There's a phenomenon where methane at very high pressures and low temperatures (like at the ocean floor) turns into a stable substance called Methane Hydrate
If we can figure out a good way to extract it, we would have a large renewable energy source (as new methane from decomposing sealife continually regenerates the source)
There's a phenomenon where methane at very high pressures and low temperatures (like at the ocean floor) turns into a stable substance called Methane Hydrate
I'm doing a little googling to get links to reply on Methane Hydrates and mention that they could be dangerous, when I come across what appears to be a paleo-eco-disaster site that talks about ancient global warming disasters, variously caused by impacts, volcanoes and, you guessed it, Methane Hydrates.
http://www.lakepowell.net/sciencecenter/catastrophic.htm
The bottom of this page has the particulars of the methane hydrate disaster (Mass extinction traced to oceanic methane burp) and I just couldn't pass up this line:
Bottom Feeders affected the most
Hardest hit were bottom-feeding clam-like organisms known as bivalves
First, you know for a fact that the writer is a enviro wacko Democrat from the rest of the article. Second, it's not nice to refer to "women and minorities" as "bottom feeders." <g>
Now to get to the meat of what I was looking for.
There's a good NASA paper about the Global Warming implications of these deposits:
And here's another technical paper on the potential value (and skepticism about it) here:
which even mentions the thing that first turned me on to Methane Hydrates:
From a media standpoint, hydrates provide an almost inexhaustible supply of articles concerning greenhouse effects, landslides, global warming and mysterious events such as the loss of aircraft in the "Bermuda Triangle".
here's one version of that theory:
“Ocean Flatulence Theory:” Methane hydrate, which is frozen on the ocean floor, can release gas causing thousands of bubbles to rise to the ocean’s surface. The gas causes the water to become less dense, thus sinking boats at the oceans surface (Anon 1995: 8). Some believe this is impossible while others believe if the gas rushed to the surface so would water, which would keep a boat afloat (Merchant 2001: 12). This highly combustible gas could come into contact with airplane engines causing and explosion. Methane hydrate, however, is found all over the ocean floor and the chances of a gas eruption hitting a ship are near impossible (http://www.bermuda-triangle.org/Theories/Methane _Hydrates/methane_hydrates.html).
I saw a Discovery Channel piece on this that only barely touched on the Bermuda Triangle aspect (as well as one that used this central thesis of the show). In both shows they showed news footage of an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico tilting over and sinking as it lost buoyancy in a swarm of bubbles from their drill breaking through into a Methane Hydrate pocket and releasing the pressure and therefore destabilizing the whole layer.
I also remember a disaster on land, sometime in the 30s maybe, that involved a release of natural Methane, mayber from a Methane Hydrate deposit, leading to a fuel air explosion that wiped out the entire town. So far the only things I'm finding, however, relate to either gas wells, coal mines or large gas storage (like the 1947 Texas City disaster).
Bottom line, exciting potential source of energy but with lots of (real or imagined) dangers.