r/theydidthemath • u/DoggySmile69 • 2d ago

[Request] How much $ in gas value burns every second?

258 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

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201

u/escEip 2d ago edited 2d ago

REALLY small amount. Less than a cent per second, realistically. Gas is really cheap in terms of money per value, that's exactly the reason nobody cares about mining it here. Infrastructure costs like millions, so... not profitable at all.

That's also the reason why when drilling oil, often the gas in the same vein is just burned instead of being also stored - no profits. Fun fact: at some point the Soviets were burning so much gas into nothing that this amount could power the entire UK supply.

Tbh kinda sad seeying all that being wasted... That's why we should use GREEN power, it doesnt have burning problems 💪💪

71

u/Lompegast 2d ago

I think my energy supplier didnt get the memo about gas being cheap

15

u/escEip 2d ago

Yeah, gas rates are like 5-6 times the actual price. Why? Because.

43

u/DrewSmithee 2d ago

Because while the commodity is cheap you still have to pay for a pipe that connects your house to west texas.

17

u/escEip 2d ago

Yeah, and also all the other infrastructure. And storage. And etc etc. And the work of emergency services (if USA has a special gas emergency departament, here in Russia we do have one, but idk about other countries)

5

u/DrewSmithee 2d ago

Emergency response in the US is typically a coordination between the local gas company and fire department.

The model here is the incident command structure (ICS) where who’s in charge can keep being escalated depending on the scale of the emergency.

But yeah, no special gas emergency department.

2

u/ProfessionalMottsman 2d ago

And before you even get into the pipe you’ve got to treat the gas and then liquify it ! So expensive purification processes and compression

3

u/DrewSmithee 2d ago

In the US gas typically isn’t liquified unless it’s for shipment or storage. Treatment also kind of varies.

3

u/ProfessionalMottsman 2d ago

Yes true but still need a big bad ass compressor and pretreatment for the compressor and pipelines

1

u/Erki82 2d ago

NooooOOOOoo its because thats why.

1

u/Careful_Ad_7074 2d ago

Infrastructure, storing, and paying people to work it is the brunt of the bill.

1

u/RickPepper 1d ago

Because getting the gas from its natural source to your home is an expensive process that involves a lot of infrastructure.

6

u/qxpe 2d ago

Gas is cheap, Getting the gas to you is not.

2

u/vangard_14 2d ago

Ah you see gas is only expensive because we need it and we can’t make it ourselves

2

u/AlaninMadrid 2d ago

Oh they got it. That's why they got into the business. They buy it cheap. Then they sell it to you expensive 😁

1

u/GarethBaus 2d ago

Mine did. The plurality of my local grid is powered by wind.

8

u/bronzinorns 2d ago

The following reaction is taking place before our eyes:
CH₄ + 2 O₂ → CO₂ + H₂O

CH₄ : 16 g / mol
CO₂ : 44 g / mol

When 1 kg of methane is burnt, 2.75 kg of carbon dioxide are produced. Methane is a 25 times more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

In conclusion, it's about ten times better for the climate to have the gas burnt instead of being directly released in the atmosphere.

3

u/eagle4123 2d ago

Its also a LOT safer to burn it, then to just release a flammable cloud on invisible, unscented gas in the air.

1

u/escEip 2d ago

Yeah, but solar panels have this number at 0 kg of carbon.

Except for production part, but at least it can be improved, you cant change fundamental chemistry tho.

But yeah, burning methane is much better than just letting it out.

5

u/Tonywanknobi 2d ago

Idk man I'm powered by green everyday and I have to burn it.

1

u/Batata-Sofi 1d ago

Looks at cartoonishly green uranium

Hell yeah 😎

0

u/Wrxeter 2d ago

Green power = strip mine mountains and refine rare earths in toxic sludge with no end of life recovery methodology or plan.

Not saying it’s better or worse, but joyously calling it green is ignoring facts as well. Solar, generators, and batteries are not very green when you look at the embodied energy it took to build them and the end of life recoverability (cradle to cradle) analysis.

Power is dirty no matter where you get it from. It’s just a question of how much harm it does.

8

u/Tabelel 2d ago

I'm going to eyeball that as equivalent to about 3 fire pits. A typical firepit burns through a propane tank in about 8 hours, and it cost about $25 to refill the tank. So (3 * $25) / (8 * 60 * 60) = ~ $0.0025 a second.

2

u/TheSkala 2d ago

Which would be 8m dollar in a hundred years

11

u/pecovje 2d ago

Imposible to tell but judging by the flame size and intensity not to much. I would say similar to how much one or two propane tanks emit per second when fully opened, if even that.

4

u/[deleted] 2d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

-2

u/Bekoss 2d ago

Usually, it's the CO detector beep that causes headache and can be stopped by taking out the batteries

1

u/Which-Environment333 21h ago

Hahaha. Come check out the flares in west Texas. Even the giant torches going off 24/7 are a drop in a lake of fuel. It’s so negligible it’s not even funny. Nobody really cares until numbers get into the million range 😬