We don’t know how much methane and CO2 would have been released had the organic matter been left on the forest floor to decompose.

It doesn’t tell us how much CO2 is avoided via decreased coal burning.

It’s not news. It’s data that might be used to create news if the rest of the puzzle pieces were present and told us something important.

The problem I have with this study, not with this study but with how this study may be used, is the same one I have with the study of a shallow reservoir dam in South America. You can’t take what is given and claim that dams are bad as has been done with the SA study.

It’s like stating that sticking someone with a sharp object is a bad time while not pointing out whether the sharp object might be a vaccine needle….

Guess we’re talking about net benefit. First validate and quantify the methane escaping. Then compare to amount of CO2 displaced by that same hydro facility vs a coal plant. And then make the calculation that methane is 20+ more harmful than CO2.

Like you said, the context is key, otherwise its just soft news, not particularly actionable.

Thanks for your shared concern.

Dave

China’s government seems to have a lot of cash. And seems to have a good handle on the value of investing.

They seem to be a lot more thoughtful than our corporations which concentrate on this quarter’s earnings and on many in our government who don’t want to spend to replace the infrastructure we’re using up.

I can see them deciding to spend considerable amounts for wind and solar capacity in order to produce larger fossil fuel and food expenses in their near future.

What I’m saying is that I can’t understand the meaning of the data from only the press release and article abstract. There needs to be some context supplied before the study’s data has any meaning.

It’s like stating that wind and solar have measurable lifetime carbon footprints. They do. But until you put their footprints up against that of fossil fuels the measurement is meaningless.

I won’t at all be surprised if China peaks years sooner.

China’s economy is starting to slow. The demand for new electricity will begin to slow.

China’s people are starting to get vocal about pollution. They are past the days of worrying about where their next meal is coming from and are now looking at other quality of life issues. The air quality in much of China is terrible. People are really complaining about coal plants and managed to get one relocated away from one of their cities recently.

Often predictions are made by putting a ruler up to historical data and drawing a straight line into the future. Our future is rapidly becoming something different than was our past.

In the past wind generation has been affordable and solar sort of expensive. Wind is becoming cheap and solar affordable. In just a few years solar should be cheap. Wind and solar will be cheaper than coal. And China has extensive hydro resources for filling in between solar and wind.

China imports coal and imports fuel to haul their own coal to coal plants. This is a loss of capital and hurts their balance of trade.

China’s leaders don’t seem to have a problem with putting their thumb on the scale to bring about large scale change. They are at the moment test driving several carbon pricing strategies. Once they have a good idea what works best it’s likely they will implement a nationwide carbon price that will make the economics of renewables even more favorable.

Coal could start dying away very rapidly and soon.

China has a significant fresh water problem. And China’s leaders understand that their problem is almost certain to get worse with climate change. A tremendous amount of fresh water is used in getting coal ready to burn and in cooling thermal plants. Using renewable to replace coal will free up a lot of water.

Not long ago China was predicting their GHG peak in 2030. Now it’s rolled back to 2027. I expect we’ll see further roll backs.

” Our results suggest that sedimentation-driven methane emissions from dammed river hot spot sites can potentially increase global freshwater emissions by up to 7%.”

OK, increased methane emission is not a good thing. But without context one can’t decide if this is a problem or not. How much less coal will be burned because the dam is generating electricity?

What I’d really like is to have the methane issue put into context. Over the lifetime of the dam how will the methane/GHG released compare to ground left un-submerged? The organic material, if left on the ground, is going to be consumed by organisms which emit methane and CO2.

Did they account for the full lifespan of the dam or only look at methane during the first few years when organic matter submerged by the initial flooding was cooking off?

And what is the carbon offset from using energy produced by the dam rather than burning fossil fuels?

Unfortunately the article is behind a paywall.