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China To Tap Combustible Ice As New Energy Source
lilbridge writes "Huge reserves of "combustible ice" — frozen methane and water — have been discovered in the tundra of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China. Estimates show that there is enough combustible ice to provide 90 years worth of energy for China. Burning the combustible ice may be a far better alternative than letting it just melt, releasing tons of methane into the air."
I had no idea those Japanese pillows could complain.
I'd tap that.
Actually, this is both interesting and apparently fits into the "suddenOutbreakOfCommonSense" category. If you ask me, it seems perfectly logical to not only stop it floating up into the air as it would do otherwise, but to also get power out of it.
Seems too good to be true. I wonder what the downside is.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
"Does the resulting CO2 from burning methane contribute less to greenhouse effect then the pure methane?"
Very much so. It really is a win win.
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
Yes, 25 times less.
Yes, methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Over the twelve or so years it lasts in the atmosphere, it would have about twenty times the effect of the CO2 produced from burning it.
Not just that, but it oxidises to CO2 in the atmosphere anyway, and if it's used as an energy source, you can also factor in the CO2 that isn't being emitted from alternative sources.
If it's practical to tap the methane, it's a win-win situation.
I like to admire the Asian tundra on Google Earth, and think about what a paradise it must be for mosquito predators, birds and such. I guess now we will be trying to discover how much environmental degradation is required to crash that eco-system. Too bad.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
As a sidenote: the earth has gone through numerous hot and cold periods; the CO2 levels rising can also be the *result* of a heating earth, instead of being the cause. The CO2 infrared absorption lines and it's presence in the atmosphere are both very small: it has just a very little real effect on heating up the air. CO2 will escape from water when the temperature rises though... We know temperatures are rising, so we can expect to see the level of CO2 rising too.
Not wanting to turn this into another climate change flamewar - but it's both a cause and a result; when it's something else doing driving the change (e.g. the sun), carbon dioxide increases as a result of the temperature increase and it amplifies the initial driving force through a positive feedback, when it's carbon dioxide doing the driving (as it appears to be at the moment), the temperature increase is the result itself.
There's a quick way to check whether the increase is coming from the oceans - photosynthesis has a slight preference for carbon-12 over the heavier carbon-13, so if fossil fuels are responsible for the rise, the carbon-13 ratio should be decreasing. If the oceans are temporarily overwhelming the biosphere, it should be increasing.
Guess which one it is.
Also, the carbon dioxide increase in the atmosphere is lower than our emissions. Nature is busy trying to remove it from the atmosphere, let alone being a source itself.
While there are mostly advantages in using this as a fuel, it might be an ecologic disaster to strip-mine the tundra. The Tibet - Qinghai Plateau is between 3 and 4,000 m above sea level and the climate is harsh. Areas that have been strip mined will recover slowly and the little soil that was there and allowed the tundra to grow will be removed, leaving only rocks and sands behind. It might take centuries to recover and will make life for the nomadic herders and the indigenous animals (many of them endangered) difficult if not impossible.
"Hydrate" describes the chemical composition. "Clathrate" describes the cage structure.
People who follow my many rantings, I mean posts on Slashdot will not be surprised to know I am very happy that this seems to be a win-win scenario for reducing the amount of methane getting into the atmosphere, something I've been VERY concerned about (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1572576&cid=31371302&art_pos=7).
Unfortunately I am afraid that this may be another excuse for China to subjugate the Tibetan people. While Chinese apologists may claim they are lifting them out of feudal poverty, I would think that is a choice that the Tibetan people should make for themselves. (Even though Americans and Europeans used "the White Man's burden" as an excuse for their colonial actions, that didn't make them right). The Dalai Lama has claimed many times that he only wants CULTURAL autonomy for Tibet, unfortunately it appears as if this is one thing the Chinese don't want; they want to make it another "Han" province. So they claim, the Dalai Lama really wants full independence despite the fact he has never advocated that and has, in fact, welcomed Chinese control over and development of Tibet.
Being from Korea, a country that narrowly escaped having it's own cultural identity from being stamped out by colonial Japan makes me sensitive to Tibet's plight. My parent's were forced to learn Japanese, have Japanese names and were forbidden to learn Korean or Korean customs. (This is in addition to many documented atrocities like "sex slaves".). For almost fifty years the Japanese occupied Korea, only their defeat in WWII prevented them from succeeding in this cultural genocide. (I'm sure the Japanese said they were "civilizing" Korea). Unfortunately I doubt the U.S. or anyone else is going to come to Tibet's rescue; well at least if the Chinese are going to ravage Tibet, they might help save the environment. So let us acknowledge and shed a tear for Tibet's sacrifice for all mankind.
