Japan plans first-ever seafloor drilling of ‘fire ice’

By Melissa Mahony | July 28, 2011, 4:00 AM PDT

In the ongoing wake of the Fukushimi disaster, Japan has been eyeing a non-nuclear future. It would be a tall order. Nuclear power previously met one-third of the country’s energy consumption. Renewable resources like mandatory solar panels and wind farms are popular alternatives, but don’t currently comprise much of Japan’s power generation. Now rising from the Pacific is a less well known, and potentially dangerous, option: combustible ice.

That’s right, ice that burns.

A seabed off Honshū’s eastern coast is apparently full of “fire ice”, and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry wants to go get it. Or at least try. There’s little wonder why: One cubic meter of combustible ice is roughly equivalent to 164 cubic meters of natural gas. According to media reports, they plan to request $127.5 million for an experimental project that would become the first offshore drilling operation of its kind.

Combustible ice, or natural gas hydrate, contains methane within its frozen lattice structure. When melted or depressurized, the ice turns to water and natural gas. This ice might be plentiful—past Department of Energy (DOE) estimates place the worldwide deposits as high as 400 million trillion cubic feet—but its methane is not easily retrieved from beneath the permafrost or seabeds where it typically rests.

Last year I discussed China’s desires to tap deposits of methane hydrate on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, in amounts equivalent to 35 billion ton of oil. On Alaska’s North Slope this winter, the DOE plans to test an extraction method that injects carbon dioxide into hydrate deposits to displace the methane. A possible twofer, the idea is to bury the carbon dioxide while producing natural gas. Methane did flow successfully from a well in northwestern Canada for a little while in 2008, during a joint Canadian and Japanese research project. In this case, the team depressurized the hydrates to release the methane.

The catch, of course, lies in doing all of this effectively and safely (without disrupting geological stability or leaking lots of methane, a potent greenhouse gas). And remember, past efforts were all on land, not at ocean depths that could exceed 1,500 feet. From the Pacific’s bottom, Japan hopes to commercially drill methane hydrate by the early 2020s.

Related on SmartPlanet:

• Energy on the rocks: is combustible gas in our future?
• Could solar panels become mandatory in Japan?
• Mining the deep: China seeks minerals in international seas

Images: DOE

Good link for comments on Gasland ... many of them Canadian

http://forums.beyond.ca/st/323785/the-dangers-of-hydraulic-fracturing-for-natural-gas-gasland-/

EPA hydrofracking - Weston Wilson whisleblower

Two from Richard Embleton on methane hydrates

  From the awesome http://oilbeseeingyou.blogspot.com

Methane Hydrate Risk in our Pursuit of Energy

Everyone knows business men are trustworthy. Hell, survey after survey shows that they are more trusted than the family doctor or your local banker or pharmacist or those bleeding-heart scientists writing global warming reports for the IPCC or, God forbid, that wacko environmentalist living down the street who keeps showing up at all those Greenpeace demonstrations. So, of course we can count on business men, these pillars of society, to protect the environment and do the right thing and make decisions in the best interest of "the little people", as Tony Hayward, CEO of BP, so eloquently put it.

And we can trust corporations, like BP, Exxon, Halliburton, Enron and Lehman Brothers, to monitor and police their own operations. If they find something wrong they will make sure it gets fixed, and quickly. So there is no need for us or our governments to hold them accountable. They will hold themselves accountable. After all, isn't BP voluntarily setting aside $20-billion to cover costs and claims resulting from the Gulf oil spill? And don't they have thousands of people on the beaches and on shrimp boats cleaning up the oil spill? Oh wait, they were strong-armed into all of that by President Obama. Well they would have done it anyway, right?

The reality is, in my opinion, that the inordinate faith and trust afforded business and industry leaders and executives is both misplaced and highly irrational in face of the evidence of the collateral damage of their profit-centred decisions and actions over the last several decades. The reality is that, despite the fact that in the beginning people were prone to exclaim, "what a terrible accident", this was no accident. Far from it. The disaster that befell The Deepwater Horizon was the result of very high-risk human decisions in the face of overwhelming evidence that should have caused them to turn back. But don't take my word for it.

The following is from an article in sciencemag.org entitled Gulf Spill: Did Pesky Hydrates Trigger the Blowout?

"Drillers have long been wary of methane hydrates because they can pack a powerful punch. One liter of water ice that has trapped individual methane molecules in the "cages" of its crystal structure can release 168 liters of methane gas when the ice decomposes. 

Bea [professor Robert Bea, of University of California, Berkeley], who has 55 years of experience assessing risks in and around offshore operations, says 

"there was concern at this location for gas hydrates. We're out to the [water depth] where it ought to be there." The deeper the water, the greater the pressure, which when high enough can keep hydrates stable well below the sea floor. .... And there were signs that drillers did encounter hydrates. About a month before the blowout, a "kick" of gas pressure hit the well hard enough that the platform was shut down. "Something under high pressure was being encountered," 

says Bea—apparently both hydrates and gas on different occasions."[3]

This is from a piece on the History channel titled, Methane Hydrate Explosion – Wars for Oil – BP Oil Spill Doomsday Scenario from History Channel. 

"The Horizon rig’s mechanic stated the well had problems for months, the drill repeatedly kicked due to methane gas pressure, the levels of gas were twice as high as he’d ever seen in his career. According to interviews with platform workers conducted during BP’s internal investigation, a bubble of methane gas escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly as it burst through several seals and barriers before exploding. .......the upper mile of seafloor is cemented by methane hydrate which is much like permafrost and is stratified in layers. It melts and changes phases instantly back into gas at about 60F or 17C degrees. We have every reason to believe the hot pressurized oil and gas is eroding layers of formations from large leaks 1000 feet below the well head, probably more leaks below. There seems to be no way to stop this well and the processes will likely continue like opening cracks in a dam. At some point the well head pipe will blow off leaving an open hole … the substrate rock is fractured below the previously impermeable hydrate layers above."[4]

This warning is from an article title BP Oil Spill & Methane Hydrate on a site, wakeupfromyourslumber.com.

