Hi John and everybody, The idea of mining looks very dangerous to me, e.g. German project SUGAR (see separate thread started by Andrew). Lots of methane is bound to leak from the seabed. Stephen Salter has ideas for physically capturing this methane on the seabed, piping it up to the surface and then flaring it on the surface. But I'd like to explore other ideas, especially biological in nature.
I've been wondering what to do with methane from seabed vents which reaches the surface of the water. The standard approach is to flare it, but this is not possible unless the methane bubbles have been directed into a pipe or similar device. Now Johnnie Buttram suggests capturing and neutralising the methane in a floating mat of perhaps seaweed-like bio-material. The bio approach has the advantage that the mat can grow from utilising the methane as a food source for its own algae (or whatever), and perhaps produce something humans could eat, without necessarily putting CO2 into the atmosphere. Furthermore one could imagine the mat surviving under the sea ice in winter without damage or loss of potency. The mat would probably need nutrients and a source of either oxygen or sulphur. Oxygen could be supplied by diatoms, for example. Has anybody else thought about such an approach? (The workshop [1] starts on Saturday, and I want as much brainstorming as possible beforehand so don't leave any gemstones unturned!) Bhaskar has written to me already about using diatoms in such a mat: [quote] Diatoms, Algae and Seaweed are similar, all use photosynthesis - consume carbon and release oxygen. So blooms of Diatoms are better than mats of sea weed, since fish consume the Diatoms and dead diatoms not consumed fall to ocean bottom. Less amount of sea weed is consumed by fish and dead sea weed floats and does not sink. Therefore it would have to be harvested, this adds to cost. Since fisheries are declining and infrastructure for fishing is already in place, promoting fisheries is a simpler solution. regards Bhaskar [end quote] I would welcome comments on this suggestion. Thanks, John [1] The new yahoo group, arctic-methane, has a URL after all: http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/arctic-methane For details of the workshop this weekend, see the Welcome message. --- On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 8:51 AM, John Gorman <[email protected]> wrote: > Surely the methane will be collected and used if it is captured. There was > a large article in teh New Scientist a couple of years ago on the "mining" > of methane hydrates. > > john gorman > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Nissen" <[email protected]> > To: "Geoengineering" > <Geoengineering@googlegroups.**com<[email protected]> > > > Cc: "Stephen Salter" <[email protected]>; "Albert Kallio" < > [email protected]> > Sent: Sunday, October 09, 2011 11:50 PM > Subject: [geo] Arctic methane workshop: dissolving, digesting or destroying > methane > > > > Dear all, >> >> Having captured methane underwater, e.g. using a Stephen Salter Sheet, is >> there any way to dissolve, digest or destroy it in large quantities, >> preferably below the sea surface, since this may have huge floating rafts of >> ice being blown about by storms? I'm assuming it would be infeasible to >> liquify it. >> >> For example for "sweetening" natural gas, a solvent is used: >> http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/**10.1021/je050172h<http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/je050172h> >> >> Cheers, >> >> John >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "geoengineering" group. >> To post to this group, send email to >> geoengineering@googlegroups.**com<[email protected]> >> . >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineering+unsubscribe@ >> **googlegroups.com <geoengineering%[email protected]>. >> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/** >> group/geoengineering?hl=en<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.
