Burning Ice Drilled from Alaska's Slope

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."

Comments

"Hot ice"?

[morgan_greywolf]

Hot ice? Is that anything like "cold steam"?

Re:"Hot ice"?

[SirStanley]

I liken it more to Transparent Aluminum.

Re:"Hot ice"?

[twiddlingbits]

I thought "Hot Ice' was stolen diamonds. Guess I better quit watching those old movies and get with the modern term. Mining (drilling?) this stuff could cause problems, it has to be melted and the water left over has to go somewhere. I suppose they could just make the water back into snow or ice and no harm with that.

Re:"Hot ice"?

[Shayneisgreat]

I want to be known as the person who quotes the name "Ice Hugger" for those who complain that destroying Ice for energy is going to destroy the world.

Re:"Hot ice"?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Cool Slashdotters"?

Re:"Hot ice"?

[sumdumass]

Well, we definatly want to slow global warming in order to stop the hot ice from melting. So sure, there will be ice huggers but probably in a different sence.

Re:"Hot ice"?

[Anonymous Coward]

On a side issue, you actually can have cold steam. You just have to give the water particles enough energy to go from a liquid state to a gaseous state. This energy need not be heat energy and can easily be kinetic energy - the mechanism that's used by the vapuorisers you can easily buy at the pharmacy.

Re:"Hot ice"?

[JJVH]

You know what my secret is? Hot Ice. Hot Ice? You HEAT up the ICE CUBES! It's the best of both worlds!

Re:"Hot ice"?

[dan828]

No no no. You got it all wrong. You slowly warm the ice cubes in an alcohol solution. I'm going to begin some preliminary experimentation this evening with an eye towards large scale experiments this weekend. I'll let you know how it goes.

Re:"Hot ice"?

[dbIII]

Hot ice? Is that anything like "cold steam"?

Cold steam would be sublime.

Re:"Hot ice"?

[Kyle_Katarn-(ISF)]

Or you can just decrease the pressure. I remember seeing a demonstration once where water was placed in a beaker that was sealed at a near-vacuum. Even whenever submerged in liquid nitrogen, the water was still boiling and steaming.

Re:"Hot ice"?

[mrscorpio]

I think it's more like this: http://www.chattem.com/products/icy.asp

Re:"Hot ice"?

[gardyloo]

This energy need not be heat energy and can easily be kinetic energy - the mechanism that's used by the vapuorisers you can easily buy at the pharmacy.

      Ah, but "heat" is just the name we give to kinetic energy where we've neglected to keep track of the particles' *directions* of movement and just have a good idea of their average *speeds*. It's really just a question of the scale at which you can afford to keep track of velocities accurately.

Re:"Hot ice"?

[Fordiman]

Actually, the same argument that can be made for fossil fuels and global warming can be made here: it's carbon that was statically trapped that will now be released into the atmo.

Re:"Hot ice"?

[locofungus]

Or you can just decrease the pressure. I remember seeing a demonstration once where water was placed in a beaker that was sealed at a near-vacuum. Even whenever submerged in liquid nitrogen, the water was still boiling and steaming.

You can't have liquid water at liquid nitrogen temperatures. The coldest you can possibly have liquid water is about 250K at 200MPa.

http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/phase.html

Tim.

Re:"Hot ice"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which in turn brings us to an invisible tin hat. Nice!

Clean-burning? Sure...

[TodMinuit]

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.

Clean-burning? Sure. But at $4.6 million a gallon, I'll stick with oil.

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[linkedlinked]

Clean-burning? Sure. But at $4.6 million a gallon, I'll stick with oil. Which, coincidentally, can also be found under Alaska.

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[timmarhy]

"Clean-burning? Sure. But at $4.6 million a gallon, I'll stick with oil."

are you really that fucking stupid? obviously it's going to cost that much to setup a research site and drill that first barrel, but are you honestly so dim as to think every barrel will cost 4.6 million?

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[flyingsquid]

At any rate, it's not as if there's a shortage of natural gas in Alaska. There are vast quantities in the Prudhoe Bay fields; the problem is that without a gas pipeline, there is no way to get it out of Alaska and to market. There is a lot of interest in building a pipeline, but you can imagine the various considerations- environmental impacts, terrorism threats, negotiating terms with the Canadians and Native American peoples in order to cross their land, what cut the state gets of the revenues- so it's not happening immediately. However, it will eventually happen if energy demands keep growing the way they have been.

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. You must be a real hoot at parties.

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[Columcille]

the humor is weak with this one

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[johnny maxwell]

clean-burning... It should be emphasized that methane (and it is methane ice we are talking about) burns clean in that it produces but CO2 and water. However, being a fossil fuel it is dirty in the sense of CO2 emissions.

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[Cartack]

Isn't methane already transported via ship/land in liquid form?

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[linvir]

Wow. You must be a real hoot at parties.

I've noticed this one a lot lately. It's also my most favourite troll one-liner right now. Whoever you are, please, please keep posting this.

Also, in before "you must be a real hoot at parties".

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[timmarhy]

sorry but in this day and age people really could be that stupid.

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[UserGoogol]

Yes, but fortunately the humor is also weak with Tod Minuit. There's nothing funny about saying "4.6 million dollars a barrel? lol, that's a bit pricey." Misinterpreting what people say can be funny, but it is not in this case.

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[falconwolf]

clean-burning...
It should be emphasized that methane (and it is methane ice we are talking about) burns clean in that it produces but CO2 and water. However, being a fossil fuel it is dirty in the sense of CO2 emissions.

While when methane is burned it emits CO2, methane itself is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. If because of global warming the methane trapped under ice is released it will have more of am impact on temperatures than the CO2 buring it produces will. This is a growing concern in the taigas and tundra of northern Alaska, Canada, and Russia. Scientists have already documented methane releases in Syberia. Actually because of this some people in Russia are working on plans to capture and pipe the methane to markets as a source of fuel.

Falcon

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[Paul Troon]

Excellent point. The fossil fuel industry want to pretend CO2 isn't a problem. BP recently ran an advertising campaign stating that if all cars used their magic clean petrol where it was available, the reduction in dangerous emissions would be the equivalent of taking 10 million cars off the road. Only when you rake around on their website, do you find that they don't consider carbon dioxide to be a dangerous emission.

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[pixelpusher220]

Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas, but measured over time, CO2 has more impact. The Methane breaks down after 10-15 years whereas the CO2 stays around for 200-400 years... Linky

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[Hoi Polloi]

They already have one pipeline for oil, what difference would it make to run a gas line next to it? At least a gas leak causes less damage than an oil leak.

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[monkeydo]

And the gloom-and-doom industry wants to pretend that H20 vapor isn't a problem.

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[falconwolf]

Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas, but measured over time, CO2 has more impact. The Methane breaks down after 10-15 years whereas the CO2 stays around for 200-400 years...

While methane decomposes or has a halflife that's a lot shorter than CO2 it still can have a much bigger impact on warming. It's not as though what's released now won't have an impact for 200 years, the impact is more immediate, on the scale of decades if not years. Then again a volcano, like the Yellowstone Super Volcano, can emit more greenhouse gas than humans can.

Falcon

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[kernelistic]

To get to its destination, yes. Natural gas needs to be refined before it can be liquefied (By pressurization). These refineries aren't cheap to build and so gas is usually pipelined in from a couple of hundred miles away.

I give this...

[bhmit1]

a snowball's chance in hell of ever working.

chemical reaction

[zyzzx0]

if memory serves correctly, natural gas = CH4
so the chem reaction:
CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2H2O

Seems like a lot of CO2 for being such a clean energy source.... but what the hell do i know?

Re:chemical reaction

[andy314159pi]

Good point. I was going to comment that this seems to be the wrong direction for energy research seeing as this will produce CO2.

Re:chemical reaction

[packeteer]

The point is that the old problem we knew about in the atmosphere was small particle pollution. Ironically the small particles in the air have been shielding us from the full effect of global warming through a process coined as global dimming. Even though the earth is more of a greenhouse now it is in fact getting less sunlight overall, this means that some of our models about how much CO2 relates to a certain tempurature chance in the atmosphere might be off. The terrible part is that we might undervalue CO2 and other greenhouse gasses' effect on global warming.

Re:chemical reaction

[pz]

Clean burning fuel has nothing to do with C02, but everything to do with nitrogen and sulfer compounds, often call NOx and SOx ("x" because the number of oxygen atoms varies depending on the species). Those two classes of compounds are responsible for smog, acid rain, and, in part, the ozone layer depletion. Given the choice between burning, say, coal, which produces an excess of NOx and SOx, and methane which produce only traces of same when properly combusted, I'll take the methane, thank-you-very-much.

Re:chemical reaction

[Chris Burke]

Well, "clean" and "environmentally friendly" aren't always the same... Methane burns cleanly, pretty much as cleanly as combustion can possibly get. "Clean" here is implying "without partial combustion byproducts that result from burning gasoline, diesel, biodiesel, wood, or pretty much any other organic substance". So in the sense of what we traditionally think of as pollutants, the noxious fumes that come from your car's tail pipe, it's clean. Is it going to reduce greenhouse gasses? Well, not so much.

So it turns out that this particular find is not a solution for global warming. Yet if we are going to continue burning organic materials for energy, and we assuredly are for the next decade at least, then I'd rather it be a "clean" burning hydrocarbon.

Re:chemical reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

"Clean" used to mean "Won't poison us".

I suspect that the major corporations are playing both sides of the greenhouse gas war. After all, with everyone oh so focused on CO2, nobody will notice a little dioxin leak here or a mercury leak there.

We even had a letter to the editor at our paper the other day talking about a whole whopping pound of dioxin once leaked out of a plant in italy or something, and it killed off a bunch of stuff but just gave people open lesions, so it can't possibly be so bad that the government has to force poor, poor companies to spend money keeping it in containers instead of just dumping it out in the back yard. A few months back another person wrote to the editor claiming that the cost of poisoning no more than one person in a million with cancerous substances was forcing his company out of business.

If global warming turns out to not happen, you can bet companies are going to be using the hype and subsequent failure in order to justify releasing all sorts of chemicals that are known to actually cause harm to people, and the suckers who felt burned (or who were saying "told you so all along") will be more than happy to agree.

Re:chemical reaction

[CommunistHamster]

The other problem with global dimming is that less light reaches crops, which causes lower global crop yield. The amount lost may only be a small fraction, but globally thats a few thousand people without food.

Re:chemical reaction

[Toonol]

CO2 + 2H2O? It outputs carbonated water? Get Pepsi to invest.

Re:chemical reaction

[grimdestripador]

CH4 + 2O2 => CO2 + 2H2O + heat

Its clean burning, in the fact there are few hydrocarbons and junk like sulfur as exhaust.

The whole natural gas in ice thing, isn't that spectacular. Considering natural gas is probably easier to change no LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) than it is to compress into a snowballs' ice lattice. ... .. Something about high pressures and low temperatures that accomplish both.

Are we going to boil decomposing cow pies, and fill up a warehouse of with fake snow? I can't see this as a viable resource.

