alt Hacker News> Even if fossil LNG is used, it releases less CO2 per unit energy.
However released methane has a significantly worse greenhouse effect than CO2 (80x over 20 years, 28 over 100, 8 over 500 — this decreases because methane has an atmospheric lifetime of 12 years and decays to CO2). So leakage in the LNG chain is a massive problem.
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A major difference is: there is an economic incentive to not leak methane since a leak is wasted fuel, while the economic incentive for CO2 is to make more of it.
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mr_toad • last Wednesday at 1:06 AM
Jet engines don’t release the methane, they burn it, and they’re very efficient. And jets don’t leak fuel, that would be very hazardous.
Right, but are leakage rates high enough to make this a concern? Every methane molecule leaked is a methane molecule not burnt, so there's already a strong profit maximisation incentive to leak as little as possible (even before considering loftier goals like workplace safety or externally imposed regulation).