Challenges, Uncertainties and Issues Facing Gas Production From Gas Hydrate Deposits

I was sent down this rabbit hole by this post by zworld in the mega monster "Japan declares 'nuclear emergency' after quake" thread. I live very near the Gulf Coast and must admit to having only a very superficial knowledge o the BPDH disaster other than it was extremely bad.

Well after reading z's post. I hopped on over to The Information Bridge: DOE Scientific and Technical Information to see what I could find when lo and behold out popped the document with the name that I've used as the title for this thread.

This is a pretty in depth summary of Gas Hydrate (of which methane is only one, albeit the biggest, possible gas to form hydrates) utilization and the direction the DOE and the US energy industry wants to go.

There's a host of information in the document, but one thing jumped out at me on my first quick scan of the doc:

Recent reports suggest that ongoing methane release from marine gas hydrates (particularly at high latitudes) may be linked to warming climates (Paull et al., 2007; Westbrook et al., 2009; Reagan and Moridis, 2009), although the historical baseline data needed to confirm such conclusions are limited. Certainly, the linkage between gas hydrate and climate is complex: recent data contradict previous concepts of gas hydrate as a major participant in Quaternary climate events (in particular, the abrupt terminations of glacial periods), as isotopic data from ice cores suggest that terrestrial (wetlands) sources are most likely responsible for all excess atmospheric methane associated with these events (Sowers, 2006; Petrenko, et al., 2009). It now appears likely that only the most significant historic climate episodes, such as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), may have meaningful gas hydrate- related feedbacks, although even in that case, the data are open to various interpretations (Dickens, 2008).

Related ATS threads:

Fountains of Methane 1000m across Erupt From Arctic Ice!

Past Climate Change

Extreme Weather? Nothing to see here...move along...

Times are sure getting scary, like yourself me and my family don't live far from gulf either I think its 50 miles from us. It sure makes you worry if living that close is a danger lurking beneath the waves but with all the fracking and now this It makes me wonder if tptb aren't trying to cause things to go critical.. well be safe and take it easy

Wow!
Thanks JC,sorry I missed this.
It is kind of scary,they are drilling more, scraping and trying to rob the earth of her resources until it will be the end of us all.
And the government is 100% behind it all,not caring about the consequences.

S&F