Free Republic

Large quantities of methane gas are stored as ice-like gas hydrates below the ocean floor and these could be used as an energy source, a Japanese geologist said....“One cubic metre of gas hydrate contains 164 cubic metres of methane,” said Ryo Matsumoto from the University of Tokyo, who presented his research at the 34th International Geological Congress in Brisbane, Australia. “Gas hydrates are very effective containers of methane.”....estimates suggest that the total amount of carbon contained in gas hydrates could match or even exceed that bound in fossil fuels.

I may just divert to Toronto from Chicago and pay this writer a visit so I can tell him to his face what an idiot he is, or have my two new Canadian friends, Guy and Stuart, do it for me. He deserves it. How do the publishers of this newspaper reconcile printing such blatant idiocy based on what the writer calls “weeks old” science? How does such a headline get published? At first I thought maybe it was just the copy editor at fault, making a dumb headline, but then I read this in the body of the story:...

There are 85.4 tcf of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas resources in gas hydrates on the Alaskan North Slope, reported the US Geological Survey on Oct. 18. The US Department of the Interior agency said scientists recently completed the first assessment of an area extending from the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) on the west through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) on the east, and from the Brooks Range on the south, to the state-federal offshore boundary 3 miles into the Arctic Ocean off the northern coast. The 55,894 sq miles consists mostly of federal, state, and Alaskan native lands,...