, 2011 6:43 PM
To: andrew.lock...@gmail.com
Cc: Mike MacCracken; Geoengineering
Subject: Re: [geo] Re: Speaking of methane...
Tracer use would be the only way to assure we get what we pay for. The
only practical way to find a CO2 leak in an oil field would be to see
the sand kicking up around
Hi Folks,
After reading Greg's post, I have spent some time looking into the
methane release being caused by Fracking. Here is a link to a resent film
on the subject. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZe1AeH0Qz8 If you are
interested in the methane issue in general, I encourage you to take the
Michael raises the crucial issue: *Should the oil and gas industry be relied
upon at the geological time scale needed for massive CO2 sequestration?
*There are measurements Sherry Rowland told me about ~5 years ago, made by
his group at UCI, of the methane content of air across Texas Oklahoma.
I quite like fracking because it gets the oil industry to fund lots of
extremely expensive geoengineering research for us, and the only harm is a
load of methane and the odd earthquake.
Seems like a fair trade off to me!
Obviously, it's a completely unacceptable technique for oil extraction in
I think it is also important to remember the difference. Every reasonable
effort will be made to capture any methane they can as it can be sold as
energy. The same is not true of CO2, and with the higher background, leaks
may well be harder to detect unless some tracer is added to the sequestered
Wide spread use of fracking only dates back to the Bush/Cheney Energy Bill
of 2005 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Policy_Act_of_2005
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Policy_Act_of_2005Current
methane measurements would be interesting to compare to the data Gregory
mentions!
I am clueless
It would be nice if that were the case, but even in heavily populated
regions such as the Niger delta, where energy infrastructure is extensive
and sea ports are accessible, gas flaring is still common.
Much methane released is in low concentrations, and can't be recovered, even
if the will is
Tracer use would be the only way to assure we get what we pay for. The only
practical way to find a CO2 leak in an oil field would be to see the sand
kicking up around the leak. Well head monitoring will not be a reliable
means as CO2 can be absorbed into some rock formations. So, any leak related
A: Can fracking technology be used to dissociate clathrates?
See this example:
http://www.ngvglobal.com/innovative-hydrate-production-technologies-to-be-tested-in-alaska-0524
Personally, I don't see much commercial scope for this.
Renewables are in many cases already price-competitive.
