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Burning Ice Drilled from Alaska's Slope

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the snowballs-that-pack-a-punch dept.

bagboy writes to tell us that as sources of renewable energy are being sought, BP has announced a new method of extracting natural gas from ice underneath Alaska's North Slope drilling fields. "Scientists with the federal Energy Department paid $4.6 million to drill for the hot ice just below the surface of the Milne Point well, which is situated northwest of Prudhoe Bay. [...] Now, scientists from around the world are waiting for pieces of this strange ice to conduct their own tests and determine whether Alaska's frozen grounds contain untapped, clean-burning energy."

2 of 233 comments (clear)

  1. Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean by timmarhy · · Score: 5, Insightful
    it's natural gas idiot - it's as clean burning as it gets.

    "the few remaining bit of ice left on the planet"

    are you for real? there is litterally billions of tons of ice on this planet. i'm going to just assume you've never even been outside your own little burb on this one.

    i think i know whats going on here, your one of these people who needs to feel self rightgeous about something, but because the world you live in is really quite good, you make up this imaginary enemy to attack. your own confusion is eveident in the fact you advertise an anti war demonstation in a thread about drilling for methane trapped in ice

    --
    If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
  2. Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean by vandan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    By your logic, anything that releases CO2 is contributing to Global Warming, am I correct?

    No. Only releasing CO2 that has been locked out of the ecosystem for an extended period of time affects climate change. All the rest is already factored into the system, and simple cycles around between plants and animals.

    Well, in that case, let's kill all the animals. Dogs, cats, cows, every last one. After all, they're creating dangerous CO2. And then we can all starve to death and we'll die too. That should teach us for breathing. *cough* :P

    That's the standard line from the pro-oil PR companies, yes. But it's absurd. The CO2 already in the ecosystem, as I pointed out above, is not contributing to climate change. It's in balance already. The old 'cows farting' line is quite warn out, and completely discredited. Only *new* sources of CO2, such as those locked up in fossil fuels, and which therefore add substantially to the atmosphere when burned, contribute to climate change.

    This is a key point that people unsure on climate change are being fooled by. It shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the relationship between plants, animals and CO2.