Although it would be a NICE science experiment to go to Prudhoe bay and light one of those ice fields on fire.

Re:chemical reaction

[timmarhy]

umm no we pretty well understand how co2 fits in on the scale of green house gases, and it's not a major player as you've been lead to believe by the cult of global warming.

WATER VAPOUR is MOST of the green house effect. but i guess it's not as sexy cool to state that the green house effect mainly comes from evaporated water from the oceans, is it?

Re:chemical reaction

[sholden]

Surely we could just pump out some more CO2 to give those plants more food, to counteract that...

Re:chemical reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite correct. There is a large store of ice that contains a high quantity of methane. I presume the Alaskan ice is essentially the same makeup. This fuel-ice has two major downfalls, the first is the extreme difficulty in attaining it (even in very small quantities) and the second is, as you've pointed out, that it contains releases a large quantity of CO2 when burned.

Basically it's a great fallback if we run out of oil, develop a means of extracting the ice, and quit caring about the future of the planet.

Re:chemical reaction

[Planesdragon]

[water vapor] is [the gas most responsible for] the green house effect.

Yes, and your point is?

the problem with global warming is not the greenhouse effect per se, but rather its increase. Unless you have a 65,000 year trendline for water vapor, it's essentially irrelevant to the debate.

Re:chemical reaction

[sumdumass]

No, Plant pump out enough Co2 on their own. It is called asperation and is why the Co2 reading will be higher at night.

Re:chemical reaction

[dank zappingly]

I thought global warming was caused by methane from cow farts.

Re:chemical reaction

[Ungrounded Lightning]

In hydrocarbons burning the hydrogen provides most of the energy. Burning the carbon provides some, but the carbon is mainly useful for packing the hydrogen in a form more dense than H2 gas for convenient storage and handling.

As hydrocarbons go, CH4 has a higher ratio of hydrogen to carbon than any other molecule: Every bond on every carbon holds a hydrogen, none are "wasted" connecting to other carbons.

So if you're going to burn hydrocarbons for energy, methane releases the least CO2 for a given amount of energy produced.

Re:chemical reaction

[sumdumass]

This is because the focus has been primarily on "human caused" global wamring. In these models, they suggest water vapor is a feedback and not a forcing. If you were to look at the Sun as the cause, then it would be a forcing but the problem would corect itself when the solar radiation returns to normal.

And with a model like this, You don't get famous, don't have grants offered to furhter the doomsday studies, you don't get failed or rejected policies being promoted as "the cure"(you know who you are Kyoto) to advance a political position no one wanted in th first place and most important of all, If we are wrong about it being the sun, then were are in a heap more danger then having the "other" knowledge about it before hand.

But yea, The global warming religion doesn't want anyone to know about alternatives. It is blasphemy of sorts.

Re:chemical reaction

[networkBoy]

Um....
As I understood it plants release O2, not CO2, they are more active with an energy source (sunlight) which is why you will see less O2 at night.
-nB

Re:chemical reaction

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Burning it is better than letting the methane itself become a greehouse gas. IIRC, methane about 130x times worse than CO2 in terms of greenhouse gas potential. A lot of this stuff is naturally just bubbling out of the ocean floor. Our cattle are making some too, but I don't know if it's significant compared to other sources.

Re:chemical reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh wow. Basic chemistry... too bad you forgot basic physics. Ya know, the part where CH4 is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. You global warming goofballs are all the same. "Oh noes! Don't burn it!! That creates teh greenhouse gasses! Oh noes!! It's escaping into the atmosphere causing 20 times as much damage!!!" Make up your damned minds already, fucktards.

Re:chemical reaction

[timmarhy]

huh? water vapour is by far the most important gas involved in greenhouse and you think it's irrelevant? i think you should stick to waving banners and screaming slogans, because that's about the limit of your abilities by the looks of it.

Re:chemical reaction

[pintpusher]

sorry, seriously OT, but I love your sig. However, be sure you mount read-only before you fsck. The long term damage is catastrophic. Trust me on this, I've got the results of three read-write fsck's running around my house right now...

Re:chemical reaction

[sholden]

But they only pump out the CO2 they've taken in. They aren't using nuclear fusion to make carbon after all.

daytime:
6H2O + 6CO2 + energy -> C6H12O6+ 6O2

nighttime:
C6H12O6+ 6O2 -> 6H2O + 6CO2 + energy

But they only respirate out 50% of the carbon they took in - so the net effect is taking in CO2 and turning it into biomass.

Re:chemical reaction

[UserGoogol]

It's not a greenhouse gas if it's trapped in ice, though.

Although yes, to rule it out entirely simply because methane produces CO2 is silly. Switching to non-carbon-producing energy sources is a great idea if it can be done, but switching from oil to methane isn't terrible in the meantime.

Re:chemical reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

The amount of water vapor in the air regulates itself by rain and surface condensation, CO2 doesn't. The amount of water vapor able to solve into air is limited by pressure and temperature. Seems to me more like general global temperature increase will accelerate the greenhouse effect because of more water vapor can be contained in the air.

Re:chemical reaction

[belg4mit]

True, though you should note that NOx are largely dependent upon combustion conditions
and not so much fuel source; fuel + air (80% N2) at several thousand degrees = NOx.
Luckily, that provides us with a reason to mobilize lots of platinum and rhodium.

Re:chemical reaction

[rdoger6424]

you're half right. Plants undergo photosynthesis which converts Energy+H2O+CO2->O2+Glucose. However plants also undergo respiration, which converts O2+Glucose->CO2+H2O+Energy. Photosynthesis occurs at a faster rate, but respiration occurs constantly.

Re:chemical reaction

[sumdumass]

I was under their apseration cycle (at night) they produced more Co2 then they took in. It was my understanding that the conversions/preparing of some acids that help in the photosynthesis cycle caused this.

However, I cannot find anything on the web in detail enough to colaborate this. I might have remebered it wrong. I do know that durring the aspiration cycle, they produce/emit significantly more Co2 then regular oxigen and this difference is measurable. Although durring the respiration cycle, more oxigen is produced and make the plants a net gain in oxigen.

Re:chemical reaction

[sumdumass]

The produce oxigen durring their respirations process but in turn create Co2 durring the aspiration process. One is durring the Day and the other is at night.

More oxigen is emited then Co2 overall so they do supply a net gain in oxigen.

Re:chemical reaction

[Don853]

The idea that water vapor is the most important gas when it comes to keeping the sun's heat around the earth is completely true, and totally misleading. Without any heat retention by the atmosphere, the Earth would have an average temperature well below zero. Water vapor makes up the majority of the difference between the earth in a deep freeze and the earth in its current state. The majority of the difference between the earth in 1800 and the earth in 2000 is carbon dioxide, since that's increased appreciably while the water vapor has remained more or less constant. But continue hurling insults based on half-facts, if you'd like.

Re:chemical reaction

[Max Littlemore]

Is it going to reduce greenhouse gasses? Well, not so much.

Except that CH4 is far worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Burning methane, especially in a system that cools the exhaust to capture liquid water, is actually better than releasing it into the atmosphere as is. "When averaged over 100 years each kg of CH4 warms the Earth 23 times as much as the same mass of CO2" - wikipedia.

Given the rate that polar ice is already melting, the sooner this technology is used commercially, the better.

Re:chemical reaction

[falconwolf]

if memory serves correctly, natural gas = CH4
so the chem reaction:
CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2H2O

Seems like a lot of CO2 for being such a clean energy source.... but what the hell do i know?

Ah but methane is much more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2 is Methane is 30 tymes more effective according to this webpage as a greenhouse gas. However according to New Scientist methane is 21 tymes more effective. One tonne of methane has the same warming effect as 21 tonnes of CO2. So it's better to burn methane and emit the CO2 than it is to allow methane to enter the atmostphere.

Falcon

Re:chemical reaction

[LoRdTAW]

The problem with NOx is that it is formed from excess oxygen and the ~78% nitrogen in the air during the combustion process. So even hydrogen and methane will produce NOx as a side effect when burned. Thats why exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) was invented for internal combustion engines. SOx and NOx was a big issue with the new 2007 diesel emissions. The answer was low sulfur fuel, aggressive EGR along with diesel particulate filters. Methane and hydrogen will eliminate sulfur emissions but not NOx unless we can precisely control the amout of air in the combustion process.

Re:chemical reaction

[Engineer-Poet]

Respiration produces CO2 in both plants and animals. (For instance, the roots of plants respire.) The oxygen-producing step is photosynthesis .

Re:chemical reaction

[fizzup]

You are right, burning methane produces lots of CO2. Other hydrocarbons are worse.

Reactions:

Methane CH4 + 202 -> CO2 + 2H20
Ethane 2C2H6 + 7O2 -> 4CO2 + 6H20
Propane C3H8 + 5O2 -> 3CO2 + 4H2O

Carbon Dioxide-to-Water ratios:

Methane: 1:2
Ethane: 2:3
Propane: 3:4 ...
n-ane: n:n+1

Methane, with a single carbon atom and four hydrogen, is the best hydrocarbon to burn if you want to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Re:chemical reaction

[sholden]

Aspiration is a step in the respiration cycle, it isn't a seperate thing. The plant respiration cycle produces CO2 from O2. However, plants create the sugar they use in that reaction whereas animals get it by eating plants (or by eating animals that ate plants, or by eating animals that ate animals that ate plants, and so on...).

The fact that plants have sugars left for animals to eat is a pretty good indication that they consume more CO2 than they produce.

Re:chemical reaction

[packeteer]

Methane(CH4) is 21 times more powerful of a greenhouse gas then CO2 when you consider the total contribution over 100 years. There is far less methane causing a greenhouse effect then CO2 but it means pound for pound you need to worry about methane more. Although cow farts make up a small part of the picture its no so insignificant that it can be ignored. I know a lot of detractors to global warming like to say "LOL cow farts like ya right dude global warming is teh fake!" but really that just shows how stubborn some people are in their mindset.

Re:chemical reaction

[packeteer]

hehe, i lol'ed

"Clean Burning?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Soot, maybe not, but this would still be adding CO2. Hydrogen is what I would call clean burning -- it produces water. Though hydrogen isn't a fuel, but rather a fuel storage mechanism.

Re:"Clean Burning?"

[ScrewMaster]

As I understand it, because it burns rather hot tends to produce nitrous oxides. Or something like that. IANAC.

Re:"Clean Burning?"

[sydres]

yes and water vapor is a greater greenhouse gas than co2, water vapor is what you get when you burn hydrogen not liquid water

Drilling in Alaska?

[ArcherB]

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

I guess Prudhoe Bay is OK. As long as it's not in ANWR a few hundred miles away. I guess there is no wildlife at Prudhoe Bay.

Re:Drilling in Alaska?

[skoaldipper]

Barring the unsightly machinery infrastructure and pipelines to actually drill and transport natural gas (NG), wouldn't this be far less potentially destructive to the environment anyways (than say oil)? The recent corrosion of the oil pipeline shows it can happen. If the transportation medium was Liquefied NG, would that be more manageable than an oil spill? If LNG requires -120 F (or so) for transport, wouldn't it just vaporise quickly once exposed? Granted, you still have the methane gas released.

