15 replies to this topic

[Shortpoet-GTD]

This probably falls somewhere in between those two extremes, but the title should start
a good conversation.
I, (and most of us here) don't trust the oil companies but it sounds like it's going to happen
whether we like it or not.

What do you think?


"Crystals, known as methane hydrates, contain natural gas but so far releasing that fuel has
been an expensive proposition.
The drilling has its environmental critics, but there’s also a climate bonus:
The technique requires injecting carbon dioxide into the ground, thereby creating a new way
to remove the warming gas from the atmosphere.

Many experts (???) believe that methane hydrates hold significant potential to supply the world
with clean fossil fuel. (Clean fossil fuel?)

Worries too, about inadvertent releases of methane, which is even more powerful as a
warming gas than CO2."
Full article here.

[zararina]

Well, I am not an expert and if I would just believe on their researches or finding about that clean fossil fuel, that would be a great finding or discovery.
I hope that news was not just released for them to have permission to drill and destroy the environment.

[Phil]

This has been known for some time, there was even a science program about it.  They claimed there was a 1000 year global supply of the stuff and that it was as much as a mile thick in some places at the ocean floor.  The guy was in a deep submersible and collected some.  When he brought it to the surface it looked like snow, then he lit it on fire.  It was a trip to watch.

This was years ago and the only challenge then was harvesting it.  It looks like they are zeroing in on the solution.  There is so much of it, it can't be ignored.  It is certainly better than oil and is not under pressure so it won't pose a spill hazard.  It's as clean as natural gas so if natural gas is preferable so is this.  It is likely the cleanest of fossil fuels so as long as we are dependent on them, this one may as well be it.  Costs will tell the tail though.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Yeah but anything the oil companies like, I'm suspicious of.

[Phil]

Oil companies are investing in alternative energy, are you suspicious of that?  Don't answer!

Actually, as I've stated before, big oil doesn't want to kill alternatives, they want to own them.  When the pumps run dry, they need to have something to sell you!  Both BP and Exxon are investing heavily in biofuels.  After four decades BP finally had to drop solar once China turned them into a commodity.  Killing oil will not kill Exxon.

Another thing to consider, there wouldn't be drug lords if no one bought drugs.  There wouldn't be oil companies if no one bought oil.  Big oil isn't pushing, we are pulling.

Government gives you incentives for both infrastructure and transportation, auto companies give you a wide chioce, energy companies also give you a wide choice, (oil, electricity, nat gas, propane, ethanol, etc.).  Choice is good, it is up to us as individuals to make the one right for us as individuals.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

I could deal with chevron wind-turbines, maybe even exxon labels on them-but I would still cringe if I saw bp on em'.
Those pictures of birds covered in oil from the gulf spill remain in my mind.
But I know what you mean.

[artistry]

I read some time ago that there were methane pockets being released in the Artic, through the ice. These pockets had the possibility of blowing up and endangering populations, which were close enough, that people could be affected..This sounds potentially like that situation.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

artistry, on 10 May 2012 - 07:12 PM, said:

I read some time ago that there were methane pockets being released in the Arctic, through the ice. These pockets had the possibility of blowing up and endangering populations, which were close enough, that people could be affected..This sounds potentially like that situation.

I know-right?
That's the thing.
The past history of oil companies drilling has always led to environmental damage. Why they think they can do
this safely is BS with a capitol B.

[Phil]

This stuff is much safer than oil.  It is not under pressure so there is no spill equivalent.  It will turn into a gas and dissipate instead of contiminating the environment.  It is a green house gas but leaking a bit of this gas is far less damaging than leaking an equivalent amount of oil.

Will some idiot do something stupid and cause a leak?  Probably.  Will some other idiot do something stupid and cause another nuclear meltdown?  Probably.  It would be wonderful if we could legislate against stupidity, wouldn't it?

Exxon did not want thier ship to run aground, BP did not want all their profits disipated all over the gulf, Japan did not want their plants to melt down.  No CEO would vote for blowing billions on cleaning up what could have been sold at a profit instead, believe it or not!

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Phil, on 11 May 2012 - 10:05 AM, said:

This stuff is much safer than oil.  It is not under pressure so there is no spill equivalent.  It will turn into a gas and dissipate instead of contiminating the environment.  It is a green house gas but leaking a bit of this gas is far less damaging than leaking an equivalent amount of oil.

Will some idiot do something stupid and cause a leak?  Probably.  Will some other idiot do something stupid and cause another nuclear meltdown?  Probably.  It would be wonderful if we could legislate against stupidity, wouldn't it?

Exxon did not want thier ship to run aground, BP did not want all their profits disipated all over the gulf, Japan did not want their plants to melt down.  No CEO would vote for blowing billions on cleaning up what could have been sold at a profit instead, believe it or not!

