OT: China converting coal to methane..

depends on lots.

assuming by steam cracking. CO2 + (depends on impurities in the coal).

yup.

dunno, but methanol is more useful than coal.

methanol is not usually released into the environment, but instaed used to synthesise other products. Cattle farts are methane.

Your header said methane. Now the subject is methanol. Pick one, just one.

Yes, except is would be a "clean" burn and produce only H2O and CO2, not all the other by-products of coal burning. The world is currently spending big dollars on trying to create a "clean" coal burning process, or more precisely a "cleanable" one.

Again confusing methane and methanol. Cattle don't produce any methanol.

There has also been extensive research on biological mechanisms to reduce the production of methane from herbivore flatulence. The most promising suggestion though has been banning of hamburgers.

Not if it takes up half the work product of one to make the other, and you only get part of that back as well.

We'd be better off making technology that allows for the burning of coal yet scrub the waste. MORE scrubbing than currently used.

Methane IS methanol. Methanol is the liquid, and Methane is the gas. BOTH are alcohol molecules.

Robert Baer wrote in news:QtednWD65rbU8c3XnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@posted.localnet:

I think you've mixed methane and methanol. One is a gas and the other is an alcohol.

they both are hydrocarbons.

the whole "carbon" thing is a crock anyways; it's just a way for Obama to increase the cost of energy and ruin our economy.Note how they are handing out carbon credits to their friends.

One would be a fool if they thought that developing and poor nations aren't going to burn their coal deposits.

No they aren't. Methane is an alkane, methanol is an alcohol.

This is methane:

H | H-C-H | H

This is methanol:

H | H-C-O-H | H

The "ol" at the end means that it's an alcohol, which means that one of the "-H"s has been replaced with an "-O-H".

Sorry, but you MUST be incorrect. Didn't you take note of who said methane and methanol are one and the same? It's Archie - and he is ALWAYS right. It's time to rewrite the books and teach everyone over again. Archie has spoken. That's why he's known as "Always Wrong" and "Dimbulb". What else should one expect from an obese, celibate, foul-mouthed braggart who professes to be the authority on everything.

Did you know he built an automobile engine at age 11? Did you know he discovered gamma ray streaks in his diapers at age 2? Did you know he sang Polish arias to his mom as he was exiting the birth canal? Archie is always ready to offer THE expert opinion on any topic. His only shortcomings (aside from his celibacy-enhanced genital deformaties) are his neverending delusions of adequacy.

With good design, the energy for converting could be coming from the coal. You lose a little energy and make a little CO2 in the process but the methanol is easier to deal with so it may be worth doing.

All manner of poisonous things will be made. Mercury and other metals could perhaps be sold to get back some of the cost of scrubbing.

The total system efficiency may be better so less CO2 would be produced. In china they have burned coal for everything. Houses are heated and your dinner is cooked using it. The air is often so think you could chew it. All that pollution is mostly material that is incompletely burned.

That is the wrong question. You need to do it in CO2 per unit energy.

They now have a breed of cow that make far less farts. All the energy that ends up in the farts is energy that didn't make meat.

You have no clue. Methane is CH4. Methanol is CH3-OH It has an Hydroxyl molecule replacing a hydrogen atom. They are not the "same thing". Both are not alcohol molecules and they have somewhat different properties. They are related in a sense but the OH makes a big difference.

l.

I can't wait for someone to genetically engineer cattle that produce high-ethanol milk. ;>)

the

ggestion

Oh, that's just silly Vegan propaganda. What was the atmospheric contribution of farted methane from the pre-Columbian American population of bison? You know, the vast, thundering herds that took days to cross any given point?

Mark L. Fergerson

Methanol IS an alcohol.

Methane is *not*, AlwaysWrong.

Archimedes' Lever wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Methane is not. Your point?

--Damon

suggestion

Now we have vast herds of fat farting polticians who never pass a given point.

suggestion

Lemme see if I can sort this all out... ban hamburgers (and I presume all beef as well?), so we human creatures are all then vegans, right?

So we eat only veggies, beans in particular to keep the protein level up where it needs be?

So now WE are the methane farters?

Sounds good to me... my farts are guaranteed to kill Democrats (and Slowmans ;-)

...Jim Thompson

You said "Methane IS methanol.  Methanol is the liquid, and Methane is the gas. BOTH are alcohol molecules."

You just cannot admit that you're wrong, can you? Don't bother - all of SED is having a hearty laugh at your expense - it's not the first time and surely will not be the last. The names AlwaysWrong and Dimbulb do fit you well.

suggestion

Right, and AlBore will sell fart offsets. Beano, of course, will be an illegal drug.

Won't be hard. They're already dead from the neck up.

VZ snipped-for-privacy@posted.localnet:

Not true. Hydrocarbons contain only hydrogen and carbon, and methanol has this extra atom of oxygen.

Says Jim Yanik, who doesn't confine himself to having silly ideas about politics, but aspries to be compleltely wrong over a whole range of subjects.

Obama doesn't need to ruin your economy - your banking system has already done that, with a lot of help from idiot Republican politicians who believed that the unrestaraied free market could do no wrong.

And it is Congress who are handing out cheap carbon credts to their friends - in the long established American tradition of loading any important bill with pork barrel amendments for favoured gorups of voters. Your constitution is way past its sell-by date, and desperately in need of modernisation and reform.

't

Poor nations are going to suffer sooner and more from the consequences of run-away anthropogenic global warming than are richer countries. Neither India nor China has a lot of spare agricultural capacity, and it wouldn't take much climate change to make starvation a real and immediate problem. China is well aware of the problem and is phasing out its oldest and least efficient (6%) coal-fired power stations. They will keep on burning what coal they have got (and buying millions of tons of it from Australia) but they'll start separating out the CO2 from smoke stack and burying it as soon as they can buy or develop the technology.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

the

Well, one could significantly reduce man-made CO2 emissions by banning humans...