Re:Drilling in Alaska?

[Xonstantine]

Someone mod parent up. Humor is in short supply when it comes to environmental debates.

Re:Drilling in Alaska?

[UbuntuDupe]

I think we need a new term instead of "environmentalist". Basically, in a sense, everyone's an environmentalist. They don't want to breathe smelly air and they don't want the planet to become uninabitable. But that's not what people intend when they refer to "the environmentalists". What people actually have in mind is "someone favoring hampering economic activity as long as that also helps some environmental concern that most people don't share".

What's a name we can use, just for that group? "Anti-growther"? "Static worlder"? "Pretenser"? "Ecotraditionalist"?

Re:Drilling in Alaska?

[skoaldipper]

Btw, I found this recommendation. They seem to outline some reasonable guidelines to follow for the Prudhoe Bay region and NG.

Re:Drilling in Alaska?

[AK Marc]

I guess Prudhoe Bay is OK. As long as it's not in ANWR a few hundred miles away. I guess there is no wildlife at Prudhoe Bay.

So, it's ok to paint grafitti on the Washington Monument because the Lincoln Memorial is right there. Or are you saying that, given equal resources under an unremarkable farm in Iowa and under Old Faithful geyser, you might as well dig up Old Faithful because there are other geysers around?

One area is a National Fucking Wildlife Reserve and the other is not. Do you not understand the difference? Are you happy ripping up protected lands as long as it gives you lower energy prices? Or do you think that someone shouldn't be able to extract the resources from the land they own? Either way, your comment makes no sense, except to point out that you are a moron.

Re:Drilling in Alaska?

[Armadni General]

Sarcasm---->*whoosh*
O --|--
|
/\

Re:Drilling in Alaska?

[bjorniac]

Many are in this (like me) not for wildlife, or for natural beauty, but simply because they want to have an environment which supports their form of life as "fond of breathing". I don't care about over-fishing for the sake of fish, I care about it because I or my descendents may not have any food left to eat. I don't care about drilling for oil because it despoils the countryside, I care about burning the oil causing climate change and eventually buggering up the gulf stream so food is scarce, or making holes in the ozone layer so that I die of cancer. I don't want people driving hummers because I like to breathe. Yes it's selfish, of course it is. But I think this is how we need to talk about it - it will affect us not just in terms of dying natural beauty, or fewer species of animals, or forests going away. The issues that will mean that there is less food, clean water, breathable air and even land to live on, are where we need to fight these battles, because ultimately that's what matters to people. Maybe if we do that we can win the environmental battles that really matter. Yes, it's sad about natural beauty, animals etc etc, but we have to prioritise, and ensure we win the really important ones. The metric we should use on evaluation is one of human benefit vs human costs, because to most people that's what matters. Oh, and for the record: I approve of covering hills with wind turbines, even if it kills birds or "looks ugly" if it will mean we burn less fossil fuels and produce more energy. I approve of building nuclear power plants if we get a significant amount more energy out than we put in to build the place, and you can show that the chance of meltdown is very low. I know that this won't win me friends amongst the animal lovers or people who want to preserve natural beauty, but I think that we really need to look at what is the most important thing to us, and to me that's ensuring my survival and that of my family.

Re:Drilling in Alaska?

[bjorniac]

sorry, stupid HMTL formatting lost the paragraphs there... why oh why can't slashdot it it's geekful wisdom implement a double-enter = new paragraph option?

Re:Drilling in Alaska?

[PetiePooo]

why oh why can't slashdot it it's geekful wisdom implement a double-enter = new paragraph option?

The same reason they can't implement a preview button.

Oh... wait. Never mind. *wink*

Re:Drilling in Alaska?

[ArcherB]

Finally, an environmentalist who is friggin honest!!! I'm so tired of people claiming they are against ANWR because of it may ruin the sex lives of friggin elk! I don't care about the elk that lives thousands of miles away, who will just have to find another way place to slap the fat. I've gotten desperate enough to do it beside a dumpster in my high-school days... Trust me, the elk will get by just fine!

Of course, we both know that we are going to burn the oil anyway. Personally, I'd just much rather it come from Alaska than from some place full of people that want you and I dead. I also like the idea of using 100% of the profit off the oil that comes from ANWR to invest in renewable, enviro-friendly sources of energy (although, I seem to be the only one bringing that idea up! Bush quit taking my calls after he got elected.)

OK now that I got that off my chest, I need to get back to giving you serious props for telling it like it is! I'm impressed.

Re:Drilling in Alaska?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, yes. If knocking off some caribou will keep some cash out of the Middle East then sign me up for a lifetime supply of venison. Believe me, if we could find oil or natural gas under San Francisco I would MUCH rather level that hippie haven than a lovely natural reserve.

Both of these are moot, however, since the ANWR proposal involves minimal intrusion upon the natural state of the park.

Please go back to your protest lines and leave the hard decisions to those who are capable of them.

Re:Drilling in Alaska?

[bjorniac]

Yeah, I know, thing is I previewed, added stuff then hit submit, stupid me...

Why ruin Alaska for natural gas?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

There are tons and tons of the stuff at the bottom of the oceans. It's called methane clathrate and I'm sure it'd be easier to extract than ice.

Re:Why ruin Alaska for natural gas?

[MaineCoon]

Clathrates are exactly what the article is talking about, without using the word - methane trapped within the structure of water ice.

Better to burn it before it melts on it's own from global warming (if there is any possibility of that). Methane is something like 23x worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas by mass.

Re:Why ruin Alaska for natural gas?

[ArcherB]

Why ruin Alaska for natural gas?

We are already drilling at Prudhoe Bay. Are you implying that the drilling there has done no damage? The why not drill at ANWR?

Re:Why ruin Alaska for natural gas?

[timmarhy]

ok, so please disconnect your power and phone, and stop driving your fucking car so you can quit feeling guilty about all the sea otters you are murdering by having hot water,lights and transportation.

Re:Why ruin Alaska for natural gas?

[Jartan]

Why ruin Alaska for natural gas?

They're trying to remove the snow. I know you've been in an igloo all your life and this probably seems frightening but trust us, it's going to be OK.

Re:Why ruin Alaska for natural gas?

[Chris Burke]

I know you've been in an igloo all your life and this probably seems frightening but trust us, it's going to be OK.

Oh yeah, I should just trust you. That's exactly what the doctor said when he wanted me to leave the womb, and I've regretted that decision ever since. I'm not falling for it again!

Re:Why ruin Alaska for natural gas?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

That'll be a hell of a party, because there are metric fuckloads of it to burn through before it melts by itself. Everybody turn on your stove right now.

Re:Why ruin Alaska for natural gas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this the rectified metric fuckload or the adjusted emprical metric fuckload? I need to know so I can convert into imperial fornications.

Re:Why ruin Alaska for natural gas?

[drinkypoo]

As per Wikipedia, "Burning one molecule of methane in the presence of oxygen releases one molecule of CO2 (carbon dioxide) and two molecules of H2O". Okay, so Methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2. What about water vapor? :)

Re:Why ruin Alaska for natural gas?

[hawkfish]

Okay, so Methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2. What about water vapor? :)

A good question, and the answer is that the lifetime of water vapour in the atmosphere is measured in weeks. So what happens is that water quickly reaches an equillibrium concentration dictated by the other forcings with longer time scales (CO2 is measured in centuries, methane is shorter but still measured in decades.)

A nice discussion can be found here.

Clean Burning?

[Anonymous Coward]

whether Alaska's frozen grounds contain untapped, clean-burning energy.

Whats their definition of clean burning? Presumably this is some form of natural gas, which means it will release CO2 when burned. Less dirty, maybe...

Re:Clean Burning?

[vincpa]

Great, lets start screwing with the ice caps so they melt faster!

not renewable

[polar red]

This is certainly not renewable.

Re:not renewable

[AgentBif]

This is certainly not renewable.

Do you even know what the hell you are talking about?

Of course it's renewable. All you gotta do is:

• grow some dinosaurs
• kill em
• let em stew under the ice for another hundred million years
• ...
• profit!

Re:not renewable

[linvir]

All you gotta do is:

• grow some dinosaurs

You fool! You foolish fool! Did you learn NOTHING from Jurassic Park?

Re:not renewable

[ed__]

Don't bring Jeff Goldblume?

Re:not renewable

[zobier]

All you gotta do is:

• grow some dinosaurs

You fool! You foolish fool! Did you learn NOTHING from Jurassic Park? What, to use <ol> instead of <ul>?

methane hydrate

[Anonymous Coward]

It's almost certainly methane hydrate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_hydrate

Let's hope to God there isn't

[greg_barton]

Clean burning energy? Only if the burning bit is our whole planet.

Mods for this article....

[gardyloo]

... just remember that if you mod something "flamebait" in the threads for this particular submission, they should automatically also be modded "insightful".

Homer Simpson

[Anonymous Coward]

"Dhooo"
Stupid global warming; lost my renewable energy.

Nor is it 'clean burning' (anymore) ...

[taniwha]

makes CO2 (greenhouse gas) - if you want to burn it you need to find a way to sequester the carbon

Ruin Canada Instead

[tzhuge]

Hey, don't worry, I'm pretty sure they have that stuff in the Canadian north as well. We'll need a pretext for the invasion though. Has Celine Dion been classified as a WMD yet?

NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[vandan]

You would think that by now people would get the idea on this point.

Fossil fuels are not clean-burning. They have carbon that's been captured over long periods of time, and when you burn them, you release carbon-dioxide and contribute to climate change. Simple as that.

What's more, disturbing the few remaining bit of ice left on the planet to get to fossil fuels seems to be the absolute height of arrogance considering the position that organisations like BP ( Big Polluters ) has put us in with their past carbon industry. Does anyone think it's actually a good thing that actively contribute to breaking up the ice to grab fossil fuel? The mind boggles!

Australians, Dick Cheney is coming to visit us today. Please come to:

AFTERNOON RALLY: 5.30PM THURSDAY FEBRUARY 22, SYDNEY TOWN HALL

MORNING PROTEST: 8AM FRIDAY FEBRUARY 23 @ SHANGRI-LA HOTEL, CNR ESSEX ST & GEORGE ST THE ROCKS
(Cheney will be giving a speech inside the hotel at approx 9.30am)

See http://www.stopwarcoalition.org/ for more details on events. Let's let them know what we think of their energy and foreign policy!

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[timmarhy]

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

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[Anonymous Coward]

As others have pointed out clean has nothing to do with CO2, but sulfur and NOx gas which cause acid rain and smog and things like that, CO2 is not harmful to people or plants in any quantity that will exist here on Earth naturally or man made. Global warming while it may be real is not anything this planet hasn't been through many many times in the past, change or die the planet will go on with or without Venice under water and with or without polar bears. It will be better for many species and areas and they will thrive in a high CO2 warm earth. Mass quantities of acid rain is good for nothing alive.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[DrRevotron]

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

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

Or maybe you could read up a bit and see what happens to that CO2.

