really notice) must be nice! Haha!" but there's still that acknowledgement in the back of your own head of the survival benefits lost along with it (like having a harder time telling if food is off) and whenever someone pulls the "must be nice!" I always tell them "sure, you say that now, but I'm probably going to die in a gas leak some day", and it always gives them pause because they don't really worry about that sort of thing.
Exactly. Have you seen "The nice guys"? One of the main characters does not have a sense of smell and his family has a gas related accident because if that. That movie is always in the back of my mind because of that scene.
Feels so weird to have something so minor also be a detriment to your health in some way.
It's not that bad if you compare it with other physical disabilities, but it is definitely bad when you compare it with someone who has their sense of smell. It's like it's in the twilight zone.
@@WanderTheNomad I wouldn t say havin 1 less sense s minor
@@bamb8s436 I think if you asked people which sense they would consider the least important out of hearing, sight, taste, touch, and smell; most of them would probably answer with smell.
@@WanderTheNomad Yeah undoubtedly but it s still a sense
I was just canoeing through the boundary waters in Minnesota, and often getting out of the canoe whenever we hit an obstacle, like swamps, the amount of methane that comes out of the ground just from walking there is insane just looking at it. After this video and seeing how much methane actually does, that's even more true.
In methane's defense: Most methane that escapes to atmosphere breaks down into water and carbon dioxide on it's own within 8 years. Also: Burning methane is an incredibly energy efficient way to heat buildings if used in forced air furnaces like those in the U.S.A.: Even the worst of these reach 80% efficiency, with newer ones up to 97% efficient.
For comparison: Most efficient cars - 35%, World's best powerplant - 63%.
On the other hand the transmission network into urban areas loses around 10% of the methane it transports and heatinng requirements could been lowered with insulation or other building materials.
Oh wow, I didn’t mean to click this video but I’m a pbs eons and pbs space time fan, so happy I clicked this 😸 good work my dudes
eons sent me but i already was subbed :)
"Why do we use something so terrifyingly dangerous to heat our homes?"
Edwardians: *Hold my electric tablecloth*
Force of Habit. Money. Etc.
Natural Gas was brought in as a safer alternative to "Town Gas," since the pipelines were already in place.
Town gas had some issues, too. Specifically, one of its components is Carbon Monoxide. Which is Not Nice if we breathe it.
Wow, okay, apparently electric tablecloths actually existed. You could pin lightbulbs into the tablecloth - which contained two meshed layers of *live wires* separated by a thin layer of felt - and they would light up! And also, they would instantaneously kill you if you ever spilt the slightest bit of liquid on them or touched it with a slightly wet hand.
why do we even want to have fire in our house???? All fire is dangerous unless we manage and contain it! If we don't learn to manage and contain it methane will heat our planet! to the point only lizards can live here! WAIt
maybe this is the plan of the lizard people?
wait !!!!This is a joke My Name Not Q!!!
Triage(noun) - the process of determining the most important people or things from amongst a large number that require attention.
Triage(Verb) - assign degrees of urgency to
from French, from trier ‘separate out’
I love this show, one of my new favorites. But quick thing, Audio Balance, make the show as loud or quiet as you want, but keep the whole epesode ~the same volume. I had to turn mine up and down a lot to keep it not obtrusive to the rest of my house
Use the compand filter in ffmpeg.
What? Can you please say that again in Non-Techno Geek please?
@@santoast24 Sure. Use youtube-dl to download your episode and then use the ffmpeg program to auto-adjust volume levels.
This is much more interesting compared to penguin poop😂😂 jk amazing video guys!
Crash Course sent me, altho love PBS terra
@PBS Terra : The part starting at 7:30 is about symmetry groups, molecular symmetry and character tables, right ?
So we can have time to transition. lol. I think our time is us and we need to actually transition instead of talking about doing it down the road. This decade is the first decade when we will wake up to our nightmare. Enjoy people because the next decade and beyond will be dystopian compare to what you've know.
To reduce your methane emissions compost your moldy produce scraps instead of throwing it in the trash!
We should do away with taco Tuesdays, we could still have tacos, but you do away with taco Tuesdays that can help with a lot of methane that ends up in the sewers. 😂
Let’s be real, not a single government will try, and people will keep voting for science denying politicians. We’re fucked
time to restrict voting, to only those of sound mind.
@@Chris-op7yt just don’t have democracy.