"Because drilling can bring warm fluids up from depth, potentially melting the shallower gas hydrate, many researchers and engineers anticipate that drilling through gas hydrate may pose a hazard to the stability of the well, the platform anchors, the tethers, or even entire platforms."[5]

A further warning on Discovery is contained in this piece titled, Volatile Methane Ice Could Spark More Drilling Disasters. 

"The decision by BP and many other energy companies to drill through areas of unusual ice-like crystals -- called methane hydrates -- is a risky one fraught with huge consequences for failure. .... "

"Methane hydrates are a geological hazard, and it's been well established for decades that they are dangerous," 

said Richard Charter, head of the Defenders of Wildlife marine program and member of the Department of Energy's methane hydrates advisory panel. 

"Until 10 or 15 years ago, the industry would avoid them no matter what. .... Now, 

Charter said, 

the rush to produce more oil for domestic consumption has forced companies like BP to take bigger risks by drilling in deep waters that are a breeding ground of hydrates. And they worry that a new drilling push into the Arctic Ocean -- which President Barack Obama has authorized to begin next month -- could expose a fragile and remote environment to additional risks from catastrophic oil spills." [7]

This sort of thing is not new. I was with Union Carbide at the time of the Bhopal disaster from a chemical gas leak at one of their plants in Bhopal India that killed several thousand people living near the plant. You could virtually hear the collective exhaled sigh of relief from the rest of the petrochemical industry at the time. The disaster at Bhopal was an accident waiting to happen, just as was the BP Gulf oil spill. The practices employed in the petrochemical industry, though within industry and legislative guidelines, were inevitably going to result in an event like Bhopal. The collective sigh of relief within the industry after Bhopal was the relief that it had happened to some other company first.

And therein lies the basis of my one tiny bit of sympathy for BP. Even though an entire industry my utilize practices that are inevitably going to lead to a disaster somewhere down the road (and huge, and very expensive political lobbies generally exist to make sure their hands aren't tied by needless safety standards), the blame for that disaster, when it happens, falls squarely on the sole shoulders of the one company that unfortunately is first to fall on its face. They bear all of the blame and finger pointing, even (or especially?) from others within their own industry employing the same risky practices, simply because they were the first to fall into the trap. The others within the industry are often prevented from later falling into the same trap by changes in the legislative and monitoring environment, changes that should have existed before.

Following Bhopal, Union Carbide eventually was broken into its component parts and sold off, along with company assets, in order for some shell of the former industrial giant to survive. And BP, the disaster already costing them untold billions, will undoubtedly go through the same process as it spirals downward. It may, like Union Carbide, ultimately survive, or it may not.

As another example, similar industry-wide risks are being taken throughout the US by the shale-gas industry. They use a process called hydraulic fracturing to release natural gas from shale rock. A massive surge in drilling - with hundreds of thousands of new gas wells across the country - was begun under the Bush administration. That industry, with the help and blessing of Vice President Cheney's NEPDG (National Energy Policy Development Group) was summarily exempted from the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and dozens of other similar pieces of needlessly restrictive environmental legislation passed over the previous decades intended to protect the environment. The very predictable result is that underground water supplies and aquifers in most areas where this type of drilling is done have been contaminated with both natural gas and the toxic chemicals used in the drilling and extraction processes. People previously utilizing those underground water sources can now literally burn the water coming out of their taps because it is so highly contaminated with natural gas. They may not have drinkable water but at least they're getting their gas for free.

As those who have followed my blog know - and I apologize for the drop-off in articles over this past winter and spring because of personal health issues - I have been writing about methane hydrates for over four years now. And I strongly believe the BP Gulf disaster is far from over. I believe the whole reserve of Methane Hydrates through which the BP rig drilled has been destabilized and will continue to release its methane into the Gulf - readings near the well head already indicate methane levels up to a million times higher than normal - for many years to come. I further believe that if the well is successfully capped the hydrates will continue to release their methane and eventually result in a massive and explosive methane release the likes of which has not been seen in recorded history. In addition, recent readings indicate that the free oil in the Gulf is declining due to a virtual explosion of the bacteria that consume the oil. But that is a double edged sword because this bacterial bloom is rapidly building a dead zone in the Gulf with insufficient oxygen to support the marine life that normally inhabits these warm tropical waters.

But as bad as the Deepwater Horizon explosion and sinking may have been and as environmentally disastrous as the resulting Gulf oil spill is, this is still not the really serious environmental disaster I foresee if we continue toward full exploitation of Methane Hydrates as an energy source. And that is a serious interest and intent of the governments of several nations, among them; Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Taiwan, India, China, Canada, and the U.S. And the list grows every day.

The problem is - and this is a subject that is constantly debated - that methane hydrates are inherently unstable. It is a structure (methane gas trapped in a cage of water ice) composed of two opposing forces; the attempt by the ice cage to retain its crystalline structure and the attempt by the methane concentrated within that structure to re-expand (168 times) back into a free gas. And the only one of those two opposing forces that is stable and constant is that of the gas trying to free itself from the structure. The ice that contains it is subject to change with any change in the pressure around it or the temperature, or both.

If deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico or, more seriously, in the fragile Arctic Ocean, continues to push into Methane Hydrate zones, the risk of massive hydrate destabilization grows with each well. Once a deposit of Methane Hydrates is destabilized, if changes in temperature or pressure are sufficient to support it, the whole deposit can release its methane. That release could be gradual but there is just as strong a probability that it could be explosive and massive. Remember, methane is concentrated at 168 times the density of the gas in hydrate form, meaning it will expand 168 times when it reverts back into a gas. This can cause an explosive uplift in the seafloor overlaying the hydrate formation. It could result in a collapse of that area of seafloor. In either case, if rapid and explosive enough, the release could trigger a tsunami. The resulting environmental damage of such an event in the Arctic, or the serious potential of risk for residents living along the gulf shore on the Gulf of Mexico should such an event happen there, should cause both governments and energy companies to take serious pause following the current Gulf oil spill. A simple question needs to dominate all such discussions and considerations. Is our thoughtless energy greed worth the rapidly escalating risks that our pursuit of that energy is causing us to take?