No disrespect or flamebait in any way. It just gets on my nerves when people assume that CO2 is the driving factor behind global warming. (Cow farts are more dangerous than CO2. So do the world a favor and eat steak.)

By the way, good job at shamelessly plugging your political views in a scientific discussion. :/

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[mdsolar]

I was going to tell you to go change a lightbulb, but then I realized you already did.

You're quite right on on topic.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[vandan]

it's natural gas idiot - it's as clean burning as it gets.

No, idiot. It's as dirty as it gets. It releases CO2. You didn't do well at comprehension at school, did you?

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

There are 'literally' billions of tons, yes, and they'll largely be gone in 5-10 years. I'm going to assume you've had your head up your arse for the past year or so - climate change is now globally accepted as happening. Catch up.

i think i know whats going on here, your one of these people who needs to feel self rightgeous about something

Dude you have some pretty strange ideas about what motivates people. You're the one who's obsessed with yourself. I'm involved because I see an oncoming catastrophe and I'm going to do something about it. Interpret it as you will, but history ( and the majority of people around the world at this point, I should add ) have already spoken against you. Get off your high horse and come to terms with the effect that you're having on the environment.

ut because the world you live in is really quite good

From where I'm sitting, it's all turning to shit. We have oil wars, growing imperialism, decreasing wages, increasing attacks on civil liberties. I don't see the nice part to it. Nice in your ivory tower up there, is it?

you make up this imaginary enemy to attack

What the fuck dude? You are deluded! There is a very real enemy related to this topic, and it's BP and other Big Polluters who want to profit at any cost - including the entire world we live in. There is the enemy of global capitalism, which drives the destruction of the environment and workers' rights. None of this is a part of my imagination. You are seriously deluded.

your own confusion is eveident in the fact you advertise an anti war demonstation in a thread about drilling for methane trapped in ice

Not at all. The issues are all linked. And this isn't an 'anti-war' demo, it's an anti-Cheney demo, and pulls together grass-roots activists from many different areas, including unions, climate change groups, socialists, peace activists, muslim groups, etc. On the contrary, I think it's highly on-topic. Cheney represents everything we're fighting against collectively, and climate change / oil dependence is one part of the puzzle.

You aren't very good at keeping up with this stuff, are you?

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[vandan]

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.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[vandan]

Global warming while it may be real is not anything this planet hasn't been through many many times in the past

That's not really true. We have had climate change in the past, but not this fast. We're seeing changes that would have taken tens of thousands of years in previous changes take tens of years instead. And that's because we're digging up billions of tons of CO2 and pumping it into the atmosphere. No-one's done that before. Things haven't happened this fast before. Even the conservative reports are saying that in 10 year's time, we'll have hundreds of millions of environmental refugees because of changed rain patterns, not to mention other people's land simply being under water.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[Initi]

That's really the part about climate change I don't understand: "We're seeing changes that would have taken tens of thousands of years in previous changes take tens of years instead." My understanding, at least, is that reliable weather data on a tens of years scale is only available for the last several hundred years.

Long term trends can exhibit high variability (above and below the trend) in the short term. We know in the past that over its history the earth cooled and warmed cyclically; we know the "larger trends" such as Ice Ages, Interglacials, &c. But what do we know about the short term variation around those trends.

My guess is it's close to little if anything.

But I don't know. If someone wants to comment on this particular topic I'd be appreciative.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[Anonymous Coward]

So um from your stop the war site,(http://www.stopwarcoalition.org/about.php) just exactly what does "Justice for Palestine " look like, and what the $%@$%# does it have to do with invading Iraq for oil?
Is it anything like what Muslims around the world call for daily?

("The Hour [Resurrection] will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews, and kill them. And the Jews will hide behind the rock and tree, and the rock and tree will say: 'O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!'")
43. Sahih Muslim, vol. 4, pp. 2238-2239; Sahih Bukhari, vol. 3, p. 1070, no. 276, and p. 1316, no. 3398; Sahih Ibn Hibban, vol. 15, p. 217, no. 6806, and others.

If it is the the total destruction and removal of a race, and total religious and political domination by Islam through a violent and bloody war. I would say that your views don't match what you are saying, and you are supporting the most extreme and oppressive ideology that has ever crossed our planets surface.

Either you are Dhimmi, or practicing Taqiyya. http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-marcus-crook-f05.htm

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[vandan]

There are a number of ways of tracking historical temperature and CO2 levels. One leading way is by drilling into ice ( ironically ) to extract 'cores' that can be sliced up an analysed. The ice traps a number of indicators of environmental variables, in much the same was as the fossil record is created, and new layers are added to the top each year. Analysis of radioactive isotopes present in organic matter gives us an incredibly precise indicator of the date that something was initially frozen. These combine with CO2 levels trapped in the ice and other indicators that allow scientists to build a precise map of conditions over an extremely long term.

So basically, yes we do have accurate data about long-term climate change activity, and the most striking difference that we're seeing now is that the temperature and CO2 levels have always moved together, but never moved this fast.

For more info, and from a decidedly conservative source, the Stern Report ( Stern is an old World Bank Chief Economist, so you don't get much more conservative / establishment than him ) is very eye-opening. He drives the point home very strongly that:

a) Climate change is happening rapidly
b) Our CO2-producing activity is the main driving force behind it
c) Already it will have massive costs monetary and human costs
d) The best plan is to invest massively in a phased shut-down of all CO2 producing activities, to minimize future costs

There are other reports due out soon, including a multi-phased UN report which is coming in the next month or so.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[vandan]

By the way, good job at shamelessly plugging your political views in a scientific discussion. :/

Forgot to comment on this one.
Cheney is a big oil trader, in the same vain as Bush. I hardly think it's off-topic to communicate to other link-minded people that he's coming to Australia, and that there's a demo on today, considering we're talking about fossil fuels, renewable resources, and all. Just because you don't personally agree that burning fossil fuels is wrong, doesn't mean that I shouldn't let others on the left know about what's going to be a great day of activity against one of the most oiled-up neo-cons around :)

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[Tim C]

it's natural gas idiot - it's as clean burning as it gets.

Even cleaner than a pure H2/O2 mix? Didn't think so.

Burning methane produces CO2, which is a greenhouse gas. It is not clean-burning in that sense.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[timmarhy]

sorry i should have clarified there - it's as clean burning fuel as you can get. the supply chain and plants for processing it are all in place so for any real world comparision, it's the cleanest fuel we have - h2/o2 aren't atually used by anything yet, although i'm all for cleaner fuels i'm a realist and hydrogen isn't viable just yet.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[sokoban]

it's natural gas idiot - it's as clean burning as it gets.

No, idiot. It's as dirty as it gets. It releases CO2. You didn't do well at comprehension at school, did you? Well, "clean burning" generally refers to having low amount of sulfur and nitrogen oxide products as a result. Nitrogen and sulfur oxides are smog and acid rain respectively. Methane is pretty good about not producing much of either. You didn't do well in chemistry at school, did you?

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[Initi]

Vandan, first I appreciate your response. The debate/discussion surrounding climate change is currently too uncivilized for truth to associate herself. I am a layman, economist by trade, geek by choice; that said: This drives directly to my question. I can see, patently, that good data exists about the long term trends. Long term cycles and trends can and do, though not always, exhibit short term variation. Separating the two is in fact one of the great challenges for economists in analyzing data. Economists, though, generally deal with much more recent and sufficient data. Lucky us. Interpreting the past is hard be it history, economics, or (in my estimation) climate science because the data is generally insufficient; we only have a certain number of data points within our set; we cannot directly observe the events in question; we rely upon what is left to us in books, writing, ruins, and yes ice cores. Is that sufficient data to make projections such as the Stern, IPCC, and other such reports? Climate change is happening, has been happening, and appears likely to happen again (if the data I'm familiar with and my interpretation is correct). How accurately can we separate man's impact, if any, from natural variation (assuming we know something about the natural short-term variation, if any)? I'm in a confused climate about the whole thing. I can only follow the science so far before the bounds of my own knowledge take hold.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[vandan]

just exactly what does "Justice for Palestine " look like, and what the $%@$%# does it have to do with invading Iraq for oil?

Good question. It means the right to their own land, for one thing. It means a dismantling of the terrorist, fundamentalist state of Israel and replacing it with an inclusive, secular state ( which Palestine was prior to 1947 ). It means the right of return for all Palestinian refugees - something which the Israelis have always argued Jews should have, regardless of whether they've ever actually lived there before.

As for what it has to do with oil, it's simple. Israel is funded and supported by the US to keep their watchdog in the area. If you remove the US's ability to grab oil in the Middle East, suddenly Israel becomes nothing more than a horrible liability. Once US support is removed from Israel, it will collapse, and Palestinians will be able to move forward to a just single-state solution.

Your quote from God-knows-where lacks any real connection to the issue. You are trying to point out that there are some Muslim extremists. I don't deny that. But I do point out that it is our policies which are creating these extremists, and that we also have our share of extremists. The fundamentalist Jewish position ( Zionist ) is equally as harsh against others and humanity as your quote suggests of Muslim extremists.

If it is the the total destruction and removal of a race, and total religious and political domination by Islam through a violent and bloody war. I would say that your views don't match what you are saying, and you are supporting the most extreme and oppressive ideology that has ever crossed our planets surface.

Israel was founded on just such principles. The dominant Palestinian position has been far more moderate, even to this day. Keep in mind that Israel carried out mass genocide against the Palestinians, and treat them as aliens in their own land. 50 years of this kind of treatment will of course create a lot of people who are angry, to say the least, with their occupiers. But it is a lie to suggest that the Palestinians want the 'total destruction and removal of a race'. What they want, and what they voted for when electing Hamas, is the total destruction of the state of Israel, which is a different thing to the destruction of a race. The racist fundamentalist state must go. The Jews who want to remain in the area can do so, but under a secular Palestinian state.

The Israelis and the US, however, are not interested in a single-state solution, but instead push for a so-called 2-state solution, which in practice has meant continual erosion of traditional Palestinian land, continual escalation of violence, continual increasing in illegal 'settlements' in Palestine, an Appartheid wall that cuts up Palestine into tiny, inaccessible islands in a sea of Israeli occupation, trade barriers, etc, etc, etc. This 2-state solution has been tried for many years under Arafat, and as failed. This is why Hamas has come to power - because Palestinians understand that there simply can be no dealing with Israel - that they will continue to erode Palestine until it doesn't exist.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[Fex303]

How accurately can we separate man's impact, if any, from natural variation (assuming we know something about the natural short-term variation, if any)?

This is one of those lines that confuses me, especially when set out in the stronger version of the argument: "We don't know for complete certain that mankind is the sole cause of climate change, therefore we should do nothing."

In many ways the actual cause of climate change is a moot point. The climate is changing. This is having adverse effects on the world now, and is going to have truly horrific effects on the world in the future. Let's assume that humanity is not the cause. Nonetheless it seems like reducing carbon emissions will help to reduce the global temperature. Why don't we give it a shot? It seems like trying something would be better than sitting on our hands.

