The ice gas cometh

I thought about where to put this a bit. It's possible that this is a "science" topic but I suspect that most of the discussion around it will be political in nature. So:



http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/envi...928-2ulaj.html



It seems that Japan's state mineral resource company JOGMEC—sort of odd that they even have one—will bring commercial production of methane hydrates online by 2018.



Will they do it by then? I don't know. What do I know?

• Tar sands are described as "low-hanging fruit" in the article but their advantage can't be that great. They have miserable EROI, I think ~3, and it took considerable economic pressure just to start exploiting them. To my knowledge, attempts to develop Canadian tar sands in the 70s and 80s fell through and it was only recently that they became viable. When they come out of the ground they basically look like dirt and are hauled to and fro by Avatar-sized dump trucks rather than pipelines. That pretty much summarizes how crappy they are and how desperate we've gotten as a planet.


• EROI on fracking on the other hand is apparently huge , but how long gas deposits recoverable by fracking will last is not certain. The article I linked says "Estimates of the amount of gas available from the shale plays vary widely. It is not clear yet whether there is anywhere near enough to rival coal over the long haul."


• The possibility of emissions significant at the global level cannot be ruled out. The article mentions that methane has a shorter lifetime in the atmosphere than CO2. Nevertheless it is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 while it is in the atmosphere. A number of scientists attribute grave danger to methane emissions from various sources, including hydrates. For more on that see here: http://www.theguardian.com/environme...global-warming Some would even go as far as to compare the risk of methane-based positive feedbacks in the climate system to the Permian-Triassic extinction aka "the Great Dying".

Maybe capturing the hydrates will ameliorate the possibility of hydrates destabilized by climate change belching out into the atmosphere but, while I don't have exact figures, experts appear to be leery towards the environmental effects of this new resource. And one can imagine how spectacular a blowout like the Deepwater Horizon would be. As the article at the top says: "For example, the gas expands to 160 times its initial volume by the time it reaches the surface, which can blow standard drilling equipment to bits." I reckon the people who are going to work on the platforms that bring this highly explosive, flammable crap off the seafloor are going to need balls, sorry, spoons of steel just to make it to midday. (Thanks for the reminder, Atheism+.)



All told, I can't imagine it will be too long before methane hydrates are being substantially exploited. Imagine a meth junkie who is desperate enough to snort 20% pure shake-and-bake dope (tar sands). Imagine this same junkie, spurred onwards by an ever-increasing need to binge on his favorite drug, suddenly sees bag upon bag of beautiful, gleaming, unadulterated, white crystal meth. That's hydrates. That's Earth. That's us. Come hell or highwater, our burgeoning global economy and population will not be able to keep our hands off the stuff, regardless the risks to the miners, the effects on the global climate, how much of the process industry needs to be retooled to gas instead of oil, or anything else. It's going to happen sooner or later.



It might not be as bad as turning to coal liquefaction once other oil and gas resources are tapped out but in all other regards:

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