While we're on the subject of China, here's an (outlandish) prediction. In twenty years they will have become the most powerful country in the world; they should just be passing the GDP of the U.S. and will have a population of about 1.5 billion (India will be the same size but much poorer). In the meantime, Russia's population should have FALLEN to less than a tenth of China's or about 125 million (or about the same number of excess males in China!). So, what about the Chinese making Russia a "deal", we'll buy eastern Siberia from you or, if you refuse our entirely reasonable price we'll just take it with our vastly more powerful military. Sure we might have a little nasty nuclear war but we'll survive (especially if we've developed effective missile defenses) and believe me you won't survive OUR attack. Remember, we have lots of cannon fodder, I mean conscripts who we can make die, I mean are willing to die for our country!
Now eastern Siberia might not sound like much but, in twenty years with global warming, it could be a pretty "hot" property (sorry). With it's vast land area right next door to China proper and huge amounts of untapped natural resources it'll be just the thing they want. If they've figured out how to harvest methane from the thawing tundra for energy generation well, more "power" to them (sorry!).
[On the other hand, if China and Russia went to war, (or were "tricked" into it by some other meddling superpower) it would QUICKLY solve the population problem as well as probably rid the earth of some excess heat due to Nuclear Winter!]
(a) And what exactly does methane turn into as it floats around in the atmosphere?
(b) You're correct - oxidation of one CH4 molecule produces one CO2 molecule and two H2O molecules.
Methane hydrates are believed to form by migration of gas from depth along geological faults, followed by precipitation, or crystallization, on contact of the rising gas stream with cold sea water
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
Actually, the molecular mass of methane is 16, of which 12 is the C. Whereas the molecular mass of CO2 is 44, (C is still 12.)
So, one tonne of methane burns with four tonnes of oxygen to form 12/16 * 44/12 = 2.75 tonnes of CO2. (and also 2.25 tonnes of water)
Still makes it a sensible energy source though.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
James Duncan is correct. Methane has 25 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide over a period of 100 years. The half-life of methane in the atmosphere is not a few weeks, but seven years. Burning methane, even if the energy produced is wasted, reduces the warming potential of the gas.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
(b) You're correct - oxidation of one CH4 molecule produces one CO2 molecule and two H2O molecules.
Wait, your saying that using Methane as a fuel source will somehow create dihydrogen monoxide? And in twice the quantity that existed of mere methane?
Do you understand the danger? I suggest you educate yourself friend (http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html). Dihydrogen monoxide was consumed by every murderer on record at least 24 hours before their crimes! Releasing this much of the stuff in reckless!
No, you don't understand Chinese thinking.
The combustible ice is merely a practical concern. As such, it's basically unimportant compared to the extremely vital matter of Never Losing Face Ever, which is probably the single most important core value in far-eastern culture. Not losing face is more important than life itself and *far* more important than minor things like a few petawatt-hours of energy.
You have to understand, if Tibet hadn't always been part of China, that would imply that the "liberation" of Tibet in the mid-twentieth century was an aggressive action, not a peaceful one, and that the PROC government acted in bad faith (especially as regards the Seventeen Point thing). Admitting such a thing would be an unfathomable loss of face and an unconscionable disgrace to every Chinese person. It would be better for the entire nation to commit ritual suicide than to allow such a thing to be said.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
> So when was the concentration of methane in the atmosphere so high it caused this?
There may be other ways it could have happened.
Just for example, if an insulative ice cap formed overtop a mass of biomatter (say, a bog) that was otherwise still warm enough to decompose, possibly with some water in between, you could end up with a mixture of methane and water ice forming below the ice cap as the whole thing cooled. A few thousand years later, melt off the top layer of ice, and you've got combustible ice exposed to the surface.
There may be other possible formation scenarios as well.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
In English, the word "tons", without a numeric qualifier, does not refer to a specific amount. It just means "lots and lots". See also "trainloads", "a bargeload", "a buttload", "a metric ton", "a metric buttload", "a passel", "a whole passel", etc. These aren't specific literal amounts. They're just emphatic ways to say "a lot".