Pretty much every report I've come across that considers the issue says that the projected costs of climate change on the economies of major western nations (eg. Australia, the US, Europe) is far greater than the cost of drastically reducing carbon emissions. Seems like it might be a good idea to take a mild risk rather than wait till you're certain that climate change is happening but the sea is lapping around your ankles.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[vandan]

Again, read the conservative, establishment reports, keeping in mind they come through establishment filters. The facts are getting to the point where even long-term critics are having to make major concessions. For example here in Australia, Howard has been forced in the past year to switch from being a self-confessed 'climate change skeptic' to admitting that climate change is happening and that human activity is the main driving force behind it. Separating man's impact is as easy as graphing the rate of change of temperature during previous climate change periods ( ie previous tipping points when we entered / exited ice ages ), and comparing them to now. That's the basis of all the recent reports that state that human activity is to blame for rapidly increasing temperatures and melting ice caps.

The neo-conservatives have all but abandoned arguing against the scientific consensus. There are still the energy companies who are clinging to this strategy, but it is really a lost cause for them now. What the neo-conservatives are now arguing is that climate change ( as in abnormally fast, human-driven climate change ) is real and something needs to be done about it ... HOWEVER ... they won't do anything that will 'harm the economy'. This comes from Bush, Blair and Howard regularly. They say "If we reduce our carbon emissions and others don't ( eg China ), then we pay the price is economic prosperity while China continues to burn all the carbon that we would have burned )". This is a powerful argument. One point to make is that it is basically conceding that there *is* climate change. This is good. But then it attempts to pass the buck and prevent anyone from doing anything about it, for fear of losing trade. The answer to this is that a global strategy for dealing with climate change / CO2 emissions is needed.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[vandan]

It all depends on your focus. From the point of view of acid rain and other pollutants, sure, natural gas is 'clean' in that respect. But that's not where all the focus is recently. The focus is on CO2, and in that respect, natural gas is not 'clean'; it's a greenhouse gas.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[sokoban]

Okay, what other power source do you advocate?

Hydro: Not feasible for most of the world, also ecologically disastrous due to destruction of wetlands.

Wind: Not feasible for most of the world, expensive to maintain.

Solar: Not yet feasible for most of the world, unpredictable energy output, initially expensive, solar panel efficiency is getting better though.

Nuclear (fusion): Still at least a decade from being able to actually produce energy.

Nuclear (fission): Probably the cleanest method of electricity generation. Cleanup from accidents and disposal of waste is a bitch. Subject to NIMBY syndrome.

Geothermal: Might work for the VERY few places which could use it.

Coal: Even dirtier than natural gas, less efficient and more, NOx/SOx.

Biomass: Carbon neutral if you have a good method of rapid biomass production. Doesn't cut it on its own for power production yet. Algae farming may change that in a few years.

Methane: Rather efficient combustion (more so than biomass or coal), relatively low production of nitrogen and sulfur oxides.

The "hydrogen economy" is a good idea, but any method of large scale H2 production requires energy from one of the above sources.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[vandan]

I advocate an immediate end to the oil wars, US funding of global terrorism ... in particular Israel, and a diversion of all war spending to renewable technology research. You are generally correct when you say that each individual renewable technology won't provide a magic bullet solution. But the reason they can't provide now is that there's no money going into R&D. It doesn't make any sense for the energy companies to invest in it, because they'd be throwing their own money into a technology that they can't profit from. They'd prefer to 'claim' and then drill oil, coal, uranium, etc, which they can process and sell back to us. They can't follow the same methods with renewable technology, as it's far more decentralised, and lends itself far more to community-based production and distribution, as opposed to centralised production and distribution.

The same reasons also apply to governments, who are in the pockets of big energy companies.

But the trillion dollars that Bush is asking for from congress for the next 12 months, for example, could instead be spent on renewable R&D. The point is that no-one is going to do this for us. The only way we can get enough R&D money organised is via a sustained campaign targetted at our politicians, forcing them to spend public money on public R&D. Individuals are largely powerless to affect the situation, and the path of least resistance is to burn all the oil, then burn all the natural gas, then split all the uranium, etc, etc, with no concern for the environment impact.

So you're right. No one single technology will save us. But massive public R&D in multiple directions in renewable technology is the way we have to push forward.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[sokoban]

How do you cleanly make H2?

Electrolysis requires a hell of a lot of electricity.

Zn/HCl is acceptable for extremely small quantities of H2, not for any sort of medium/large scale.

Steam reforming requires CH4, high temperatures (lots of electricity), catalysts, and separation of the products (1CO2 and 4H2 as products from CH4 and 2H2O)

Chlor-alkali requires a lot of heat (again from electricity), and mercury catalysts.

Thermochemical hydrolysis requires heat (from electricity) and FeCl2 in non-catalytic amounts.

Generation of H2 requires a lot of electricity or heat at some point. It is pretty damn inefficient. The whole "hydrogen economy" which Bush proposed a few years back was honestly little more than an attempt to get more nuclear plants built, since it is the cleanest way of generating the power to make H2. Frankly, methane is one of the cleaner ways to feasibly generate energy right now. It may make some CO2, but it can be used almost anywhere, and is cleaner than oil or coal.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[dbIII]

Cheney is a big oil trader, in the same vain as Bush. I hardly think it's off-topic to communicate to other link-minded people that he's coming to Australia

What is more - we just changed some gun laws yesterday so his team can carry them - lookout! - Cheney's got a gun!

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[Anonymous Coward]

before 1947 this region was "secular" because it was a British mandate. While there are secular arabic regimes, they are not democracies and its clear that any future palästinian state will neither be a democracy nor secular.
The "dominant Palästinian position" is not moderate especially not farer moderate. The PLO charta from the 60s calls for removal off all the Jews from this area that came after the 20s, ditto Hamas.

A single state solution will turn into a bloodbath because of extremissts on both sides.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment seems to only address CO2, which even if CO2 was the worse part of "cow farts" as you put it, your comment does not take into account that the number of livestock likely is increasing, while our rainforests and other "CO2 eaters" are decreasing.

However.. "Manure management" is one of the key sources of methane emissions ( http://www.epa.gov/methane/sources.html ). Methane is one of those greenhouse gases that people tend to attribute to such things as.. I dont know.. global warming...

So yeah.. Manure == bad... and things such as livestock DO have a measurable affect on the amount of NEW greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[vandan]

The British don't have it in their power to 'make' anything secular. Look at the problems they had with their occupation of Ireland. Palestine was secular. Period. Israel changed all that. The PLO and Hamas wish to be rid of all the Israeli occupiers is an understandable position considering what they've had to endure. But still, a majority of Palestinians just want to live in their own country in peace. They would be more than willing to accept a single-state solution, even if it meant that some of the occupiers stay around to clean up the mess they've made.

As for this single-state solution turning into a blood bath, you're missing an important point. It HAS BEEN a blood bath since the illegal creation of Israel. A collapse of US support for Israel would surely cause an initial increase in violence, but then it would subside as a more stable solution materialised. No-one who defends Israel ( or US foreign policy ) is in any position to be lecturing others on decreasing violence! And unfortunately, when you have a situation as dire as the Palestinians, a violence is going to be part of the re-organisation. At least it will tend toward a just solution, which a 2-state solution never will be. Israel, as an illegitimate, fundamentalist, racist, fascist state, must be destroyed, and a secular Palestinian state should replace it. Crying foul over violence against the poor Israelis just doesn't cut it.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[vandan]

your comment does not take into account that the number of livestock likely is increasing, while our rainforests and other "CO2 eaters" are decreasing.

No I didn't mention that, but I don't deny it either. I agree that we should stop cutting down trees to graise animals for food. It's incredibly inefficient, and not sustainable on a global scale. You're right there.

However.. "Manure management" is one of the key sources of methane emissions ( http://www.epa.gov/methane/sources.html ). Methane is one of those greenhouse gases that people tend to attribute to such things as.. I dont know.. global warming...

That's where you're going off course :(

Methane is comprised of carbon that has just recently been captured by plants, which were then eaten by an animal, which produced methane. There is NO net increase in carbon. It's just cycling around the ecosystem. It would only increase CO2 levels if animals ate coal or oil and turned that into methane. But good old methane from animals is just part of the existing balance. It's all about where the carbon came from .

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[IamTheRealMike]

It doesn't matter if the number of carbon atoms in the system is the same. The point is that the carbon has changed form - as methane it is a far worse greenhouse gas than CO2 would be.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[vandan]

Methane is not stable. It combines with things quite quickly. Sure, it's a worse greenhouse gas, but it's only around for a short time anyway.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[vandan]

I'm not too concerned about Cheney's aim :)

But the police this morning were unbelievable. We were outnumbered probably 50 to 1. We were standing around looking at each other, talking, etc. I was being interviewed by a reporter. Then 2 lines of police went around the back of us. Everybody watched, thinking, "OK. Why are we being surrounded?". Then about 10 police attacked 2 girls ( one of them 16 years old ). They pushed them to the ground, then started beating them up. We of course tried to pull them off, but then we got kicked in the back by other police. When it was over, an ambulance carried the 2 girls away. It was completely unprovoked. As a socialist, I can't say I'm particularly surprised. Saddened though.

global warming

[kswtch]

looks like global warming is not enough, now we melt our remaining ice actively.

Re:global warming

[rogtioko]

What is this idea of global warming anyway?

What?

[cybermage]

So burning polar ice is the plan to prevent greenhouse gases from melting polar ice? What kind of Bizarro world is this?

This FP 7or GNAA.

[Anonymous Coward]

bulk of the FreeBsD a8other troubled

If we melt the ice...

[pseudorand]

If we melt the ice to get the natural gas, isn't it just like circumventing the CO2 part of global warming? All the melted ice will just make more dark, solar-energy absorbing dirt.

Clean burning is relative

[WindBourne]

There folks in Pennsylvania that will tell you that they have clean burning coal. And compared to what is coming our of a number of mines in China, they are correct. Of course, the west tells you that we have the clean burning coal. And compared to the east coast, it is. Now the methane folks say that they are clean burning, and compared to coal, they are. But The only true clean buring is pure hydrogen. And I would not be surprised that down the road somebody will show that there is a side reaction that occurs if you are not using pure O2 as opposed to air (i.e. creation of [NS]Ox )

Re:Clean burning is relative

[hardburn]

Burning hydrogen creates water vaper, which doesn't sound that bad, and it might not be depending on where you get it. H2O is a greenhouse gas that's much worse than CO2, but it's not a problem if you're "hydrogen-neutral", e.g. taking hydrogen that was already present a part of the water cycle. For instance, taking water from a lake, extracting the hydrogen, and running that through a fuel cell wouldn't be a problem. Taking hydrogen that was buried in arctic ice is a different matter.

Re:Clean burning is relative

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, shut up! Water is NOT a greenhouse gas *because* atmosphere already contains as much as it will take. You know, the water in the oceans and stuff? It evaporates. The atmosphere is essentially saturated with water. So it doesn't matter if you "add" more because you really can't "add" more.

CO2 is NOT saturated in atmosphere.

Got the difference?

Put it another way, if oceans were of liquid CO2 and water was sparse, CO2 would not be considered a greenhouse gas. Water would be.