@@haidgu : it's a dilemma, as the wrong people in perpetual power ultimately spells disaster. however, the illusion of democratic elections (money rules that game) and the idea that best outcomes are achieved by consensus or popularity, is hardly a method for improvement.
Hierarchies are also a recipe for disaster, with little in the way of transparent checks and balances.
So called democratic governments in the west have become quite authoritarian under the hood. Spying on us. Secret deals with other governments. Overthrowing foreign governments.
Most of these things are self political interest, thinly veiled as national interest. We should not spank children but too many politicians deserve nothing better than a good spanking so they start acting human again. We thought that in modern western (or elsewhere) world that things changed since ancient times. In some ways they have but, citizens' lives are cheap and politicians dont lose sleep over their loss, if there's money or power to be gained.
What if Gaia is trying to remove humanity from the planet? She has good strategies.
@@SolaceEasy : shifting blame removes responsibility
When my grandmother was 2 years old she lost her mother and 2 sisters to a gas leak. She survived because while they were sleeping she rolled off of the bed into the floor next to a wall with a crack in it., Her father and brother survived because they were out hunting. So I have always been scared of gas leaks. It could have been carbon monoxide I may be mistaken but it was caused by a gas stove either way. Make sure you get a Carbon monoxide detector for your home. the 15 dollars they cost can save your family's life.
PBS Eons sent me here!
Cool. What’s the embedded energy of the catalyst?
That explosion at the start was awe-inspiring!
I find myself wondering if a dog could be trained as a service animal to help be this guys nose for bad smells. Not just alert for gas leaks but also bad meat or milk.
that’s a good idea and i’d imagine so. they’re so expensive that it’s difficult for many who need to get one though
I am pretty sure that is an actual thing. Also there is a reason miners would take small birds into the mines. They would die from a shift in air quality before humans would. So if the birds died or collapsed.... leave. Hence the idiom.
Pretty scary stuff, indeed.
PBS Eons sent me here. Give them their cut 😁
So, they should install signs 'No smoking' where they find methane leaks in cities.
Nice Brompton!
The backpack is $40k retail, and the bike is $45k retail ;)
You mean to tell me methane molecules aren't fucking huge satellites just orbiting earth???
I like how they don't say methane is one of the fasts greenhouse gasses to break down and disappear. I get that it's a major threat to the world and an individual, but to leave out important information seems like they want it to sound more horrific then it seems.
Oh I
We should use this to heat ,and cook with research ,and investment in this area.
Just need to run America like Bartertown from Mad Mad Beyond Thunderdome. Who runs Bartertown?
Eons says you're cool, so I'm give it a look.
I grew up in the projects and the people across from me moved out without saying anything blew the pilots out to the stove. the gas company showed up like a week or two later walked in stepped on the rug in the whole place went up blew the windows out in the neighborhood
That is one of the best reasons to not be lazy. If they didn't drag their feet on the carpeting they wouldn't have exploded.
One more reason to not throw your cigarettes on the ground
That's one way to find the leaks.
@@LeRoiJojo That's the way we would do it growing up. My dad and I would walk around running a match next to the copper gas piping. You would know very quickly if you had a leak.
We know this. Greenhouse gases comprise vibrational molecules in which electrons go up & down the ladder absorbing a photon & then releasing it. Know something, water does the same thing.
Hydroxyl radical generators can also reduce methane and we currently have them in use as air purifiers. These molecules can also destroy viruses.
Excellent report
I could easily provide a list of people I know who are significant personal-methane-emissions violators. Maybe trussing them up on global-warming charges would help. Nothing else seems to have had any effect on their output so far.
I wouldn't buy a house with a gas line. Induction heating is perfectly adequate for cooking and it wont blow up my house
Damn, man, no sense of smell? Rough.
actually posting posible solutions at the end? there is hope for humanity!
to keep cattle methane farts at bay we need to feed them sea weed which is also beneficial for our oceans
it's heating out planet when it should be heating our houses, we should be building biogas plants and use what nature gave us
Eons sent me.
NOVA!
Yes.
Now for the backside-sized openings emerging from permafrost~
So when we get too many farting cows, our planet may explode...
Eons sent me 👌🏼
0:15 ...but very few people have heard of......... in the USA
The solution and the future is here: Safire Project.
Considering that SpaceX uses Methane as the fuel for a rocket I think it's safe to say that there's a lot of energy in Methane. CH4... 4 hydrogen atoms, 1 carbon atom. Hydrogen... Hindenburg... boom....
