Science and Energy News
Hell, I can see it now.
The same environazis that have kept us from drilling off the coast of California and Florida are going to have a complete shit if we start mining methane hydrate from the ocean floor bottom. They will find some microbe that lives off the methane. Find some judge to have the microbe declared an endangered species, and ba-bing, no mining methane hydrate by American Co’s. Of coarse it will be all right if the their Marxist overlords in China mine the shit, as the Chinese are doing it for the greater good of the collective. But American Co’s would be mining methane hydrate for eeeeeevil profit. Well Shit, can’t have that in envirowacko utopia.
I’ll give ten to one odds that an American Co will never mine methane hydrate. Between the Law of the Sea Treaty and our own environazi’s it will not happen.Whats really funny, at least to me, is that the average volcanic eruption contributes more ‘greenhouse gases’ to ‘contribute to global warming’ than a year’s worth of car emissions.
Heck, Mount St. Helens little ‘burp’ last week was probably worth a few months of emissions.
If the oceans “burp”, do they also “fart”.
The methane that is under the sea is REALLY under the sea. It exists at depths that keep it solid. The problem with tapping it is that even if you COULD get down there to do it, when you tried to bring it up all hell would break loose. Mostly because it would gasify and increase in volume about 1,000,000 times. And VERY quickly too. So that rules out pipes. And so far it rules out robotics. Because the apparatus needed to maintain that pressure is susceptable to that pressure. Picture a small refinery topside going to 15,000 below. Damned thing would like a can of flat noodles by the time it hit working depth. We’ll be running low on coal before we figure out how to tap into that methane ... which won’t be until about 4 or 5 hundred years from now. Or we MIGHT be able to change the laws of physics. But I don’t think so.
Posted by Steel Turman
03/19/2005 at 11:35 PM
