Foyle: You fail to understand, gas,(methane) is mostly hydrogen.
It is the hydrogen that is used in any fuel cell. Which utilises a chemical reaction to produce energy and mostly water vapour.
I am a fan of thorium reactors for any number of reasons, but not extremely costly and very vulnerable transmission lines and asking ordinary folks to shell out billions to build and maintain something, we don't need.
Thorium reactors are envisioned as being suitable as small scale plants, for things like military bases.
Gas is good, but only if used in ceramic fuel cells, that produce mostly water vapour as the principle exhaust.
Moreover, they function almost as well on scrubbed biogas, and we can make endless supplies of that, just by converting endlessly available biological waste into virtually free fuel (methane).
This remedy stops the endless flow of methane into the environment. Or even where it is currently collected, burnt in conventional engines, where it still produces Co2 emission.
Digesters, and nearby algae production, would ensure we clean this stuff up, and extract the energy component, as opposed to putting energy into it, and then pumping out to sea, where it does nothing but harm.

Ludwig, Type Pebble bed reactor into your search engine.
Scroll down until you reach pebble bed reactor, soluble salt cooled alternative.
That site has half a dozen or so informative educational live links to look at, and where one can obtain the book, Thorium, cheaper than coal.
The sites already suggested, are informative and have more info links, to enable to expand your current knowledge on nuclear waste disposal, from an informative and accurate apolitical source?
Great balls of fire!
Carbon balls in a pebble reactor catching fire?
Very disturbing, given a very similar if less robust graphite material is used in crucibles, that provide the high temp melt vessels, used in much of the white hot metals smelting industry!
Very early trials perhaps?
Incidentally, don't like or use live links very much, rather spend time more thoroughly researching, from many sources.
Hope that adds to your education?
Rhrosty.

Martin has written an interesting article.

However, it rang a bell with me. I am in my seventies, and was brought up in Britain. I recall when Nuclear was being discussed politically, we - the population - were told that electricity would be SO CHEAP that eventually they wouldn't even bother to meter it - it would all be FREE. What a difference reality makes.

Secondly, Martin said how little land would be needed for nuclear, compared with sustainable energy systems.

What he DID'NT say was that nuclear plants require huge amounts of water, and therefore are sited usually on the coast. Most of Australia's cities are on the coast, and I wonder which ones will put up their hands and ask for them to be built in their back yards ?

And so far as I am aware, no nuclear plant has ever been successfully decommissioned and dismantled - and the costs that would be involved, have never been provided.

Of course the subject of storage of nuclear waste, is yet another issue.....................

If the money that is given by our government (US) to the big polluters of oil and coal, was given to research and establish sustainable energy systems, we could have economical supplies of energy at realistic prices.

Rhrosty, has the ceramic fuel cell made a major improvement in lifetime
economics. Unless there has been a major improvement there, then it is
back to the design board.

Rhosty. Methane is CH4. When I studied chemistry that meant that for every 4 tonnes of Hydrogen there are 12 tonnes of Carbon. So it is quite wrong to say that methane is mostly hydrogen.

I am all for Thorium powered nuclear reactors. You can put one in my back yard any time.

David