What an informative and just plain charming episode! I'm normally a nit-picking critic, but this time I got nothin'. Well done!
So what I'm hearing is "catalytic converter for your poo gas"
SIGN ME UP.
Me thinks these people have a CH4 phobia & need to see a shrink. Good furnace source.
Crash course sent me
The guy in the NASA shirt is so hot!
Stupid city could save some money if they just used flammable detectors in the sewer that work on wifi like we use at the oil refinery! You'd have to run some sort of low voltage DC power down there (using explosion proof fittings and stuff of course) though but still!
I knew this would be about methane!
@@chineserockethands4578 hehe, I'm currently learning organic chemistry 2. Methane is the smallest hydrocarbon (organic molecule made of just carbon and hydrogen). I've heard its strength as a greenhouse gas is something like 86 times that of carbon dioxide.
@@chineserockethands4578 I assumed anyone that has read an article or seen a documentary on the greenhouse effect knows methane is a potent molecule and will be released as permafrost melts.
Ok, just gonna say it, since pbs seems to think methane isn’t well known about. Lol To the person who doesn’t know what methane is…go back to school. We learned that in elementary. No one (at least in America) has an excuse to not know what methane is. Especially if you try to consider yourself an “outdoorsy type”. Hiker, climber, tree hugger alike, if you’re older than 10, and have farted, you know what methane is.
There must not be enough methane leaking here in Iowa it's been colder than hell here this winter
I get that CO2 is a less potent greenhouse gas then methane, but I still think we shouldn’t be flaring it
If it reduces green house gas emissions, what's the problem? Less of a problem is less of a problem.
man, i really don't like the premise of all these videos that just seem to be " is REALLY DANGEROUS, heres why!" There is so much fearmongering in this kind of media and we wonder why young people today have crippling anxiety, everything is telling them to be afraid..
Aren’t cows super emitters?
not really. This has been a general political hoax for a while. The earth itself emits much more. Climate science has been changing it's name for climate change theory since the 70's. They can't make up their mind if the earth is cooling or warming. So they shifted to just "change". Yet to make a predictive model based on the data they have been collecting. Even when they back fill data into predictive models.
Conservation is a great thing but the solutions they would take just simply isn't realistic without killing off 70%+ of the planet of animal life. Also the climate activists actively avoid realistic solutions such as nuclear power.
There have been many people that left climate activist organizations and have talked about the internal issues behind the science and even worse the funding.... The funding being controlled by politicians that fund the wrong questions. So you end up getting a monolithic bias on most of the mainstream science. Mostly because 99.99% of politicians are idiots that won a popularity contest.
@@vagabondwastrel2361 I feel many people also forget just how gravitational waves effect the climate. This change can be reversed through yoga and mind control. We also use 25% of the planets nitrogen for fertilizer to grow crops which we use to feed animals that we deforest land upon which they graze. It’s wasteful. Anyone should be able to understand.
@@vagabondwastrel2361 Weird. Doctoral and post-doc students at one of the premier natural-sciences schools in the US have had parts of lectures and discussions dealing with climatic warming at least as far back as the 1950's. I know because I have an elderly family member who took part in them. He says that, back at the time, it was a comparatively simple, non-politicized matter but purely observational since they had general glaciation reports (more dealing with the extent of terrain coverage than depth) in the high elevations of the Lower 48 for about a century prior to that and, with some brief deviations, the overall trend had been a decline long before this subject was a controversy. Nobody reviewing that information claimed that the climate was cooling, and I doubt that anyone with those credentials does now, either.
Big jet planes are one of the main cause of pollution. They burn a huge amount of fuel.
this data sets the timeline for when billions die within the space of about three years; the end will be very painful
Dude. That's not a brother. It's a clone.
Stab a cow if eating the wrong food.
Bleach!! Wow
How about the cows?
How do you inadvertently drink that much bleach ?
I was being dramatic and taking big chugs to show how thirsty I was. Bleach does not start burning right away, so it took a little while until I realized what was happening
@@ArloPerez That is intense. I don't have a great sense of smell. Much of my power comes from gas, so I sometimes worry too.
Bring back nuclear power plants. Climate change is upon us, and the quickest way to reduce our carbon foot print is building nuclear power plants. We won't need significant unproven changes to infrastructure, we won't have to ween everyone off easily available electrical power, and we avoid disrupting the world economy. It's not a pretty solution, but it's quick, it's proven, and it quickly and drastically reduces green house gas emissions which is _exactly_ what we need to do.