Sometimes I wander, why even try explaining stuff.

Re:Clean burning is relative

[dbIII]

It's better coal in China but they are using it in some places without the sort of pollution controls you would need in Pennsylvania - so they get more NOx, SOx and dust, hence smog and acid rain.

As for hydrogen - the problem is how to get it more eaily than using hydrocarbons without some fourth generation nuclear plant we don't have a clue how to make yet. For now natural gas (which isn't all methane) and methane looks good and it makes more sense to me to use that to burn or in your fuel cell instead of going the extra step to really difficult to produce and ship around hydrogen.

Re:Clean burning is relative

[Aging_Newbie]

Maybe if you live in the tropics you would find the atmosphere saturated with water. OTOH the dew point is not always the same as the air temperature elsewhere. Now ... if you get more water in the atmosphere it both raises the minimum night temperature. It raises it for two reasons; one is that it takes 1000 BTU per pound of water to condense it from the air and that is a lot to cool with radiation. So, the dew point at night declines only slowly. Second, water vapor is a greenhouse gas so the more there is the warmer the days and nights are. Combined, it makes things really toasty and muggy all over and melts ice caps.

End of science lecture

Clathrates

[mdsolar]

This mixture forms all over the contenental shelves. And, as pointed out here, in Alaska as well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_hydrate.

There has been an ongoing effort, especially by the Navy, to figure out ways to exploit these deposits. The rapid release of the methane may be a hazard to drilling and shipping and is also considered a possible cause for rapid climate change in the past.
--
Solar really is clean. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Re:Clathrates

[cbacba]

For anyone fearful of co2 increase as a cause of global warming, methane stuff should be an armagedon nightmare. It's got to be a minimum of 20 to 30 times more effective at trapping atmospheric heat than co2 - that means for every mole of methane we burn, which otherwise would escape to the atmosphere, and convert to a mole of co2 - we have reduced the net greenhouse gas effects by a factor of at least 20.

We've also liberated lots of usable energy in the process too - makingit worthwhile.

The thing about climate change is that those studying it look at the fact that it changed, and then look for reasons why. It's forensic science rather than laboratory science and like the CSI tv show crime scenes, it's a rather cold case on the time line, making it far more difficult to ascertain the 'who done it'. What's more, there's far more suspects than are currently still around the crime scene. I suspect most climatologists have still never even heard of cosmoclimatology which might actually be the guilty culprit.

Re:Clathrates

[mdsolar]

So far the most effective form of cabon sequestration is to leave it in the ground, though there is some advantage to shifting from coal to gas. It is not at all clear from the article that the deposits drilled here are in any danger of being releases through, say, warming. So, they seem like candidates for a leave it in the ground approach.

The insurmountable problem I see for cosmoclimatology to be explanatory for the recent (4 decades) of warming is that solar activity has been pretty constant. On the other hand, paleoclimatological issues are, as you point out, more open to interpretation. If you follow the links in the wiki article, you'll find that nearby supernovae have been invoked, which might be a more powerful cosmic influence. As you will note in Svensmark's physics/0612145, great reliance on greenhouse mechanisms is required for recent trends so that basically no cosmic signal is invoked there as far as I can tell.

I think for recent warming, it is not so much a "who done it" thing as an issue of being sure all the data are looked at. On this it is more like being deer caught in the headlights. Does this really mean splat? For past warming and cooling, I think we are still looking for better proxies to really get a clear understanding.

Re:Clathrates

[pixelpusher220]

Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas, but measured over time, CO2 has more impact. The Methane breaks down after 10-15 years whereas the CO2 stays around for 200-400 years... Linky

Re:Clathrates

[Reziac]

"...a possible cause for rapid climate change in the past."

I had a similar thought, except it involved setting Alaska on fire.

Others might protest, but at least Sam McGee would be pleased ;)

Re:Clathrates

[cbacba]

carbon sequestration in the ground is no guarantee of success. I believe the estimates for oil leakage into the oceans from below the oceans amounts to about 1 exxon valdez per day. The tar balls on the beach at Galveston and Freeport are continual examples of such leakage, being first noted by the French explorer La Salle several centuries back. Coal and peat fires can be started by lightning and evidently burn for years. This methane 'ice' has been offered as some of the possible mysteries of the bermuda triangle triggering off of some cause - perhaps subsurface landslides as well as some bit of localized warming - then bubbling up and sinking ships or platforms. Perhaps the only safe method of co2 sequestering is in the form of limestone which generally works until someone decides they need to make cement out of it or otherwise make use of it.

On the other hand, methane is continually being produced by various natural sources as well as some perhaps existing and trapped prior to our current atmosphere. Considering that some subsurface structures trap oil and natural gas while other similar structures turn up as dry holes indicate that again just leaving it to momma nature to continue sequestering it may not provide a good alternative. Of course, it's probable that human sequestering would likely be worse - assuming we could. Sometimes those natural places - like salt domes have been later used for temporary storage and sometimes - failures happen to lead to very large bangs as the material seeps out and finds a source of flame.

The net removal of methane at 20x the damage for an exchange to co2 is well worth the effort as long as there is any risk that the methane reaches the atmosphere.

As for those deposits - it may well be plausible that warming isn't the only risk of release. A landslide or serious tremor might avalanche the material into a serious release.

As for coal, it's far worse to deal with than methane for energy conversion. There's more radioactive natural impurities in coal than would ever be permitted to be emitted by a nuclear power plant. There are other impurities which cause problems as well. It's not so much that these are truly serious problems - other than that they are measurable and regulators love to regulate things they can measure. In fact, a few years ago, the EPA tried to regulate ozone levels in the Houston TX region to lower than natural occuring levels. It was so bad that not even total evacuation of humans and their activities could have met the attempted requirements.

Cosmoclimatology isn't just solar. I believe the solar radiative energy output (uv, light, ir) was constant to perhaps 0.1% but that isn't as influential (at that small change amount) as variations in magnetic fields (and the interaction with the earth's magnetic field). It's the charged particles - (cosmic rays) that affect cloud formation which determines the warming/cooling. The nominal 11 year sunspot cycle has been active in a fairly normal fashion and this cycle just starting out seems to be promising to be a serious one, just as there was in the 1950s.

Even though we are in the middle of the minimum right now, there have been some serious flares during the last year which is well past the peak, something like x9 or x10 level. It may be that while the output is fairly constant, the magnetic field activities may have been building up the last several decades.

In the 1750 - 1800 time frame, there were no sunspots observed. This was a rather cold period of time with the Thames freezing over solid in London etc.

Note too that there are the usual periodic variations of where the earths pole is precessing to combined with the slight ellipse of the earth's orbit which causes a shifts in seasons as to when they occur relative to the earth/sun distance.

Influences of a supernova are not generally long term. Since cosmic rays are charged particles and don't take direct paths, it's impossible to tell where they came from and since different path

Re:Clathrates

[cbacba]

I wasn't aware we had 200-400 years of upper atmospheric research.

In any case, since we only have 10 years to fix the problem before we all die (from waterskiing?), it wouldn't seem to matter that the methane only lasts for 15 yrs.

Re:Clathrates

[mdsolar]

I was actually saying that leaving carbon in the ground is the most secure, not putting it back in. If we need to pull it back out of the atmosphere, then I agree that mineralization is the most reliable, but if we do need to pull it out, then I kind of think that a few quarries won't do the job and we are going to have to use biological methods. I'm considering competing for the prize in this by making ocean seeding profitable through the induced fishery. Let me know if you'd like to work on this. I don't think I can pull it off without some help.

On the "we have ten years" thing. We don't actually know it we have plus ten or minus ten. Feedbacks could already be underway that reducing emissions can no longer hold back. This would be the situation where we would need to pull carbon out of the atmosphere quickly. We could also have room for a doubling of CO2 with major species loss only happening at the poles and a gradual loss of coastal cities but no runaway feedback.

I terms of the equivalent solar forcing, the IPCC report has quantified errors, and thus is persuasive regarding the origin of the warming. The models about the future seem a little biased though. You can read about my take on that at http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/02/executive-summ ary.html.

It is sad that we have not yet joined Kyoto even though we participated in the negociations. It is quite possible that our efforts on ozone depletion will have been wasted because we no longer have the credibility to work on treaties about the content of the atmosphere. What shall we say now to this situation? http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/23/business/23cool. html

Re:Clathrates

[cbacba]

>I was actually saying that leaving carbon in the ground is the most secure

One would tend to naturally think so and the fact it is still there after xxx time would seem to imply it. However, it wasn't designed specifically to contain and it's there by sheer accident (so far as engineering goes). That implies some are likely to be very secure while others have already let their contents escape into the atmosphere. With that exxon valdez size spill occuring every day in the ocean - there's plenty of small leaks going on around the world's oceans with the only saving grace being a lack of concentration.

>I'm considering competing for the prize in this by making ocean seeding profitable through the induced fishery. Let me know if you'd like to work on this. I don't think I can pull it off without some help.

Good luck with it. Planetary science is not really in my arena of interest or expertise, nor is biology. More fish sounds like a pretty good idea. It would seem that fishing (except for the technology) is mostly still at the primitive state of hunter/gatherer and the notion of farming (except for a few onshore efforts typically shrimp and catfish) is something yet to happen. Even free ranging would be an advancement. More ocean vegetation to suck up co2 certainly offers the ability to utilize an overabunance of that while helping out with the subsurface food chain. Hopefully, red tide style events can be avoided as a part of the unintended consequences of any change.

Life adapts and is hard to kill off, if not impossible to kill off intentionally. Considering that there are natural sources of co2 which were never part of the environmental system (volcanoes etc), and considering that fossil fuels appear to have once been life which acquired its carbon from co2 in the atmosphere, it would make sense that there must have been higher levels in the past, probably the fairly recent past, at least recent enough for these 'at risk' life forms to have been around at that time.

As for the 10 yr thing- it's political or alarmist and isn't science based. Since we don't know or understand the details or the mechanisms, it's utter speculation. It's already been used to push for specific solutions which would have resulted in intentional efforts to try to warm the planet, an outcome that would be not only a vast waste of scarce economic resources but also something that would be opposite of the concensus crowd's current desires for change. When fighting fires with unknown chemicals involved, doing nothing (but to let it burn) is a very important option - especially considering that any proactive action they take could results in a far worse situation. To fight a gasoline fire where there is leaking gasoline on a city street and trying to dillute it with water can be a disaster. It is an insoluable flamable liquid which can be spread and expand the fire and it can be washed into storm drains, where it vaporizes - creating a massive bomb capable of blowing up blocks of buildings - an outcome far worse than a tanker truck burning a moderate hole in the asphalt on the street over a period of a few hours.

It should be noted the previous alarmists' 10yr deadline is long gone along with the consequences arriving deadline. Not only were they evidently wrong about the nature of the predicted disaster (perhaps even got it backwards - then again maybe they got that part right), but the disaster wasn't a disaster on their proscribed time frame and failure to take action resulted in no negative consequences (and again action would have resulted in a blatant attempt to create what would now be considered to be disasterous unwanted effects).

