John
Thank you for your flattering if inaccurate opinion.
Before you can assess the feasibility of any sealing idea you need to
know what the source pressure will do as the flow rate is reduced and
the shear strength of the walls of the passage you are trying to block.
I have a nasty feeling that some geological source pressures will be
high and the shear strength of some passages rather low. Can anyone
give me a range of numbers?
I hope that people proposing the use of large amounts of liquid nitrogen
for geo-engineering applications will calculate the amount of heat
released in the plant that produces it and by the vehicles that deliver it.
Stephen
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design
Institute for Energy Systems
School of Engineering
Mayfield Road
University of Edinburgh EH9 3JL
Scotland
Tel +44 131 650 5704
Mobile 07795 203 195
www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs
On 12/05/2011 09:00, John Nissen wrote:
Dear Peter,
Re location of vents of methane from the shallow sea known as the East
Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS), the forwarded message below is from
Michael Hayes on the geoengineering list.
I'm just keeping you in the loop! There are lots of emails flying
around about the methane!
I'm also copying this to Stephen Salter, in case he's interested in
contributing to the debate. I am continually surprised by his breadth
of interest and knowledge. I will certainly want you both on the
brainstorming team for the "methane busting" project, if we manage to
get it funded. We are going to need a lot of original thinking to
crack the problem.
Cheers,
John
---
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: 1. Using Lair to plug methane vents, 2. Using LN2 to
fight tundra wildfires, 3. Capturing methane during Lair/LN2 liquefaction
Date: Mon, 9 May 2011 11:54:02 -0700
From: Michael Hayes <[email protected]>
To: Kevin Layton <[email protected]>
CC: <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>,
<[email protected]>, <[email protected]>,
<[email protected]>, <[email protected]>,
<[email protected]>
Here is the Shakhova/ Semiletov study.
http://earth.usc.edu/ftp/lund/BERING%20SEA%20EXP%20323/Uservol/Articles%20of%20interest/Eurasian%20Basin/Shakova%20and%20Semiletov%202007.pdf
If you take a look at Fig. 4, you will see the most likely location of
vents. The 3 principle towns in the region all have small airstrips
and Lagashkino has direct access to potential river
flow hydro-electrical production for use in air compression. It is
also midway between the 2 principle hot spots. Using Lair as a means
to cool the principle rivers discharge flow may be a more effective
use of the limited cryogenics. Also, please keep in mind that this
entire area has only a few months of practical construction working time.
The upwind/current position of a line between Teksi and the New
Siberian Islands would be convenient for cloud/water brighting and
possible tropospheric direct injection particulate SRM.
Capping any vent, regardless of method, will require a means to
release the build up of pressure. Finding a means for removal or
refreezing the collected gas needs addressing. Burning should be the
last option due to NOx production within the polar cell. Using
cryogenics for fire fighting posses the same issue of NOx production.
Aerial fire fighting requires an extensive amount of fuel and thus
fuel storage and CO2 production. And, it would only have a practical
range of maybe 100 km radius from the few air fields in the area.
On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 10:11 AM, Kevin Layton <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Mark --
I like your ideas here. They fit with what Andrew calls
"leveraging the capabilities of Lair". You bring up an
interesting question as well -- could some Methane vents be tapped
in such a manner that essentially they become a source of LNG?
This is one of those "2 birds with 1 stone" opportunities, since
the captured methane could be used for local power production.
Also, the aerially deployed LN2 for fire-fighting may be one of
the few effective ways to combat wild fires in remote regions,
which would be a great way to demonstrate the effectiveness of
this technique.
-Kevin
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
CC: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>;
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>;
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>;
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>;
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>;
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>;
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: 1. Using Lair to plug methane vents, 2. Using LN2 to
fight tundra wildfires, 3. Capturing methane during Lair/LN2
liquefaction
Date: Mon, 9 May 2011 09:02:34 -0700
Ref- Andrew's post earlier today:
"Using liquid air to seal methane vents may well work. Using it
for general
cooling of the sea or land surface will not."
*I had posted the following to the google group, but it didn't
seem to take, so here it is via email:*
John and All-
Andrew makes a great point. If methane release tends to be limited
to vents or so-called "hotspots", and the number of vents is a
reasonable amount, the use of Lair or LN2 to freeze and seal these
vents becomes MUCH more feasible than trying to cool/refreeze
large permafrost regions.
Are we able to determine the number of these vents using
satellites, aircraft etc? If so is this information currently
available? This would be the primary consideration for
feasibility- if it's something like 10,000 or more vents, at some
number it just becomes unreasonable. However, on the order of
1,000-3,000 vents would seem feasible and on the order of hundreds
would be very feasible.
Another consideration would be liquefaction capacity- whether
existing liquefaction plants are close enough to support this
activity, or if it would make more sense to build new plants
(maybe 2-4) near existing high-latitude airports (these plants are
quick/easy to build). Ideally it would be great to power them
using captured methane (!) or by harnessing the strong/steady
winds of the tundra.
Secondly, as warming and drying continues in permafrost regions,
this will create imminent danger of tundra wildfires, which can
cause enormous CO2 and methane release. Already in July 2009
intense fires burned large permafrost regions in Russia, Canada
and Alaska (see
http://climatechangehealth.com/arctic/smoke-from-tundra-fires-in-russia-and-alaska
).
However, I believe future wildfires could be more-effectively
controlled using liquid nitrogen (LN2), by releasing a wide stream
of LN2 on or just upwind of the fire lines via aircraft. The LN2
would then expand over 800 times into a cold/heavy gaseous
nitrogen, and be pushed by the wind to form a "GN2 blanket"
covering long portions of the fire line. By diluting oxygen levels
from 21% to below 15%, combustion should be eliminated and the
cooling provided would help prevent re-ignition.
This method could provide greatly-improved capability for
extinguishing large wildfires compared to current firefighting
methods using water and/or fire retardants. If this method was
shown to work in the tundra, it could create confidence for using
it at lower latitudes, where wildfires are already becoming more
intense from severe droughts and record high temperatures.
Thirdly, the liquefaction process for creating Lair or LN2 might
also capture a significant amount of methane in the process. Since
liquid methane boils at a warmer temperature than Lair or LN2,
cooling methane-rich air would form liquid methane first, allowing
it to be distilled from the cold air and stored in
highly-insulated dewars. Note: methane boils at -161 °C (-258 °F),
while air and LN2 boil at -196 °C (-320 °F).
To summarize, by creating the capability for delivering Lair/LN2
at high latitudes, this might provide a three-fold benefit of
mitigating methane release, controlling large wildfires, and
distilling liquid methane out of ambient air.
John please help with the number of methane vents.
I would appreciate any and all comments!!
Thank you-
Mark
--
/Michael Hayes/
/360-708-4976/
http://www.wix.com/voglerlake/vogler-lake-web-site
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
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