Over on [EMAIL PROTECTED] I'm arguing with various people who believe in things like fuel cells, or unlocking the allegedly vast potential of methane hydrates, to provide enough natural gas to meet future demand. My argument is that fuel cells are a chimera and that there is no natural gas utopia waiting at the end of the Big-Oil rainbow; on the contrary, the natural gas shortages already being felt in the US and Europe are just a taste of things to come. It isn't only oil that's in short supply. On growing natural gas shortages, methane hydrates and global warming, check out this link which has more on the implausibility of supposing that there will be enough natural gas to go around. http://www.qv3.com/policypete/policypete.htm Methane hydrates are basically lumps of ice on the ocean floor containing trapped natural gas (methane). Mehtan is one of the most powerful greenhouse gases, 20x worse than carbon dioxide at inducing global warming. The prospect of uncontrolled release of methane resulting from the collapse of the ice caps and/or from foolhardy attempts to exploit this resource, is the stuff of global warming nightmares: runaway warming is the terrible fear which Big Oil is now learning to tranquillise in us. This from This a Congressional Research Service Issue Brief by THE NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR SCIENCE AND THE ENVIRONMENT: "Throughout the world, oil and gas drilling is moving into regions where safety problems related to gas hydrates may be anticipated. Oil and gas operators have recorded numerous drilling and production problems attributed to the presence of gas hydrates, including uncontrolled gas releases during drilling, collapse of well casings, and gas leakage to the surface. In the marine environment, gas leakage to the surface around the outside of the well casing may result in local sea floor subsidence and the loss of support for foundations of drilling platforms. These problems are generally caused by the dissociation of gas hydrate due to heating by either warm drilling fluids or from the production of hot hydrocarbons from depth during conventional oil and gas production. Subsea pipelines may also be affected by loss of sea floor support from hydrates destabilized by warming. " for more on how "Destabilization of the hydrates with uncontrolled release of large volumes of methane is a significant hazard", see On Methane Hydrates: Energy Prospect or Natural Hazard? http://cnie.org/nle/eng-46.html Actually, it's all simple enough: the oil is gone (almost), there ain't enough natural gas from conventional sources, so we're gonne go for the hydrates, and who cares if we get the runaway warming which massive methane releases from trapped hydrates, may cause? We need to keep our 18mpg SUV's going don't we? We need our fuel cells, don't we? Mark Jones _______________________________________________ Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
