Here's someone who used plastic liner to collect methane released by 21 million gallons of decomposing cow manure http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704266504575142224096848264.html
I'm not sure whether this worked! Cheers! Sam Carana On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 8:39 PM, John Nissen <[email protected]> wrote: > > Dear Peter, > > Thanks for your reply. Stephen has suggested a means of capturing methane, > which would catch the oil as well, using a large area of plastic membrane > held down at its edges by weighted tyres (or something just heavier than > water). It wouldn't solve the general problem of natural blow-out, e.g. in > ESAS, which concerns Shakhova et al. (2008) [1], because you would not know > in advance where the blow-out might take place; but it could solve the > problem when there is drilling on a particular site - so the blow-out is > restricted to a limited, known area (less than say 1 km-2). The membrane > would be submerged and held over the danger area (anchored by the weights) > when the sea ice has retreated. In a blow-out, the gas would push the > membrane up to the surface - under the ice if there is ice - with the > weights still holding down the edges. So you'd get something looking like > an underwater hot-air balloon! You could then capture or destroy the oil > and gas when the ice has retreated. Is this the kind of thing that the > industry is thinking about? > > Cheers, > > John > > --- > > On 21/06/2011 09:07, P. Wadhams wrote: >> >> Dear John, Generally the assumption is that if there is an under-ice >> blowout, oil and gas will come out together, with the oil droplets coating >> the gas bubbles and being carried up by them. So the result is a bubble >> plume carrying oil up to the surface. Industry and government people >> concerned with coping with this emphasise the importance of the oil as a >> pollutant, and treat the gas as either something that can be allowed to >> escape from the surface, or something that can be ignited. There is no >> specific programme to deal with a gas leak as such, Best wishes Peter >> >> On Jun 21 2011, John Nissen wrote: >> >>> >>> Dear Peter, >>> >>> This [1] could be relevant to your workshop on oil under sea ice, late >>> September in Italy. >>> >>> Does anybody know how they'd deal with major gas (methane) leak when >>> drilling in the Arctic? This would be relevant to our "methane busting" >>> workshop, London, 3-4 September, where we will brainstorm on methods to >>> prevent potentially huge quantities of Arctic methane reaching the >>> atmosphere. Who is an expert on gas leaks, that we could invite? >>> >>> Cheers, >>> >>> John >>> >>> --- >>> >>> [1] http://planetark.org/wen/62377 >>> >>> A major offshore Arctic oil spill could severely challenge the Coast >>> Guard, with no available infrastructure to base rescue and clean-up >>> operations, the Coast Guard commandant said on Monday. >>> >>> "There is nothing up there to operate from at present and we're really >>> starting from ground zero," said Adm. Robert Papp Jr. "Now's the time to be >>> not just talking about it, but acting about it." >>> >>> Several major oil companies, notably Royal Dutch Shell, have acquired >>> leases to drill in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off Alaska. Arctic waters >>> are likely to be accessible to humans for longer periods as the planet heats >>> up. >>> >>> In May, the extent of Arctic ice was the third-smallest since satellites >>> began collecting data in 1979, according to the U.S. National Snow and Ice >>> Data Center. >>> >>> Noting that the Coast Guard sent 3,000 people to work on the 2010 BP oil >>> spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Papp told reporters at a government symposium >>> on shrinking Arctic ice: "No way we could deploy several thousand people as >>> we did in the Deepwater Horizon spill." >>> >>> The Coast Guard has no helicopters based on Alaska's North Slope, and no >>> U.S. agency has a helicopter there equipped to perform rescues at sea, he >>> said. There are no facilities that could serve as temporary hangars for >>> equipment, or any small boat facilities. >>> >>> Housing for any emergency workers amounts to a few dozen hotel rooms, he >>> said. >>> >>> LIQUID FUEL TURNS TO GEL >>> >>> Even as the Arctic warms -- and it is warming faster than lower latitudes >>> -- temperatures are still extremely cold, which means equipment built for >>> operations in temperate zones need to be tested for fitness in the far >>> north. >>> >>> For example, the Coast Guard flew a basic military cargo plane, the >>> C-130, in the Arctic and found that the craft's liquid fuel turned into a >>> gel when temperatures dipped below a certain level unless heaters were >>> applied to it, Papp said. >>> >>> Only one U.S. icebreaker ship will be under way this year, he said. >>> Another is being decommissioned and a third ship is being updated. Papp said >>> China is building what will be the most powerful conventional icebreaker in >>> the world. >>> >>> He praised the signing last month of the Arctic Search and Rescue >>> Agreement, where eight Arctic nations -- Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, >>> Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States -- agreed to cooperate on >>> rescues above the Arctic Circle. >>> >>> The United States also needs to ratify the Law of the Sea treaty, Papp >>> said. He said other Arctic nations are using this pact to stake claims to >>> swaths of the extended continental shelf in the Arctic, and that U.S. >>> ratification would enable the United States to extend its sovereignty there >>> as well. >>> >>> >>> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "geoengineering" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