It's very much akin to someone yelling fire in the crowded theatre. There may or may not be a fire there and if there is, it might be someone lighting a cigarette in the men's rooms. The consequences are that at the very least, the movie is disrupted and the movie experience ruined and wasted for the people and at the worst many could die ov

so many dumb shits

[timmarhy]

all you dimwits making posts about melting ice before global warming does it, i'd hate for you to think your orginal or funny, it's already been posted about 50 times.

Re:so many dumb shits

[Anonymous Coward]

you're, not your... dumbshit

Re:so many dumb shits

[Anonymous Coward]

i'd hate for you to think your orginal or funny

What about my original and funny? Bah, I'd rather make posts about posts about posts that are about melting ice before global warming.

CO2

[iamacat]

This is a step in the wrong direction - burning this natural gas will still produce greenhouse effect, causing all this ice to really become hot sooner than we would prefer. Even burning fast-growing wood would be more ecologically friendly.

Re:CO2

[osu-neko]

Depends. If the ice is going to melt sooner or later anyway, we're a heck of a lot better off burning it to produce CO2 than letting it simply melt and release the methane, which has a much bigger greenhouse impact than the CO2 would. Long term, it's a step in the right direction. It might be a short term back step, however, as the CO2 release will come earlier than the methane release would. Basically, you're causing a bit more greenhouse effect right away, but causing much less greenhouse effect long term.

Re:CO2

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus. The global warming nuts have really done a job on you. On all of the folks posting about "oh my god! CO2!!! Fear!!"

You EXHALE CO2 you know. For fucks sake. Whatever happened to caring about actual BAD chemicals in the atmosphere, which, you know, degrade the ozone layer, cause acid rain, pollute our rivers and forests, etc. etc.

Nahhhh.. We'll just fear the damned carbon dioxide that every living animal on earth exhales with each breath. What the hell is wrong with you? You believe everything a politician tells you? CO2 is the enemy?!?!?! WTF? Its only a greenhouse gas, big friggin deal. Its necessary for all life on earth, how the hell do you think food is made? At least its not a free radical destroying our radiation shielding or deforesting the planet. Get some perspective, get some education and READ some scientific papers done by, oh I dunno, SCIENTISTS? Global warming... You have been sold a crock of shit to further some sort of political agenda, and you were taught this BY A FUCKING HOLLYWOOD MOVIE. Chris almighty.

BTW, methane is FAR FAR greater a greenhouse gas than CO2. Burning it actually HELPS REDUCE greenhouse effects from said methane.

Ooooooohhhh the boogie man is coming and its name is AIR!!!! AHHHHHH!!!!

Burning wood is better? What a dumbass. Let me see you breath the fumes from a camp fire. I breath CO2 all the time, doesn't seem to hurt me. Try that with the NOx and SOx and carbon monoxide and ash and soot coming from burning wood. I dunno, I much prefer air I can BREATH, instead of air that is politically correct.

Every Joule is Precious

[DumbSwede]

Coming on the heals of this article Fuel Tanks Made of Corncob Waste, this could be quite serendipitous.

They use lots of Natural Gas for taxis in China. I asked a driver about it, he claimed it to be about half the cost per mile compared to gasoline. Seeing how the tank dominated the trunk of these taxis, I suspect it could rupture in a rear end collision. I doubt these particular taxis would be permitted on American roads, but perhaps the new "Corncob Waste" tanks will make them smaller, safer, and economical for American use.

While methane releases CO2, it still decreases our reliance on foreign oil sources. I think de-funding terrorism is higher on most Americans to-do lists than stopping Global Warming. You can argue whether these priorities are out of wack, but I'm sure this is the way most will see it.

I personally think we Should drill for oil in Alaska as well as pursuing these other cleaner sources of energy. Failing to do so will only result in more reliance on Coal and even worse ecological damage as we rip up the Earth for Tar Sand and Oil Shale. Oil is a passing fad. We will have fusion someday, but for now we have little choice but to use what is at hand. This isn't to say conservation is not good also, just that some conservation measures fail the unintended consequences test. The DOE has an over 20 billion dollar year budget, the world barely can scrape together 15 billion over a 10 or 15 year time span for ITER. If we through 5 billion a year at it, I bet we'd have commercial fusion up and running in under 10.

Re:Every Joule is Precious

[FailedTheTuringTest]

About those natural gas taxis... NGVAmerica says there are 150,000 natural gas vehicles on U.S. roads today and over 5 million worldwide. Apparently this includes at least 300 New York taxis (admittedly a small fraction of the city's 12,000 taxicabs).

Ford even offered natural gas as an option on quite a few cars in the late '90s and early '00s, including the Crown Victoria, but they apparently stopped offering it around 2003 and now it's only available as an aftermarket conversion. Fleets of taxis, buses, and delivery vehicles do use natural gas but few "normal people" do.

Re:Every Joule is Precious

[vandan]

I think de-funding terrorism is higher on most Americans to-do lists than stopping Global Warming.

This statement carries the assumption that the main global terrorists are foreign powers with oil. They're not. They're US powers with oil. The foreign ones come a distant 2nd. They exist, sure, but they exist because of US terrorism and foreign policy, not in spite of it. But I agree with the sentiment that 'they' need to be de-funded.

The DOE has an over 20 billion dollar year budget

That's a drop in the ocean compared to the trillion dollars the US is targetted to spend in Iraq over the next 12 months. And the DOE is only looking out for the interests of the oil dealers. Take the California brown-outs, for example. You can't seriously expect the DOE to be investing in renewable technology. The US is quite uninterested in thermonuclear energy ( as you pointed out ), and has starved all R&D in that area. They're pushing nuclear, as well as continued dependence on fossil fuels.

I do share your hopes over ITER and friends though. They're at least trying. I'm skeptical whether they can actually make it feasible, but it seems to be the biggest single technology that might just save us ( renewable varieties being smaller, but still important ).

Re:Every Joule is Precious

[smithmc]

  While methane releases CO2, it still decreases our reliance on foreign oil sources. I think de-funding terrorism is higher on most Americans to-do lists than stopping Global Warming. You can argue whether these priorities are out of wack, but I'm sure this is the way most will see it.

If we could end our reliance on the Middle East altogether, we could cut our defense budget by half (if not more) and invest the money in environmental research.

Is there a military application?

[edwardpickman]

Remember the old ice bullets? Just imagine tanks firing flaming snowballs! They might not do much damage but they're likely to scare the hell out of the enemy. Just dress our troops in red suits with horns and they'd think they were fighting the devil himself with a legion of demons.

Re:Is there a military application?

[Anonymous Coward]

freeBSD beasties?

Re:Is there a military application?

[BiggerIsBetter]

It's 2007. Which enemy are you thinking of?

Re:Is there a military application?

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember the old ice bullets? Just imagine tanks firing flaming snowballs! They might not do much damage but they're likely to scare the hell out of the enemy. Just dress our troops in red suits with horns and they'd think they were fighting the devil himself with a legion of demons.

Sure, try it in the mid-east. They'll just figure it's the knights of the holy crusade coming back with their flaming arrows for another pounding defeat.

Milne Point

[TheCrig]

If it's at Milne Point, why don't we just ask Eeyore?

"burning" "ice" and "drill"

[erroneus]

Those three words come up in searches revealing some interesting, if not bizarre porn...

Re:"burning" "ice" and "drill"

[Forrest Kyle]

I bet you've been waiting years to put this knowledge to use. =D

renewable??

[Anonymous Coward]

"burning ice" is absolutely NOT a renewable energy source. one should not even mention these words in the same context.

Ahh, one step closer...

[Anonymous Coward]

to the day when we tell the Arabs to take their oil and shove it.

So...

[Lithdren]

How long before the US invades canada?

Seriously, they have vast oil feilds trapped in sand, huge oldgrowth forests, and now tons of methane traped in glacial ice. Our friendly neighbor to the north might want to start reinforcing its boarders. Im not advocating the invasion.

Im simply warning its becoming inevitable, at this rate.

Re:So...

[newt0311]

meh, though it would probably easier for China to invade Canada through Alaska and convince the US to just sit by. It doesn't matter either way. The Canadians have done an excellent job at disarming themselves so that they have no meaningful self-defense capability and are basically at the mercy of which ever country decides to move in on them first.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Shhh. Quiet. They are already paranoid about this. Have been for years.

Re:So...

[ScrewMaster]

I doubt we'll ever need to invade Canada, per se. I can't imagine that Americans would tolerate slaughtering innocent Canucks for their petrochemicals. On the other hand, given the road that Bin Laden and George Bush have set us down, I wouldn't be surprised if Canada found itself annexed some day.

Never happen though. By the time China finishes off our industrial base so we can't support our military, and after Mexico has finished turning us into a clone of their own third-world nation, we wouldn't be able to attack Canada even if we wanted to. If they're smart, up in the North, they'll start building out their own power reserves: at some point our grid won't be able to handle them.

Re:So...

[Mspangler]

"How long before the US invades Canada?"

Why do that? They'll happily trade it all to us for green paper rectangles. Look at the Lumber business. They clearcut their forests, and sell us the wood at a discount.

I'll admit that what they find to do with the green paper rectangles is a bit of a mystery.

cold fire?

[abnoctos]

someone notify david bowie...

Fertilizer

[toddhisattva]

CO2 is not pollution, it's incredible aerial fertilizer!

(I am only half kidding)

Clean burning does not solve everything

[DuckWizard]

When you take energy that has been stored for millions of years (such as oil or methane in the ground) and burn it, you are releasing its energy (which has been out of circulation for a while) as heat into the atmosphere. Do some calculations and see that since we started burning oil, we've unleashed a disturbing amount of energy into the atmosphere - enough to cause some global warming on its own without even considering the greenhouse effect.

It's like printing an enormous amount of new currency. Sure, you can spend it, but there are consequences to releasing that much new currency into the economy.

Re:Clean burning does not solve everything

[Shark]

I wish our governments understood that last line in your post.

Re:Clean burning does not solve everything

[qbwiz]

I don't know. According to my calculations, the earth gets over 10^17 watts of solar energy. According to http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/EnergyUsag e.html, people use slightly over 10^13 watts. So, we're increasing the earth's energy use by .007%, which doesn't seem too terrible to me.

Re:Clean burning does not solve everything

[Ihlosi]

Do some calculations and see that since we started burning oil, we've unleashed a disturbing amount of energy into the atmosphere - enough to cause some global warming on its own without even considering the greenhouse effect.

Eh. The amount of global atmospheric heating caused by any form of energy generation (nuclear produces heat, too) is pretty much insignificant compared to the solar heat input.

The problem is that we're preventing heat from escaping into space.

wtf about global warming

[jaimz22]

scientist 1 "our ice is melting! ON NOES!"
scientist 2 "hey i've got an idea let's mine ice and burn it"
guinness guys "BRILLIANT!"

Sweet!

[DigitAl56K]

So now instead of burning fuel which causes global warming and in turn melts the ice, we'll have cleaner fuel which doesn't melt the ice, and all we have to do is melt the ice to get it!

I love it when a plan comes together.

Renewable???