Now, if we say "thirty tons", then that is a specific amount (thirty times two thousand pounds). Similarly, "three metric tons" is a specific amount. The number makes it literal (assuming it's a literal number; "sixty gajillion tons", on the other hand, is back in the realm of absctraction, because a gajillion is not a specific number).
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
The water vapour from burning methane (or anything else) is completely irrelevant (unless you're planning to burn the methane in the stratosphere)
Water vapour is a feedback, not a forcing. 70% or so of the surface of the Earth is open water. It's constantly evaporating and falling back as rain.
So quickly does the water vapour reach equilibrium that you could instantaneously remove ALL the water vapour from the atmosphere and not have any significant effect on the climate. Within a couple of weeks the water vapour will be back. The thermal inertia of the oceans and atmosphere will be amply sufficient to stop a catastrophic temperature fall during those two weeks.
CO2, OTOH, is a forcing. Instantaneously remove all the CO2 and the temperature will start to drop. As the temperature drops H2O will start to condense out. Within a few millennia we'd be back into a deep ice age. (Slowly, mainly from vulcanism, the CO2 will be replaced in the atmosphere and, with the right orbital forcings, eventually the planet would escape from the ice age again)
Or add CO2 to the atmosphere and the temperature will go up. That will cause more H2O to go into the atmosphere which will cause the temperature to rise more. Eventually an equilibrium will be reached but it takes centuries to millenia for the ocean temperature and hence water vapour to reach equilibrium for any significant step change in CO2.
Tim.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
And who wants to move to somewhere that is cold, inhospitable, underdeveloped and filled with relatively unfriendly people?
Leave Quebec out of this.
Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad.
No, tundra is permanently frozen subsoil. The surface layer of soil melts and causes the huge pools of standing water you see in all of the documentaries of the Arctic. Home to incredible amounts of mosquitoes. Truly unbelievable amounts. Really.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Um... tundra is permanently frozen ground. Not a lot of mosquitoes can lay their eggs in a puddle of ice.
More accurately, tundra is permanently frozen subsoil. In most areas the top layer of soil melts each summer, and due to the impermeable permafrost layer beneath, tundra areas tend to be very boggy.
As a result, Tundra areas can have some of the highest concentrations of mosquitoes in the world: http://www.athropolis.com/arctic-facts/fact-mosquito.htm
Tibet became a province of China for a few hundred years. A hundred years ago, the people who destroyed the last dynasty of China and united the nation (the Nationalist Party which is the current ruling party of Taiwan, the Communist Party, and a bunch of democratic parties currently in mainland China) originally wanted to take the 18 original-Chinese provinces back from Manchu people (the ruling civilization of China's last dynasty), excluding Tibet etc.
That's originally. But if you know Chinese history, China breaks up into some 2 to 10+ countries every 250-400 years after its first unity. And the final goal and hope of every scholar and power are to unite the country. In those countries, many are formed by non-Chinese civilizations, and somehow, they also share the same goal, unite China, including themselves. Now back to modern history. When Republic of China was still fighting to unite the country, Tibet decided to join Republic of China. It break away again when the communist party come in power. But being in China for a few hundred years, most Chinese already see it as part of the country (and China have a lot of civilizations living in their own place within China all the time, so we're also used to that). So basically, the communist party and even Republic of China see it as part of the country. It's more like "unite the country" instead of "invade it". Note that Republic of China (Taiwan) does not recognize the independence of Mongolia until a few years ago, under the very same reasoning, and many Chinese people who know how the history is still very angry about that. Because Chinese already see the Qing Dynasty area as "China". And the rule of Chinese based culture is, a country always have a chance to break up, but must finally be united.
Anyway, the "liberation" (in Communist term) of Tibet had never been and will never be see as "invading" in China, so I don't think we'll ever see that as "lose face". It's never in Chinese question. Also, it IS a peaceful action. In fact, a very peaceful one. How did the government of the then Tibet and Dalai Lama remained safe after the communist's conquer? Because they were just forced out of the palace and power but were not hurt. It was a war to unite another piece of land in Chinese view, and this is probably as peaceful as it could have been.
No, I'm not communist. No I'm not from mainland. But I know the common Chinese view better than you. Don't use western view when trying to interpret other culture's history. It simply doesn't work because people don't think the same way as you.