US in race to unlock new energy source

[Dover]

US in race to unlock new energy source

Green groups warn against moving methane hydrates from beneath seabed

David Adam, science correspondent
Monday April 4, 2005
The Guardian

More than a mile below the choppy Gulf of Mexico waters lies a vast, untapped source of energy. Locked in mysterious crystals, the sediment beneath the seabed holds enough natural gas to fuel America's energy-guzzling society for decades, or to bring about sufficient climate change to melt the planet's glaciers and cause catastrophic flooding, depending on whom you talk to.
No prizes for guessing the US government's preferred line. This week it will dispatch a drilling vessel to the region, on a mission to bring this virtually inexhaustible new supply of fossil fuel to power stations within a decade.

The ship will hunt for methane hydrates, a weird combination of gas and water produced in the crushing pressures deep within the earth - literally, ice that burns.
The stakes could not be higher: scientists reckon there could be more valuable carbon fuel stored in the vast methane hydrate deposits scattered under the world's seabed and Arctic permafrost than in all of the known reserves of coal, oil and gas put together.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1451542,00.html

[Guy_Montag]

1. I'm not sure how "virtually inexhaustible" this is

at the end of the day, we have to start coming up with alternatives to fossil fuels, but these might at least get us past peak oil without any major wars.

[htuttle]

2. You know, that methane was taken out of the atmosphere for a reason

Earth's atmosphere wasn't always so nice as it is today. It's taken life processes millions of years to sequester toxins like sulfur and methane. It's probably not wise to put them back...

[Guy_Montag]

3. The idea is to "mine" the methane & use it as a fuel

my group are doing quite a lot of work on gas hydrates, but I'm just a lowly engineer, & don't understand the science.

Something to think about it the warming of the ocean may cause the hydrates to turn into gas. Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas, and this could cause a catastrophic positive feedback loop warming the atmosphere (& oceans) suddenly & dramatically. None of that has anything to do with mining the stuff, but I thought I wouldn mention it.

[Strelnikov_]

4. 20x+ More Potent Than CO2 As A Greenhouse Gas

We need to use the remaining oil/coal/nat. gas to transition to carbon neutral energy sources.

A massive methane 'burp' could be the part of the feedback loop that pushes us over the edge to a runaway greenhouse effect.

[phantom power]

5. and even if that doesn't happen (which it might),

it's still burning a fossil fuel, which means continuing our release of CO2 into the atmosphere.

There was a cool story called Mother of Storms by John Barnes, where a large methane hydrate "burp" causes enormous greenhouse hurricanes.

Not so cool, if it really happened. In the book, the world is saved via a classic deus ex machina. Back in the real world, we've got no such powerful techology that would save us, not even in the ballpark.