[busstop]

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.

And could someone please explain whatever this has to do with renewable energy? It's really just another source of non-renewable energy

Re:Renewable???

[Anonymous Coward]

And could someone please explain whatever this has to do with renewable energy? It's really just another source of non-renewable energy

Well, if you are anal about it, fossil fuels are indeed renewable in the sense that they will _very_ slowly replenish over millions of years through decomposition of organic matter but you are right in so far that it's not what's commonly understood as "renewable", which is an energy source that replenishes at the same rate at which we tap into it.

Re:Renewable???

[Disharmony2012]

Let's take it apart.

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.
-As sources of renewable energy are being sought.
Yes, it's happening now, meanwhile...
-BP has announced a new method of extracting natural gas from ice underneath Alaska's North Slope drilling fields.

Strange, yeah.

COx is also a "greenhouse gas"

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it tends to selectively absorb in the wavelength range that reflected IR from the earth's surface is in. Energy comes in, bounces up ... and bounces right back down. Ergo, "greenhouse".

You better watch out there mister

[linvir]

Those Arabs will give us the flag-burning of a lifetime if we ever fuck with them. I bet you didn't think of that, did you?

Re:You better watch out there mister

[Kadin2048]

...Like by, say, invading a predominantly Arab country?

Re:You better watch out there mister

[zippthorne]

Not if we drink all their oil first.

CNG

[chrwei]

I doubt these particular taxis would be permitted on American roads,

better not tell these people, or these people these people.

Many states have a tax credit for companies that convert a certain percentage of their fleet to CNG. The tanks used are usually rated for enough higher pressure than is ever put into them that they can take a reasonable amount of crushing without rupturing. And for pointy stabbing, they are small enough to discharge before getting hot enough to explode, and that's assuming it encounters a strong spark on its very fast journey upwards, which is unlikely.

How to defund terrorism?

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy.

Stop paying taxes to the Bush admin.

~

Re:How to defund terrorism?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot:
Don't buy petroleum products.
Cut up your credit cards.

Re:How to defund terrorism?

[Anonymous Coward]

And turn off your damn fog lights!

"Hot Ice" Is Cold and Does Not Burn

[radtea]

Sigh.

It would be nice to see a science article linked on /. whose author or editor does not feel it necessary to include outright falsehoods.

Clathrates have been known about for a long time. Extracting them economically is an interesting interim move to extend the natural gas supply. Here's a nice summary of the potential and problems with this fossil-fuel energy source, in which the authors somehow manage to convey information and not wilfully and deliberately mislead their readers.

hot ice?

[DuroSoft]

isnt that like... water??

termites

[Anonymous Coward]

most comes from termites. Although it sucks when they eat your house(hint, good gutters, dry foundation and at least two cinder blocks high off the ground to stop that), they are some of the most beneficial critters out there. We'd be brontosaurus ass deep in chunks of wood all over without them. And there's some good research out there now trying to see how we can use what they use to "digest" wood to make endless supplies of good liquid fuel for transportation, and NOT have to use food crops.

I disagree, the world is not "quite good"

[plasmacutter]

The poor are slammed for "being lazy" when in reality economics dicatates that there will be many poor for every one rich person, and the rich still refuse to establish an acceptable floor to how low the poor can go.

Everything that ends up in legislation is bribed there, including provisions which wind up killing people by making pills for deadly diseases too expensive.

We still go to war, we still take every opportunity to ruthlessly stamp out dissent and competition..

The only thing that makes our world different from the world 500 years ago is brutal murders are now institutionalized rather than random.

Renewable

[ThomasArildsen]

The same goes for the carbon in the methane. For these reasons it is not correct to suggest (as the posting does) that this is a renewable energy source. The CO2 and H2O released by burning the gas doesn't just automatically return to where it came from.

Reknewable resource

[truckaxle]

FTFA

BP says it new this form of methane was under the tundra all along.

Sean Doogan the author of this article is certaintly qualified to be a Slash editor...

Ice-nine?

[CritterNYC]

Am I the only one that saw "hot ice" and thought "ice-nine"? .... ah-whoom.

Oh, yeah, great idea

[wealthychef]

We really need to take some of our melting ice caps and burn them so we can melt more of our ice caps away.

Troll?

[mdsolar]

I made a lightbulb joke then complemented the poster?!? Mod the grandparent up!

I hate saying the Lords name in vain...

[Anonymous Coward]

so...Allesus! what huge fucking waste of money and time! i thought we were supposed to be looking for RENEWABLE energy sources! how is natural gas trapped in ice millions of years ago any better than oil formed millions of years ago?

re: natural gas powered vehicles

[King_TJ]

Yeah.... I remember back in the early 90's, I took a telemarketing job for "Stanley Steemer Carpet Cleaners", and was surprised to find they were in the process of converting a number of their vans to run on natural gas. The biggest issue I recall they had was much less mileage per fill-up, and a gas pressure gauge that wasn't very linear. (Drivers complained that when the natural gas level started getting low, the gauge wouldn't accurately reflect it. It would suddenly drop to near empty and they would sometimes get stranded, needing a tow back to a station they could fill back up at.)

Hopefully those issues were all worked out over the years though....

Desalination

[mdsolar]

Twice in one day I've answered myself. Do I hear and echo? I forgot to mention an application in desalination. See this patent: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5553456.html

Renewable? Sure!

[Anonymous Coward]

"burning ice" is absolutely NOT a renewable energy source. one should not even mention these words in the same context.

It's totally renewable. All you have to do is establish a lot of "polar bear" clubs all along the shores of the world's oceans, and convince people that farting in ice-cold water with the group is more fun and socially redeeming than farting in their nice warm hot-tub or bath, back home.

In fact, if we could convince a couple billion people and the same number of horses and cattle to start doing that now, we could completely sponge up the excess CO2 in the environment today.

is methane 'clean burning'

[falconwolf]

makes CO2 (greenhouse gas) - if you want to burn it you need to find a way to sequester the carbon

Burning and converting methane into CO2 is much cleaner than allowing methane to be emitted into the atmostphere. Methane is more than 20 tymes more potent then co2 as a greenhouse gas.

Falcon

global warming and terrorism

[falconwolf]

While methane releases CO2, it still decreases our reliance on foreign oil sources. I think de-funding terrorism is higher on most Americans to-do lists than stopping Global Warming. You can argue whether these priorities are out of wack, but I'm sure this is the way most will see it.

However that overlooks the fact that many care about global warming and some of them may feel justified in becoming a freedom fighter/terrorist striking against the US because it is the major emitter of greenhouse gases. Could Tuvalans feel justified for a terrorist attack against the US because they will loose not just their home but their country when global warming causes the ocean to raise thus submerging Tuvalu?

Falcon

And that's why people don't understand MMCC

[Anonymous Coward]

They say "we can't change the huge planet. We're too small and insignificant". But if we change the retention of the solar radiation one tenth of a percent, we're adding a lot of energy to the system.

True, we could give the planets' surface a good rub down as hard as we like and we're never going to raise the temperature of the earth to any measureable degree. But we don't have to. Just syphon off a small part of the sun's influence.

Re:And that's why people don't understand MMCC

[qbwiz]

Perhaps, but assuming that Earth is a blackbody with an average temperature of 286 K (a bad assumption, but what's an order of magnitude or two), from that extra raise in energy use of .007%, I get an increase in temperature of .005 K, which seems, to me, to be relatively insignificant on the grand scheme of things. Looking at the graphs on Wikipedia, it seems that our climate has been changing by more than that amount each year.

Dude ...

[Ihlosi]

You EXHALE CO2 you know Yep. About 1 kg per person/day. A car will "exhale" the same amount in just a few minutes.

Its necessary for all life on earth,

What part of "trace amounts" don't you understand ?

BTW, methane is FAR FAR greater a greenhouse gas than CO2.

Methan that's trapped in solid form under the ocean isn't a gas at all. What part of "gas" don't you understand ?

I breath CO2 all the time, doesn't seem to hurt me.

Do the world a favor and breathe a 10% CO2, 20% O2 and 70% N2 mix for ten minutes. The other six billion people will thank you for your heroic effort.

Johnny Dangerously

[Anonymous Coward]

Fargin' iceholes

No, quite the opposite

[Engineer-Poet]

Switching to non-carbon-producing energy sources is a great idea if it can be done

It can.

but switching from oil to methane isn't terrible in the meantime.

In this case, you're wrong. There are two factors you aren't considering:

1. Sunk costs
2. Technological momentum

If you invest a lot of money to capture methane from clathrates, you are going to want to continue to use methane regardless of the consequences (look at our situation WRT coal and oil if you have any doubts!). Technological momentum is the tendency of actively-used technologies to get the most R&D, engineering improvements and cost reductions with manufacturing experience. If you need the non-carbon alternatives but you haven't been producing or using them, they are going to be much worse off due to greater cost, worse reliability, etc.

There's no reason not to use non-carbon alternatives even if GW is a fiction. Generally, they are cleaner and otherwise more desirable than historical practice. This is why we should be driving them hard regardless.

A devils bargain

[friendswelcome]

Clathrates... ...Better to burn it before it melts on it's own from global warming It seems that just the opposite is true.

Clathrates protect us from "Iceball Earth" scenarios. Clathrates structures are more pressure sensitive then temperature sensitive. When water is deposited on land as glaciers during an ice age, sea levels fall. This destabilizes millions of years of Clathrate deposits and helps to flip the climate back into a warm cycle. At least there is a strong possibility of this.

Simply Put: Clathrates in melting permafrost contribute to global warming immensely. But Clatrates underwater protect us from death by permanent ice age. So it is quite possible that if we do find a way to harness this energy, then it's a real devils bargain we're getting into.

Global Warming

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, we had enough problems with global warming. Now we're going to help it along by burning all the ice. This will lead to a lot of H2O in the atmosphere (H2O is the leading greenhouse gas). We need to stop this before we all die!

Not The

[mdsolar]

Sam McGee?

Re:Not The

[mdsolar]

http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_uni t/2640/?letter=C&spage=26 Ooops....

Re:Not The

[Reziac]

The very same!!

[blink] I wonder if such references are a way to distinguish, ah, slashdotters of distinguished age. ;)

Re:Not The

[mdsolar]

It's called an analog filter I think. http://www.analogsf.com/0704/issue_04.shtml
--
The future of solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Re:Not The

[Reziac]

I do believe I've used that one myself ;)

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.
.
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[hands mdsolar a Golden Aspr^H^H Asimov] :D

Not Dinosaurs

[YetAnotherBob]

Probably came from moss or algae. Any biomass will decompose if left buried. Methane is one of several gasses released. Microbes do a lot of that work It'll happen anyway, but Microbes accelerate the process. Methane is just one of thier waste products. Here it got trapped in the ice. Doesn't have to be from bioligical origins either. Anything with carbon and hydrogen but no oxygen will release methane if you wait long enough. Also the area is not near old enough to be from dinosaurs. This was only 25 ft below the surface, bottom of the permafrost layer. Probably laid down after the last Ice Age. May not even be old enough for mammoths. Be nice to ask a real geologist.