Will that question even be considered?

-------------------------------------------------
1) Global Oil Supply Now Contracting?
http://peakoil.com/production/global-oil-supply-now-contracting/
2) BP’s oil spill fight plagued by methane hydrates, a hazard of deep water
http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2010/05/10/bps-oil-spill-fight-plagued-by-methane-hydrates-a-hazard-of-deep-water/
3) Gulf Spill: Did Pesky Hydrates Trigger the Blowout?
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/05/gulf-spill-did-pesky-hydrates-tr.html
4) Methane Hydrate Explosion – Wars for Oil – BP Oil Spill Doomsday Scenario from History Channel
http://www.oilspillupdates.com/oil-spill-videos/methane-hydrate-explosion-wars-for-oil-bp-oil-spill-doomsday-scenario-from-history-channel/
5) BP Oil Spill & Methane Hydrate
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/video/sullivan/bp-oil-spill-methane-hydrate
6) BP Oil Spill – Methane Hydrate Never Mentioned – For What it’s Worth Buffalo Springfield
http://usgulfoilspill.com/gulf-oil-spill-videos/bp-oil-spill-methane-hydrate-never-mentioned-for-what-its-worth-buffalo-springfield/
7) Volatile Methane Ice Could Spark More Drilling Disasters
http://news.discovery.com/earth/oil-spill-methane-hydrates.html
Energy companies used to avoid methane hydrates no matter what. Now the industry may be drilling right into danger.
8) Ocean Warming Melts Methane Hydrates Which Screws Us All
http://deepseanews.com/2010/07/ocean-warming-melts-methane-hydrates-which-screws-us-all/

Friday, April 02, 2010

A Balanced (hopefully) look at Methane Hydrates

When it comes to the issue of exploiting permafrost/undersea Methane Hydrates I definitely have a strong bias. I am against it. Nonetheless there are strong and, from some perspectives, valid opinions to the contrary. In this article I will attempt to present a balance of both sides of the argument, while taking certain editorial license consistent with my bias.


If you study the methane hydrate literature, as I have for the past several years - the newspaper and magazine articles, the web sites and blogs, the scientific papers - the one thing that is clear is that there are a lot of different and conflicting opinions in play. That is understandable. It is only in these past thirty years that the role of methane as an important carbon sink and a serious greenhouse gas, and the potential of methane hydrates as a fossil-fuel-replacing energy source have come to the forefront. Significant study of methane hydrates is really only in its infancy, and it is being driven, sponsored and financed by two different, opposing objectives. In fairness, however, I must point out that at this stage there are nearly as many concerns expressed and warnings issued from the energy industry as there are from the scientific community. The difference is that one side downplays the concerns and warnings and the other side pushes them to the forefront.

It is, nonetheless, those two different aspects of methane hydrates - as a source of the serious greenhouse gas more than 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide and as a potential energy source - that are at the heart of the divergence of opinion. Those, like myself, focused on methane as a greenhouse gas see the potentially serious environmental risks and dangers involved in attempting to exploit methane hydrates, especially in view of our energy exploitation track record. Those focused on methane hydrates as a major potential energy source tend to downplay the risks and dangers in the name of "need", progress and national energy security.

But haven't we been here before? The orchestrated debate over cigarettes and tobacco? The debate constantly swirling around the burning of fossil fuels? The debate over biofuels contributing to escalating global hunger? The furious global warming debate? Even the rancorous terminology hurled from either side of the debate is the same.

I have listed nearly thirty online sources at the end of this article that show, as clearly and in as balanced a manner as I can manage, the clear divergence of literature fostered by the two different camps. If you are uncertain how you feel about the exploitation of methane hydrates, or if you are looking to build your knowledge about them I urge you to visit as many of these sites as possible. Alternatively, google searches will give you literally hundreds of thousands of references and sites to investigate. If you are looking for an overview, with a bias toward a concern for the risks and dangers, I invite you to read the several other articles I have written in my blog on the subject.

Unintended consequences

Various sites listed deal with unintended consequences. We can destabilize a reserve of methane hydrates accidentally when we aren't even attempting to exploit it. Methane Hydrate: A surprising compound, has this, ".....ocean-based oil-drilling operations sometimes encounter methane hydrate deposits. As a drill spins through the hydrate, the process can cause it to dissociate. The freed gas may explode, causing the drilling crew to lose control of the well. Another concern is that unstable hydrate layers could give way beneath oil platforms or, on a larger scale, even cause tsunamis."[2] Gas Hydrates: Natural gas hydrate studies in Canada, adds, "Shallow gas in the Mackenzie Delta, that may be attributable to hydrate, resulted in the loss of life of two drillers during early exploration." and includes this warning, "Present atmospheric methane is increasing at such a rate that if it continues, methane will be the dominant greenhouse gas in the second half of the century."[4] And methane, I remind you, is 20 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

What unintended consequences might occur when we are intentionally interfering with methane hydrate reserves, with whatever extraction technology we might use? Methane hydrates: Energy's most dangerous game, addresses this issue directly. "The paradox is that while gas can be extracted from methane hydrates, doing so poses potentially catastrophic risks. ..... A substantial amount of evidence suggests that weakening the lattice-like structure of gas hydrates has triggered underwater landslides on the continental margin. In other words, the extraction process, if done improperly, could cause sudden disruptions on the ocean floor, reducing ocean pressure rates and releasing methane gas from hydrates."[6] This is addressed further in Realizing the Energy Potential of Methane Hydrate for the United States, in this statement. "The production of methane from methane hydrate also involves potential drilling and production safety issues and environmental consequences. Production safety issues are sometimes called “geohazards” because they refer to adverse geologic and environmental consequences that may result from human disturbance of the methane hydrate and surrounding sedimentary layers."[12] However a strong counter argument is presented in, Methane and Methane Hydrates, Section 2, "Nonetheless, the hydrates in the sediments of the seafloor do remain frozen: after all, they are icy lattices. In addition, they remain frozen even well above the normal melting point of ice (0°C; 32°F), and at temperatures up to about 15°C (59°F). They manage this feat because of the enormous pressure that exists at these depths."[15]