Well I don't want to sidetrack this whole thread
but
design flaws and operating procedures on the bp spill are what's known as the cause.
Did the ceo's look the other way? You bet. Hurry, hurry-do it quicker was their mo. Not just bp but halliburton
and the rest.
If they had designed it properly, ran it correctly, instead of at break neck speed with proper safety in mind,
it wouldn't have happened.
Same thing with the nukes in Japan. Ground sinking happens during earthquakes. Land moves/shifts
during a tsunami. Tsunami is a Japanese word; they've been around for decades. They knew the effects
on the land and loss of it.
If the plant had been built, even in the exact same location, but put on a much higher hill, the seas rushing
in would not have damaged it, and no meltdown.
Design flaws.
And maybe ceo's don't know/don't care but the capture of methane (back to the original thought) here
will be problematic.
I doubt seriously, it will be any safer than fracking of regular gas now. Add methane to the mix
and ???? who knows the environmental damage it could cause.

[Phil]

I don't either, but you are mistaken if you think CEO's, particularly of the size of BP are on top of every little detail.  Since I have worked in corporations all my life my experience should count for something.  In virtually every case I saw a screw up it was without exception some middle manager cutting corners to angle for a promotion.

Of course there are schedules to meet and budgets to adhere to, but it is up to lower managers to push back if something is unreasonable.  Too often, a middle manager over commits and rather than go to his boss with a delay or overrun he violates company policy.  I've seen it personally.

If you studied the Challenger disaster it points out another source of ticking time bomb.  During earlier flights, engineers notice blowby on O rings.  After a number of flights the max was something like 30%.  Rather than say, "there should be no blowby", they said blowby of up to 30% is acceptable before reshaping the joint.

So like the shuttle, BP, Japan, etc. virtually every day, day in/day out, there were zero problems.  But also statistics were not on their side.  In the case of the Challenger, since 30% was never exceeded, it was assumed that was the max.  The problem was it was the max THUS FAR!  There was no scientific reason the max wouldn't be complete blowby.

Think about it, these were some of the best scientists and engineers in the world working on a high profile, very public, government run project and they still fell into a very common trap.  I can almost guarantee the BP disaster would fall under a similar paradigm.

A flaw of both the right and the left is they draw cartoon charactures of very complex situations, and that simply is not reality. CEO's do not go home at night and twirl their mustaches dreaming up new ways of raping the environment and screwing over their employees, I've know too many personally to entertain that view.

In the end, CEO's are responsible for their corporations but as any one of them will tell you, at some point you have to trust your employees will do the right thing.  Unfortunately that isn't always the case.  In 99.9% of those cases the screwup is benign, and the manager is "encouraged to seek employment elsewhere".  In rare cases they get away with it long enough that statistics catch up with them.

BTW, as an engineer, "designing it right" is much harder than you think.

Getting back to the original thought.  The company will put a high priority on methane leaks, as a CEO would you want to see your profits literally vanish into thin air?    Every pound of fuel leaked is a pound they reap no profit on.  Like the BP spill, do you think they prefered seeing their profits spilled all over the ocean rather than in tankers ready for sale?  You could totally ignore environmenat impact and the company would still have a huge incentive to minimze "product loss".

[Shortpoet-GTD]

You should re-read your own post-you made my point better than I did. Somebody will screw things up.
That's my concern.

[Phil]

Yes, people will almost always screw things up!  At last we agree!    The thing is, is it always evil?  Is it directly the CEO's fault?

Each year hundreds of thousans of cars are recalled for defects.  Should they have designed it right the first time?  Of course!  Easier said than done, (speaking from experience!).  The Volt can catch fire weeks after an accident, does that make the CEO of GM evil?  He should have known right?  They should have known better right?  OMG, he's building death traps on wheels!!!!

As I said, it is too easy to boil things down to a mere characture of reality.  Life isn't that simple.

By the way, thank you for these respectful debates!  We clearly have different world views but talking out our differences can at least provide insight to other views.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Phil, on 19 May 2012 - 08:53 AM, said:

By the way, thank you for these respectful debates!  We clearly have different world views but talking out our
differences can at least provide insight to other views.

You're welcome.
I've been on forums where people throw nasty language around like rice at a wedding. Doesn't do either
party any good and can ruin a good site quickly. When people get ticked off, they don't come back.

But back to the "whole can of worms" issue. Doesn't the methane release give you pause? Regardless
of who's doing the drilling, or what the ceo is thinking. That's my concern.
Hand. (have a nice day)

[saver]

Well it seems like an ok idea on the face of it - but so much does in the world of energy production.

I recently heard Neil deGrasse Tyson mention if aliens visited our planet soon, the thing he'd be embarrassed to admit was that we humans were still getting our energy from the ground.

I know it's a bit "sci-fi" but I think the next big game change will be something us mere mortals can barely comprehend right now!

[FamilyTreeClimber]

I'm a skeptic.  Many things sounds good on paper and even during the research phase, then when it's implemented there are unintended consequences.  We don't tend to look at the whole picture but only the small part that affects us directly.

So, this new energy source would lower CO2 emissions, but it would increase methane emissions?   Would we be trading a decrease in one type of emission for an increase in another?  That is a concern.  It's difficult to get excited about something that solves one problem but produces another.

Just Curious, a side note.  I love Neil deGrasse Tyson.  He always breaks science down into ways that make it understandable and exciting.