Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket tests in Texas are emitting so much methane you can see it from space::So much you can see it from the ISS in space.
When burned, methane produces water and carbon dioxide, which are less harmful to the environment. The issue here is not with rocket testing, but with improper storage of methane
billionaires existing should be illegal
Trickle down pollution.
If BO is being that careless with methane emissions then they are breaking laws. Report them
The environmental agencies are corrupt pieces of shit.
Fun notes from America’s other privately owned, publicly funded space program. Even if you think that privatization of space is a good thing (you’re wrong, it’s not, but let’s just assume for the sake of argument that it is) how do you justify the fact that the public takes on huge swaths of the development cost, then has to pay to use the service, then has to pay to clean up externalities like an ocean of methane in the atmosphere?
The space program of every nation have always worked that way. Even the Soviets were using Rhode Schwarz made gyroscopes. The Apollo rockets were built by the private sector.
The only real difference now is the ferrying contracts.
Because public programs were somehow even more expensive for the same externalities and service.
Well, just when I manage to stop worrying about climate change so much…
“Oh poo…”
- three generations inbred billionaire heir having their view of earth ruined by methane clouds during their million dollar space tourism flight.
It sounds like they should be more careful with how they store their methane.
I do want to stress though, that I think that space technology is the single most important subject we can focus on, except maybe medical. If extravagant trips for billionaire’s can fund a bunch of it for now, that’s fine by me. Only really means that governments should be doing more.
Every day, the sun emits roughly a billion times more energy than the earth uses. That is, all our technology, all our food, all animals, all plants and all the energy needed to create all weather combined consumes about one billionth of the sun’s output. The rest is sent into deep space.
This waste of the sun’s energy is so vast, that we as a species absolutely want to start capturing more of it as soon as possible, rather than squabbling in the mud for fractions of the 0.0000001% of the sun’s output the earth uses today. Obviously we need our planet to survive until then, but getting proper infrastructure in orbit and beyond is such a massive game changer.
but getting proper infrastructure in orbit and beyond
Ah, there is the catch. Don’t forget how you plan on getting that power safely back to earth.
True. Doing that wouldn’t be easy right now.
However, it doesn’t necessarily need to get back to Earth. If we have power up in space, it gets much easier to run mining operations on asteroids, the moon etc. As soon as we have both power and minerals, we can also start putting factories in orbit instead of on Earth, reducing energy need down here.
The stuff those factories produce can be dropped down to Earth, OR we use that stuff in space to build even more infrastructure. In fact, at this point it becomes feasible to build really nice space stations that people can go live on if they want. Eventually, we’d even have the production capacity to build O’Neill Cylinders.
Now we can just continue building and mining in space, while developing or preserving Earth as we like.
Which is why we should not be leaving it to these billionaires.
FUCKING FUND NASA instead of these fascists
Yo dawg we heard you like greenhouse gases.
Dudes the fuckin antichrist
So we have hydrogen as rocket fuel that does not produce greenhouse gasses when burned and they decide to develop methane as a fuel source instead! Why!?!
Hydrogen itself is a strong greenhouse gas and leaks from everything, so it wouldn’t necessarily be better.
The state air regulator, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, doesn’t impose limits on methane emissions or require disclosure of releases.
Well there’s your problem.
Billionaire space folly will attract 100% tax when I am finally in charge.
Well that stinks.
Well how else is he going to find a new planet… duh!
Gotta ruin a planet to travel to a new planet
If you can see it from space where is the photo?
There was a link to the data in the article that you didn’t read: https://data.carbonmapper.org/#13.24/31.428/-104.72174
Blue origins name checks out…
Also extracting some key facts from the article:
… an instrument on board the International Space Station, [detected] about 1.5 metric tons per hour. There’s no indication of how long it lasted.
An air permit application filed with the TCEQ in January 2020 said the company expected to routinely dump LNG into the air to the tune of [60 tons] a year…
…a huge oilfield near the rocket site [is] thought to give off some 2.7 million tons of methane a year.
(My paraphrasing and emphasis added.)
I’m not saying one of those isn’t a lot, though I am observing that we really really really need to ramp up renewables production to offset fossil fuel demand.
Of course, Blue Origin’s emissions pale in comparison with those from its suppliers in the natural gas industry.
Hate harder.