Political Pressures to use Methane as an Energy Source

The use of methane as a fuel and energy source is not some distant pipe dream. Significant quantities of methane (produced with digesters from animal manure) are already in use in some countries such as Denmark. But there appears to be serious political pressure and a genuine rush on to get at and use permafrost and undersea methane hydrates as a game-changing energy source, as outlined in Methane hydrates: Energy's most dangerous game. "Major government research initiatives have been launched in China, India, Germany, Norway, Russia, Taiwan and several other countries." the article says. "The Japanese government has estimated that producing gas from methane hydrates is commercially viable when oil prices rise above $54 a barrel. ..... To date, Japan has made the biggest bet on methane hydrates and appears to be the closest to commercial production."[6]

The underpinning of the political pressures to exploit methane hydrates can clearly be seen in this statement from Methane Hydrate - The Gas Resource of the Future. "According to EIA, total U.S. natural gas consumption is expected to increase from about 22 trillion cubic feet today to 26 trillion cubic feet in 2030- a projected jump of more than 18 percent [ed note: If natural gas to liquid is pursued as a serious alternative source of transportation fuel this estimate is far too low.]. ..... Production of domestic conventional and unconventional natural gas cannot keep pace with demand growth. The development of new, cost-effective resources such as methane hydrate can play a major role in moderating price increases and ensuring adequate future supplies of natural gas for American consumers."[11]

Optimistic Time Frames

That same site gives us a glimpse into the optimistic time frames being suggested and pursued. "We think that the future may be sooner than some of us are considering," Robert Hunter, president of ASRC Energy Services, which led the first major field study in Alaska's Prudhoe Bay with BP Alaska Exploration and the Department of Energy, told Petroleum News. "In parts of the world such as the North Slope, with unique motivation, hydrates may become a very stable source of natural gas within the next five to 10 years."[6] One wonders what he means with that phrase, "....with unique motivation....". Another view of the time frames is presented in Methane Hydrate Could Augment Natural Gas Supplies. "DOE's program and programs in the national and international research community provide increasing confidence from a technical standpoint that some commercial production of methane from methane hydrate could be achieved in the United States before 2025," said Charles Paull .... senior scientist, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California."[9]

Risks and Dangers

Another view of the risks and dangers involved, with or without human involvement and exploitation, is addressed in Gas (Methane) Hydrates -- A New Frontier, "Seafloor slopes of 5 degrees and less should be stable on the Atlantic continental margin, yet many landslide scars are present. The depth of the top of these scars is near the top of the hydrate zone, and seismic profiles indicate less hydrate in the sediment beneath slide scars. Evidence available suggests a link between hydrate instability and occurrence of landslides on the continental margin."[7]

A variety of extraction techniques are being looked at to overcome the inherent difficulties in exploiting methane hydrates, as detailed in A Breakthrough in Fuel Supplying From Methane Hydrates. "Getting methane hydrate gas to flow consistently and predictably, however, has been the problem. Using heat to release the gas works, but requires too much energy to be useful. Researchers have also been trying to release the methane by reducing the pressure on it. Then last month, the Mallik team became the first to use reduced pressure to get a steady, consistent flow."[13] Both of these techniques, however, and others, run the risk that once they successfully destabilize and disassociate the methane hydrates in any part of the reserve it could lead to a catastrophic runaway destabilization of the entire reserve, a warning repeated often through the literature listed at the end of this article. In the paper, Could Methane Trigger a Climate Doomsday Within a Human Lifespan? the concern over this potential is rooted in the geological past. "The new paper suggests that exactly this type of cascading release of methane reserves rapidly warmed the Earth 635 million years ago, replacing an Ice Age with a period of tropical heat. The study’s lead author suggests it could happen again, and fast - not over thousands or millions of years, but possibly within a century. ..... "This is a major concern because it’s possible that only a little warming can unleash this trapped methane," Martin Kennedy, a professor at UC Riverside, said in a release. "Unzippering the methane reservoir could potentially warm the Earth tens of degrees, and the mechanism could be geologically very rapid."."[23] The paper goes on to state that these concerns have caused a new focus in the scientific community. "Jim Kennett, a professor of geology and paleobiology at UC Santa Barbara, said that finding climate triggers and tipping points had become the most important scientific problem of our time."[23] These views, however, are not universal in the scientific community. "David Archer, a University of Chicago geosciences professor, argued in a paper last year that methane release appears likely to be "chronic rather than catastrophic" and only on the scale of human fossil-fuel combustion."[23] The concerns, however, are reiterated in Runaway Methane Global Warming. "From these records it appears that there have been short periods of only a few hundred years in the geological past when rapid increases of the Earth's temperature have occurred superimposed on top of the rise and fall of average temperatures over the longer term. For these short periods temperature rises of up to 8 degrees centigrade appear to have occurred on top of existing long term rises of 5 to 7 degrees to give temperatures up to 15 degrees centigrade warmer than today. Temperatures then fell back to the long term trend, the whole rise and fall only lasting a few hundred years. The most likely cause of this rapid global warming over such a short period is the release of methane into the atmosphere."[25]

In Methane Hydrates: A Carbon Management Challenge, the serious questions about the risks and dangers are asked but with no pretense of supplying answers or solutions. "What are the risks of recovering methane from ocean hydrates? Could the release of methane make the sediments unstable enough to cause the collapse of seafloor foundations for conventional oil and gas drilling rigs? Could the melting, or dissociation, of methane hydrate ice lead to releases of large volumes of methane to the atmosphere, raising greenhouse gas levels and exacerbating global warming?"[20] The depth and breadth of these issues are honestly explored in the U.S. Department of Energy paper, Methane Hydrates. "However, the issues surrounding methane hydrates go well beyond its energy resource potential. As field and laboratory studies supported by the Methane Hydrates Program continue to document hydrate’s integral and active role in the global environment, important new questions are raised about the influence of hydrates on the global carbon cycle, deep sea life, sea-floor stability, and other phenomena."[21] That verbiage, however, may just serve as a preamble to this, "Therefore, the National Methane Hydrate R&D Program is driven by the need to better understand the nature of hydrates, hydrate-bearing sediments, and the interaction between the global methane hydrate reservoir and the world’s oceans and atmosphere as a compliment to the ultimate realization of hydrate’s energy potential."[21]

