#Japan imports a lot of liquefied #methane (CH4), also called LNG.
Since 2013, this country hosts the single largest #LNG storage tank in the World: 60 meters high, with a useful diameter of 70 meters, it stores 250'000 cubic meter of cryogenic liquid, for a mass of 105 metric kilotons of CH4.
If that #CH4 was vented, that would be the equivalent of 8.5 megatons of #CO2 equivalent in GWP20 (1.5 times the #Nordstream leak).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDOqUFaPXsY
Because the storage capacity scales to the cube of dimensions, but thermal loss scales with the square of dimensions, physics favors such huge tanks. And because the soil is cooler than ambient air most of the year, there is also a benefit to having those tanks underground.
In total, Japan has a LNG storage capacity of 73 times this single tank.
@miermont be careful, that apostrophe as the thousands separator can start WWIII
@daeyoung isn't that the *least confusing* option when the audience is a mix of people using commas and dots for decimal separators?
@miermont no, a nonbreaking space is the most neutral choice and the metric system standard
@daeyoung right. Thank you for the the reminder :)
@miermont I’ve always thought the 2011 nuclear power plant meltdown in Japan would spook them away from nuclear power. Natural gas is still better than coal but still… I didn’t know the giant tankers leak methane either 🤯
@daeyoung I think they burn all of the methane that boil-over in the engines of the boat so it's probably not that bad. OTOH, thousands and thousands of kilometers of pipe to bring gas to every last stoves in the country, leaks are unavoidable ...
@miermont oh my… I just assumed gas pipelines would be airtight with no leaks. The thing about Japan and South Korea is that there’s not enough sunlight to go fully solar, so I heard they’re both investing hugely in hydrogen energy. If the pipelines can’t contain natural gas, it definitely can’t contain hydrogen. 😓
@daeyoung they seem ready but, nonetheless, the whole LNG supply chain is bonkers. Giant "thermos" ships criss-crossing the oceans, humongous tanks that might be better used to to "liquid air energy storage", capillary networks bringing a potent greenhouse gas all around a country (with inevitable leaks). Bonkers.