All That Gas!--The farce in Washington aside, oil is not running out.

Energy is simply too important to be trusted to the marketplace. That is the unquestioned first principle of energy policy today. And to judge by the grotesquely pork-laden energy bill that Congressional leaders are polishing up right now, Republicans and Democrats see perfectly eye-to-eye on this matter.

Natural gas is not that hard to recover. In the continental shelf all around the world, a natural phenomen occures that has not been widely discussed, but may have major effects on climate. As organic matter is swept out to sea, it settles deeper and deeper in the ocean, and undergoes decomposition in the ocean depths. As deep ocean (greater than 1,500 feet) is almost anaerobic, much of the decomposition of organic matter forms methane. Because of the depth, the water is at a near-constant temperature of 38° F., or about 4° C. the pressure conditions are such that the methane formed becomes a gelid mass, creating something called methane hydrate, which simply lies on the ocean floor, until it becomes covered with a layer of ooze.

To recover this bounty of natural gas, it is necessary only to tap into the layers of ooze that have formed over these pockets, which remain stable under these constant pressures and temperatures at that depth.

Now comes the barb in the hook. When there are sudden shifts in the flow of warm ocean currents, the constant temperature at these depths may rise a few degrees, just enough to trigger the almost explosive expansion of the methane hydrate as it changes to gaseous methane. The methane bursts to the surface of the water, an extremely short-term phenomen, and the bubbling water-methane becomes vastly less dense than water alone. Ships that are fated to be above this roiling mixture, that depend on the density of water to remain afloat, plunge into the lower-density mixture and sink like stones. Airplanes above, faced with the now much lower density of the air as methane displaces the heavier O2 and N2 molecules that make up some 98% of our atmosphere, fall from the sky and disappear into the sea below. This, in part, may explain the Bermuda Triangle, where occasional shifting warm sea currents release accumulations of methane hydrate and an eruption occurs.

By harvesting the methane hydrate at the bottom of the continental shelf, two things are accomplished. One is to recover a relatively cheap and RENEWABLE energy source, and the other is to remove accumulations of a potentially dangerous substance before it can cause mischief to the environment and more importantly, human economics.

This program, if successfully carried out, would make the enviro-whackos nuts. Recovery of cheap energy would actually HELP the balance of things in nature.

I don't see a downside. Except NOT to pursue this program.

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