If our global industrial society is to be kept rolling along at anything near its current vigorous pace, there is no question that global peaks in oil, natural gas and/or coal are going to require the exploitation of new energy sources such as methane hydrates, coal-bed methane, shale gas, shale oil, and the re-embracing of nuclear energy as a primary source of electrical energy. Plans for the exploitation of methane hydrates, however, in the name of energy security and in pursuit of the dream of national energy independence are not likely to materialize as governments and politicians hope and intend, It is very likely that methane will be drawn under the umbrella of natural gas and subject to global market trading and pricing. It is even more likely that the reserves of methane hydrates will end up in the hands of energy companies who are already lining up to buy leases in areas where significant methane hydrate reserves are suspected. Additionally the research and development on technologies for the extraction of methane hydrates is being driven and financed by these same energy companies. The likelihood of them willingly giving over control of those leases and that extraction to government energy departments is very slim. They will, after all, be moving heavily into these alternatives because their current cash cows are drying up. They need them for their future financial stability and continued growth.

I am quite sure that nothing bloggers such as myself or scientists have to say will ultimately have any bearing on what governments and the energy industry will do with methane hydrates. The best we can hope is to keep them honest.


Reference material

The following links were important sources of material for this article and are here for your reference.

1) Arctic Methane on the Move?
2) Methane Hydrate: A surprising compound
3) Methane hydrates
4) Gas Hydrates: Natural gas hydrate studies in Canada
5) Methane hydrates and global warming
6) Methane hydrates: Energy's most dangerous game
7) Gas (Methane) Hydrates -- A New Frontier
8) Japan eyes methane hydrate as energy savior
9) Methane Hydrate Could Augment Natural Gas Supplies
10) Japan Mines `Flammable Ice,' Flirts With Environmental Disaster
11) Methane Hydrate - The Gas Resource of the Future
12) Realizing the Energy Potential of Methane Hydrate for the United States
13) A Breakthrough in Fuel Supplying From Methane Hydrates
14) Permafrost Melting and Stability of Offshore Methane Hydrates Subject to Global Warming
15) METHANE AND METHANE HYDRATES, SECTION 2
16) Methane Hydrate Extraction To Become Viable?
17) Gas Hydrates: Entrance to a Methane Age or Climate Threat?
18) Ocean methane hydrates as a slow tipping point in the global carbon cycle
19) More evidence of climate change: Arctic methane hydrates evaporating
20) Methane Hydrates: A Carbon Management Challenge
21) METHANE HYDRATES
22) Methane Hydrates: An Abundance of Clean Energy?
23) Could Methane Trigger a Climate Doomsday Within a Human Lifespan?
24) Methane Hydrates: What are they thinking?
25) Runaway Methane Global Warming
26) Melting of permafrost could trigger rapid global warming warns UN
27) METHANE HYDRATE ICE: A Possible Mechanism For Ice Age And Global Warming Cycles
28) Ice Sculptures for Science: Chain Saws, Pickaxes, Methane Hydrates and Climate Change
29) Global Warming: Methane Could Be Far Worse Than Carbon Dioxide

Public Citizen on hydrofracking ..

Hydraulic Fracturing; Unsafe, Unregulated

Some environmentalists, desperate to address greenhouse gas emissions from coal and oil, have wrongly identified natural gas as the primary "cleaner" alternative .While it is true that burning natural gas emits half the emissions of coal, natural gas extraction around the country creates dangerous risks to drinking and freshwater resources, and local air quality. Hydraulic fracturing, also called “fracking,” is a federally unregulated extraction process used in many natural gas drilling sites. The process can contaminate drinking water supplies with cancer-causing chemicals and significantly deplete freshwater aquifers. Natural gas extraction poses a grave threat to families, communities and ecosystems.

While for decades fracking was mainly conducted by smaller natural gas companies, the discovery of large gas reserves under shale formations in new areas of the country (such as New York and Pennsylvania) has resulted in the larger oil majors - ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco and BP - becoming the largest frackers in the country. And now the Obama Administration's State Department is promoting America's fracking technologies to export fracking overseas - putting the administration in a position of a cheerleader for the industry. Cleaner, cheaper and quicker solutions to meet our energy demands are available. Renewable energy coupled with energy efficiency should diminish our dependence on dirty and dangerous fuels.

What is Fracking?

Hydraulic fracturing is the high-pressure injection of fracking fluid – a mixture of water, sand, and toxic chemicals – into the ground to break open and “fracture” rock formations to release liquid gas. The controversial technique was developed in the 1940s by energy services company Halliburton. Modern practices such as horizontal fracturing and high-volume hydraulic fracturing allow drillers to extract greater amounts of gas than previously possible. But at what cost?

The chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing often include substances that are toxic to humans and wildlife as well as carcinogenic. While particular fracking fluid chemical combinations differ based on the company and drilling location, many include toxic substances such as benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene, xylene and naphthalene. Other chemicals used include a variety of acids, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, methanol, formaldehyde, ethylene glycol, glycol ethers, hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide. Fracking fluids may contain mixtures of hundreds of chemicals and agents. Yet, the precise chemical compositions used are secret; drilling companies refuse to disclose the composition of their fracking fluids, citing proprietary interests. The amount of these chemicals used can reach upwards of 50,000 gallons during the fracturing of a single well.

The infiltration potential of these fracking fluid chemicals into drinking water supplies is alarming. Even though the hydraulic fracking process is designed to remove these chemicals, a large percentage – anywhere from 25-60 percent – are often left in the ground and never fully recovered. Furthermore, both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and industry leaders have acknowledged that the potential exists for frack fluid to migrate away from intended fracture lines and into nearby aquifers.

