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Comment by jmclnx | Hacker News Reader

I remember as a young kid, all the commercials with the tag line "CO2, the clean gas". Or something like that, I can only assume the Oil Industry had a big hand in removing CO2 from the act.

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Sure you're not mixing that up with natural gas? Usually advertised as clean compared to other fuels (coal, especially for power plants, but also sometimes to gas and diesel for vehicles). Though often the comparison part was left out or left very understated implying that it was somehow non-harmful or non-environmentally impacting.

I couldn't find anything on Google under the tagline "CH4, the clean gas", and all of the marketing I could find called it natrual gas instead. It was marketed as a "clean" solution, laughable as that may be. I guess it's a little less bullshit than all of the "clean coal" marketing.

They wouldn't have advertised it as "CH4", that's not how people know it. It'd be methane or natural gas, more likely natural gas. Though the examples I'm coming up with are more recent than I was thinking (last decade) so unless GP is very young wouldn't have been around in their childhood. Continuing my search, but I have recollections of a 2000s push for natural gas that was heavily predicated on its "cleanness". Lots of city and school buses, for instance, were switching to CNG from diesel in that time period (and in comparison, CNG is almost certainly cleaner than diesel).

EDIT:

Ok, found some things. Google Image search for (no quotes) "clean natural gas" and set the range to 2000-2010. You'll find a variety of images both for and against this claim. Including things like "This Bus Is Running On Clean Natural Gas" (2009) [0] or "Clean. Affordable. Abundant. American. Natural gas is the answer. Tell Congress to put it to work." (apparently from 2010) [1]

[0] https://images.app.goo.gl/yfrQn8fYrB7zLqqh9

[1] https://images.app.goo.gl/4Aj7ybMt3wVWq49BA

Here's [2] an example from the 1980s calling it cleaner, source for me was [3].

[2] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ympy04dETxXWfqkCn0zm9NmE1z1...

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/18/the-forg...

Also methane has a higher proportion of hydrogen than other fuels and so releases less CO2 and more water when burned.

The problem with that theory is that it is hard to mistake "natural gas" for "CO2". CO2 to CH4 is exactly the sort of thing that people would mix up.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41184982 - from the original commenter in reply to my question. They apparently did make that mistake.

The problem with this theory is underestimating just how fallible human memory is.

Yes, that is it, Natural Gas. Been a long time.

But it was around the time of this bill, so it makes one wonder.

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