I live somewhere that's never had a smog problem so I'm not super familiar with it but do gas turbines actually generate smog? I feel like of all the classes of heat engines they'd produce the fewest particulates. Is this actually a problem out there in the West?
While natural gas is cleaner than coal in some obvious ways (i.e., no particulate solids), it has a specific problem with NOx, because of the super high temperatures inside internal-combustion gas turbines. The upside is higher thermodynamic efficiency (highest of any thermal source); the downside is, this.
Methane has no Nitrogen in it. All of that would have to come from the air. It's famously very very hard to react Nitrogen that way, I'd be surprised if gas turbines produced it in noticeable quantities.
EDIT: didn't see your edit until now. Heh it shouldn't be too hard to scrub out if it were really a problem. That seems like a better way to handle it than this weird exemption process that seems to be in place now.
> "Heh it shouldn't be too hard to scrub out if it were really a problem."
The entire point of this dispute is that xAI could install scrubbers for these emissions, but chooses not too. The Ars Technica article discusses this at great length.
If it were so easy just better refine the fuel why would Europeans bother to add these converters and adblue injectors? No it's not impurities, but high pressure/temperature combustion. The higher the more efficient and more NOx comes out.
However, it's not insane to look at what experts put in place and consider that there are reasons why they have done that. Yes, experts can be wrong or are forced to make sub-optimal decisions, but it's worth examining their thinking behind the decisions.
In theory, yes. In practise, the experts will also consider real-world constraints (e.g. cost, planning, staffing etc). Also, taking the advice/opinion of respected experts (i.e. not YouTube experts) is a short-cut to spending years studying the science (that they had to do) yourself and that's even assuming that you can reach the same level of competency as them.
Fuel NOx is only one of them, which you quite rightly point out is not dominant in methane combustion due to the rarity of nitrogen in the fuel.
The dominant source in methane combustion is thermal NOx, which forms due to the extreme temperature of the combustion, causing atmospheric nitrogen to decompose and react with atmospheric oxygen.
It's impurities in oxidizer. 80% of air is N2, 20% O2. N2 + O2 -> NOx minus some kJ(endothermic). Means, run plain air through anything hot and NOx comes out. Doesn't matter how pure the fuel, doesn't have to be an ICE, doesn't need fuel at all. Hot stuff in the air = NOx.