More than 30 states are involved in oil and gas production, and hydraulic fracturing is used in 9 of 10 gas exploration operations in several parts of the country including Texas, Alabama, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Montana.There are approximately 450,000 of these gas wells across the country, with a proposal for 100,000 more to be drilled in New York and 100,000 in Pennsylvania. A variety of new drilling techniques using hydraulic fracturing are also opening up gas deposits that had previously been too expensive to drill. One particularly large area, known as the Marcellus Shale, expands through Pennsylvania and parts of New York, Ohio and West Virginia.

In addition to the large oil majors, other companies involved in hydraulic fracturing services include Chesapeake Energy, Cabot Oil and Gas Co., BJ Services Co., Complete Production Services, Key Energy Services, Patterson UTI, RPC Inc; Schlumberger, Superior Well Services Inc. and Weatherford. To date, companies involved in this process have had thousands of accidents and racked up a number of safety violations.

Risk to Drinking Water

Hydraulic fracturing’s potential impacts on both water usage and quantity can be significant. A single fracture of one well may require anywhere from 1 to 5 million gallons of water. To compare, a single fracture using 1 million gallons of water would roughly be equivalent to 2 Olympic size swimming pools. This also translates into as many as 200 truck loads of water per fracture of a well. Many wells require multiple fractures, some up to 18 times.

With fracking comes an enormous threat of contamination of residential wells, groundwater aquifers and nearby surface water sources such as rivers and steams. From Virginia to Wyoming, hundreds of documented cases have surfaced regarding water quality and quantity problems in residential wells located near natural gas drilling operations. These reports include incidents of water wells being contaminated during and directly following hydraulic fracturing operations. Gases such as methane and hydrogen sulfide have been reported in drinking water, along with murkiness and discoloration of water. Cases of skin rashes and sickness after unknowingly showering in contaminated water supplies have been documented.

Federal Regulation: Unregulated and Unproven

Since 1974, regulatory protection of drinking water has fallen under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The act calls for monitoring of underground injection of chemicals that may come in contact with drinking water supplies. As a result of the 1997 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation v. Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA was charged with regulating hydraulic fracturing under the Safe Drinking Water Act. This decision led the agency to undertake an analysis in 2000 to determine the dangers posed by hydraulic fracturing to underground drinking water supplies.

During the same period, a special presidential task force on energy policy led by then-Vice President Dick Cheney convened in 2001. Because of Cheney’s recent departure as CEO of Halliburton to return to politics, the secretive nature of the task force and its motivations were called into question. Aided by industry professionals from Halliburton and other energy companies, the task force ultimately recommended that Congress exempt hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act. The EPA finished its fracking study in 2004 and found that fracturing “posses little or no threat” to drinking water and concluded no more research was necessary. However, comments from whistleblowers and reviews of the report, notably by the Oil and Gas Accountability Project (OGAP), found that the EPA’s conclusion that no further investigation of hydraulic fracturing was needed to be unpersuasive.

Congress ultimately exempted hydraulic fracturing from the regulatory authority of the Safe Drinking Water Act in the 2005 Energy Policy Act. This exemption, known commonly as the “Halliburton loophole,” created a unique situation where oil and gas companies are the only industry entities allowed to inject known hazardous chemicals either directly into or nearby underground drinking water supplies. Hydraulic fracturing is also exempted from other federal regulations that protect air quality, water treatment infrastructure and
Landowner’s rights

Congressional efforts to close the Halliburton loophole began in 2008. In 2009, the Fracking Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act (FRAC ACT) was introduced by lawmakers in an attempt to close the Halliburton loophole.  However, the bill has failed to win passage to date.

The EPA is also studying hydraulic fracturing’s effects on drinking water supplies. Commissioned in 2010, the current study will likely conclude in 2012.  As of Nov. 9, 2010, the EPA had requested chemical compositions from nine of the leading energy companies that participate in hydraulic fracturing. All but one of those companies complied with the EPA’s request.  Halliburton refused and was issued a subpoena to provide the chemical makeup of the compounds it uses.

Patchwork State Regulation

Because federal regulation of fracking is absent, states are left to determine monitoring protocols for hydraulic fracturing. As is the case with many issues where a clear lack of federal regulation exists, a patchwork of state regulations governs the natural gas exploration process. Most state regulation does the bare minimum of merely collecting data on fracturing operations. The majority of states that do have some drilling regulations in place enforce these through the permitting process. New Mexico, Colorado and Alabama regulate fracking through the permitting process.  These controls monitor well depth, availability of freshwater supplies, disposal of chemicals and observation of open air fluid pits.

Some states like Pennsylvania allow for neighbors of a drilling operation to request an investigation when they believe their water may have been contaminated by fracking.

However, even with established monitoring and guidelines, states are stretched to handle the workload.  The frenzied pace of new well drilling combined with state budgetary woes are hindering state level regulation. For example, according to the Citizen’s Campaign Fund for the Environment, New York State lacks the funding and the trained professionals to ensure enforcement of any fracking operation in the state.

Recommendations:

• While the EPA study is under way, no new fracking operations should be permitted.
• Congress must close the 2005 Halliburton loophole for hydraulic fracturing. Injecting toxic substances into the ground falls squarely under the provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act and thus the exemption for hydraulic fracturing should be eliminated from the 2005 Energy Policy Act. 

PDF version with references available, here.

ACTIVISM: Yet ANOTHER Fracking problem ... "accidents"

Rise in fracking accidents prompts anti-drilling rallies

By Betsey Piette

Published Dec 4, 2010 11:18 AM 

 

Contrary to gas drilling industry claims that hydraulic fracturing is “accident free,” Texas-based XTO Energy has racked up 31 violations at 20 wells drilled in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania in 2010.

XTO’s latest accident involved a leak of up to 13,000 gallons of chemically contaminated drilling wastewater that polluted a stream and a spring in north-central Pennsylvania’s Lycoming County, says the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. The leak was caused by a valve which was left open.

In June, Exxon paid $30 billion to merge with XTO Energy, making Exxon/XTO the largest natural gas producer in the U.S.