This video is far more dangerous than methane.
Methane doesn't heat the planet. Not even when you burn it. What happens is, the energy required to produce methane is released back into nature. And if you want to know how methane is produced in nature, use you're favorite search engine. And, if we're talking about methane's green house effect contribution, well, let's just say that compared to water vapor, methane is negligible. Oh, and methane is NOT an "explosive molecule". If it was, we would not have gas cookers. The mixture of methane and oxygen is explosive. MIXTURE being the operative word. If you have a balloon filled with methane, and you pop it using a blow torch, it won't explode, it will burn. But, if you have a balloon with a mixture of methane and oxygen, it may explode. But even then, it depends on the mixture. We may have a deflagration, which is subsonic. Anyway... long story short, there is a lot of bullshit an PBS Terra and you have to be careful and do some research before you believe everything they say. Oh, and another thing, "climate change" is not a scientific term. It's a political term. Scientifically, there are ice ages and global warmings (which end ice ages). The current global warming we're experiencing right now started about 12000 years ago. How do you think the last ice age ended?
It's better no know a lot and be curious and say, "I don't know", than to be a stupid fuck who knows nothing and believes everything.
You should take your own advise . .
this cover could actually fly if there were a spark so I'll just stand on top of it???????????????? 40 thousand dollars back pack, on a bike, maybe he should walk?
#eons sent me 🕥
Why not turn this energy into Bitcoin?
Dog poop is unregulated hydrocarbon(methane) kill the dog's. Crime to own liv with dog/animals inside city limits, get the dog's out!
Beantown
for the algorithm
Methane vibrations overlap with escaping heat energy? Heat does not have any frequencies. Literally impossible. Heat is not something separate from matter.
Heat can be transferred through infrared radiation, which is defined as a frequency range of electromagentic radiation.
@@OsscarBones yup nice explanation, also I would like to add that since methane natural oscillation is near infrared range a sort of resonance like phenomenon occurs hence amplifying the effects of greenhouse warming
Cow farts killing the Earth.
🤣😂😜🥳😆
I ♥️ global warming.
Don't like natural gas. Most people can't smell the carbon monoxide from burning it. The gas isn't proactive in cleaning up their messes and leaky pipes. All electric. They should use natural gas to make electricity like our city does when the well is working. Gas produces say gas is the most efficient for cooking and heating. Lie. The main complaint of people switching from gas to electric is they burn everything. Because once you get to temp on electric, it is SO efficient, you have to turn the heat down before you need it to be turned down. Turn it off and it will continue to cook. Turn off gas and your heat disappears - easier to control when cooking but much less efficient.
Whats the point of capture when gasses like sulphur hexafluoride are being released into the atmosphere from electrical switch gear , and I kid you not, from people who like making their voice go deep ( opposite of helium) . Whereas helium is harmless , sulphur hexafluoride is almost 24,000 more greenhouse gas than CO2 and is PERSISTANT. It is totally synthetic. It doesnt break down in the atmosphere and the yearly concentrations of this gas just keep increasing.
It should be a crime against humanity and nature to manufacure this planet killing gas. But of course , it wont affect us. It'll be our great grand kids who pay the price for this shit.
Dis is a disaster
That's a lot of bullshit. Also shhh. No one tell them about termite mounds.
Having spent 1000’s of hours surveying untold miles of pipe with machines similar to what the guy has in the van, I’m telling you he was getting LOTS of false positives as results. Wind, vehicle traffic, dog poop, a dead bird…hell, even the time of day the survey is being done will massively effect the readings. Interesting story but misleading.
The cover could actually fly? Tell that to CCP please!
This is why the United States is stupid not to go green as fast as possible and if an individual can be smart to do so
If you've got people outside, some distance away, speaking into a camera and microphone, could you ask them to remove their masks where it is safe to do so? Reading lips helps me better understand what people are saying as there are other noises around that mess with my hearing.
I understand masks are a necessary evil in many situations these days, but outside? Come on!
The irony is that it goes against the science.
Less people = Less methane.
Choose not to breed.
Such a selfish statement. "I'm gonna enjoy my life, but no one else can be allowed in! We're at capacity! But I'm gonna enjoy my life!"
Tell me you are privileged without telling me you're privileged.
Stop spreading this false information. Or at least make disclaimer that it is only a theory, not fact.
Eons sent me.