Hydraulic fracturing involves blasting millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals into wells to break apart shale and release natural gas. The wastewater that returns to the surface is a toxic, sometimes radioactive, sludge containing sulfates, benzene, chloride, toluene and other chemicals used in the fracking process.

Accidents like the one in Lycoming County occur at the rate of nearly one a day at wells across the Marcellus Shale, which spans the states of Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio.

A Scripps Howard News Service investigation of the drilling industry over the last decade found 1,972 violations for pollution and contamination in Ohio.

Pennsylvania officials have issued 8,309 industry-related violations since 2007. The Pennsylvania Land Trust Association found 1,056 serious environmental violations tied to drilling in the shale between the start of 2008 and Aug. 20 of this year. Gas companies improperly sealed their wells 50 times, potentially causing gas to migrate into groundwater.

“There’s so many more violations that we’re trying to keep on top of,” said Jamie Legenos, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. (Scripps News, Nov. 18). One problem the investigation notes is the lack of proper paperwork or follow-up due to understaffed oversight agencies.

The lack of federal and state regulations contributes to this problem, with drilling companies frequently ignoring local laws intended to limit the environmental impact. In the last three years, the natural gas industry has tripled state campaign contributions to guarantee election of pro-drilling candidates like Pennsylvania’s governor-elect, Tom Corbett.

This has prompted anti-drilling activists to sound the alarm and increase their mobilizing activities against fracking.

Gas Truth of Central Pennsylvania is calling for an inauguration day rally against “Toxic Tom” on Jan. 18 in Harrisburg, the state capital. Rally demands include a moratorium on further drilling in the state; regular inspections of existing wells; disclosure of the chemicals used in fracking; and no “forced pooling” (allowing gas companies to drill when properties border those with existing wells even if landowners refuse to sign leases).

A “warm-up” rally is planned for Dec. 6 in Wellsboro, Pa., where former Pennsylvania governor and Homeland Security chief, Tom Ridge, is “shilling for drilling” at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast. Ridge, now a drilling industry consultant, is suspected of being behind recent spying on anti-drilling activists by the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response under a no-bid contract with the Pennsylvania Homeland Security.

Wellsboro, in Tioga County, was also the site of a 35-mile spill of fracking fluids along a highway in October.

Under capitalism, the drive for profits overtakes everything, including protection of the environment. It is important that both upcoming rallies will target corporate greed as the factor behind the public policies that are affecting the water, land and air in the state.

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Pennsylvania Gas Drillers Dumping Radioactive Waste in New York Tuesday, 23 November 2010 Written by Peter Mantius

Dr. Earl Robinson, a pulmonologist who lives less than a mile away, noted that people who live near landfills often have higher rates of lung and bladder cancer than those who don’t.

ELMIRA, N.Y. -- Trucks hauling rock cuttings from drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale formation in Pennsylvania regularly cross the New York State border these days to dump in the Chemung County Landfill seven miles east of Elmira.

The Marcellus formation is characterized by unusually high readings of naturally occurring radioactive material, or NORM, so most of the cuttings are probably radioactive. The Chemung Landfill, a former gravel pit, has never been licensed to handle low-level radioactive waste.

So how can the landfill’s private operators get clearance from the county and state environmental regulators to become a regional dump for radioactive drilling wastes?

The short answer: Provide the revenue-hungry county a rich payout, exploit a legal loophole, and presto, it’s a done deal.

The longer answer: Regulations haven’t kept pace with the recent widespread use of an invasive new drilling technology used to tap the Marcellus.

“There are many aspects of this new industrial activity that outpace existing regs. Radiological regulation is just one of them,” said Anthony Ingraffea, a Cornell University geology professor who has tracked the evolution of natural gas drilling for decades.

The latest variation of hydraulic fracturing now commonly used in Marcellus shale mining in Pennsylvania has never been allowed in New York State, but it is expected to be approved soon. Ingraffea said the New York Department of Environmental Conservation will need broader legal authority and a much deeper staff to cope with its considerable side effects.

But the DEC isn’t there yet, so there are legal gray areas that provide opportunities, and Casella Waste Systems is mining them.

In 2005, Casella entered into a 25-year, $90-million contract with Chemung County to operate its landfill, which had been taking in about 80,000 tons a year of garbage and municipal waste.

In April, the company and the county agreed to certain amendments to the deal and reaffirmed their goal of eventually increasing the landfill’s capacity to 417,000 tons per year.

“It’s been a great partnership,” said Larry Shilling, regional vice president for Casella, which has a pending application with the DEC for authority to boost capacity to 180,000 tons.

The DEC hasn’t raised major objections to the latest application. Nor did it object when it learned in January 2010 that for months the company had been accepting up to 2,000 tons of Pennsylvania drilling waste a week without first asking the agency for permission.

Casella also began diverting a major portion of its Chemung County municipal waste to other landfills to leave room for the Marcellus cuttings.

The DEC still isn’t sure when the new waste stream started because a lawyer for Casella said it was hard to pin down an exact date. While the DEC has taken it all in stride, several local residents who live near the landfill are quite agitated.

Dr. Earl Robinson, a pulmonologist who lives less than a mile away, noted that people who live near landfills often have higher rates of lung and bladder cancer than those who don’t.

Before Casella arrived, the Chemung Landfill had a history of violations involving industrial hazardous waste, so it may be partly to blame for the county’s problems with lung and bladder cancer.

From 2003-2007, the county’s bladder cancer incidence rate for males was 49.5 percent higher than the state average, while the lung cancer rate was 27.0 percent higher, according to the New York State Cancer Registry. In the 1999-2002 period, Chemung County had the highest bladder cancer rate in the state for males.

Obviously, Casella’s recent acceptance of Marcellus cuttings had nothing to do with those elevated levels in the past. But the new practice adds a new level of concern, Robinson said.

“Drill cuttings contain radioactive waste that will release radon gas, a carcinogen, and this will be dispersed into the atmosphere,” he said.

It may also find its way into drinking water supplies, Robinson added, because one engineering report commissioned by the county found that part of the landfill was “approximately 500 feet horizontally from the Chemung Valley Aquifer.”

Robinson is a member of a citizens group, Residents for the Preservation of Lowman and Chemung (RFPLC), that is challenging Casella’s bid to boost capacity to 180,000 tons per year.

RFPLC’s central claim is that Marcellus drilling wastes can’t be disposed of in a landfill that isn’t licensed to handle low-level radioactive waste. Such landfills are rare, and Chemung isn’t one of them.

The group’s argument echoes a formal statement sent to the DEC last December by the New York State Conference of Environmental Health Directors, which said in part:“Under no circumstances should drill cuttings be disposed outside licensed landfills without testing to show they are not a threat to human health or the environment.”

The DEC hasn’t conducted its own radiological testing of any wastes at the Chemung Landfill. Instead, it relied on submittals from Casella that appeared to show that neither drill cuttings nor soil contaminated with brine from Marcellus wells were dangerously radioactive.

Moreover, Lisa Schwartz, a lawyer for the DEC, argued that the level of radioactivity in the wastes sent to the Chemung Landfill wasn’t even a relevant legal question in the proceeding on Casella’s application to expand capacity. Her position reflected Casella’s stance on the issue.

In September, Edward Buhrmaster, an administrative law judge for the DEC, ruled that RFPLC’s challenge to the legality of dumping potentially radioactive wastes was irrelevant. He limited the Casella proceeding to the question of whether to allow the capacity to grow to 180,000 tons per year.

The citizens' group has appealed to the acting commissioner of the DEC.Under the law, Schwartz had argued, the Chemung Landfill could accept radioactive shale drill cuttings so long as they were not “processed or concentrated.” And she argued that the Chemung wastes were not. Ingraffea, among others, disagreed. In a pro bono memo filed in support of the RFPLC, the Cornell geologist stated that rock cuttings from drilling are typically carried to the surface by “drilling mud” that has been saturated with NORM. The rock cuttings are later separated from the mud in an industrial process known as “dewatering.”

Buhrmaster, the administrative law judge, struck Ingraffea’s testimony from the record along with comments made by two other scientific experts on behalf of RFPLC.

Buhrmaster concluded that the Marcellus shale cuttings were not processed and the landfill was legally entitled to make drill cuttings its entire waste stream -- up to its capacity.

Thomas S. West, an attorney for Casella, argued that if RFPLC’s central contention had any validity, which he denied, “it is a matter of statewide applicability that should not be determined in the context of a specific application for a particular facility.”

He said RFPLC could follow other procedural avenues to pursue its claim that radioactive cuttings had to go to a landfill licensed to handle them.

In addition to serving as Casella’s attorney, West has also served as a lobbyist to Chesapeake Energy, one of the companies that has dumped Marcellus brine-contaminated soil into the Chemung Landfill.

West also argued that the citizens’ group’s concerns about potentially radioactive wastes were addressed by the fact that Casella had installed radiological monitors at the landfill to warn of loads that exceeded set limits for radioactivity.

In April, Buhrmaster had expressed enthusiasm for on-site monitoring. But Schwartz acknowledged weeks later that the DEC staff hadn’t seen details of how the monitors would be operated and said their effectiveness “cannot be confirmed.”

Photo: Tony InGraffea

In any case, Ingraffea said the DEC’s decision not to oppose the importation of Marcellus drill cuttings from Pennsylvania to Chemung “creates a precedent for a de facto open-door policy for potentially unacceptable materials to be transported into New York State without adequate regulations in place.”

The DEC is rushing to complete its final rules for the latest brand of hydraulic fracturing in the New York Marcellus shale, and agency officials have said they expect to finish in early 2011.

The rules are spelled out in the agency’s draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement, which drillers plan to use to speed through the permitting process in New York. The draft has drawn thousands of critical comments.

Many of those criticisms have targeted the DEC’s approach to NORM and radioactive wastes.

When the agency tested brine from all 12 of New York State’s conventional Marcellus wells in 2008 and 2009 it found alarmingly high levels of radioactivity in more than half of them. Readings for the extremely dangerous Radium 226 were up to 260 times the limit allowed to be released into the environment.

Those readings alarmed the New York State Department of Health, which has discouraged the use of Marcellus brine as a roadway de-icer unless the radioactive materials can be removed first.

The DEC’s test findings also drew the attention of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. “These data raise serious issues for public health, particularly with disposal of both solid waste (i.e. drill cuttings and equipment) and wastewater,” the NYCDEP wrote in a hard-hitting Dec. 9, 2009 letter to the DEC.

The city’s top environmental officer, Steven W. Lawitts, wrote that the DEC was obliged to do further analysis of the issue, adding: “Such an analysis must be completed before any activity that is likely to generate radioactive waste can move forward.”The DEC, however, said it intended to wait for the results of actual drilling in New York’s Marcellus. Meeting Lawitts’ more rigorous standard became less of a legal imperative after the DEC announced in April that natural gas wells drilled in the New York City watershed could not use the SGEIS process. Instead, drillers would be required to go through the lengthy environmental impact process well-by-well, a prohibitive expense that effectively curbs the latest brand of hydraulic fracturing within the New York watershed. If the watershed was spared hydraulic fracturing of the Marcellus, the DEC was spared a legal confrontation over radiological regulation.

The DEC has also drawn criticism for its failure to draw a sharp distinction between the latest version of hydraulic fracturing and the more benign techniques used in the past.

The draft DGEIS, many critics argue, needs to be rewritten to reflect special new impacts of the latest technique, which now dominates Marcellus mining. Ingraffea calls it “high-volume, slickwater fracking from long laterals on multi-well pads.”

Translated, that means drilling horizontally for several thousand feet along a deep shale formation from a well pad that may contain eight or more wells --  using up to 5 million of gallons of water per well with sand and chemicals that reduce friction and kill bacteria.

Before it’s allowed in New York, Ingraffea said, the state should require radiation monitoring of all wastes, solid and liquid, at the drilling pad so they can be sent to proper disposal destinations.

“Let the regs catch up with technology,” he said.

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