Burning Ice Drilled from Alaska's Slope

bagboy writes to tell us that as sources of renewable energy are being sought, BP has announced a new method of extracting natural gas from ice underneath Alaska's North Slope drilling fields. "Scientists with the federal Energy Department paid $4.6 million to drill for the hot ice just below the surface of the Milne Point well, which is situated northwest of Prudhoe Bay. [...] Now, scientists from around the world are waiting for pieces of this strange ice to conduct their own tests and determine whether Alaska's frozen grounds contain untapped, clean-burning energy."

Clean-burning? Sure...

[TodMinuit]

Now, scientists from around the world are waiting for pieces of this strange ice to conduct their own tests and determine whether Alaska's frozen grounds contain untapped, clean-burning energy.

Clean-burning? Sure. But at $4.6 million a gallon, I'll stick with oil.

Re:

[linkedlinked]

Clean-burning? Sure. But at $4.6 million a gallon, I'll stick with oil.

Which, coincidentally, can also be found under Alaska.

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[flyingsquid]

At any rate, it's not as if there's a shortage of natural gas in Alaska. There are vast quantities in the Prudhoe Bay fields; the problem is that without a gas pipeline, there is no way to get it out of Alaska and to market. There is a lot of interest in building a pipeline, but you can imagine the various considerations- environmental impacts, terrorism threats, negotiating terms with the Canadians and Native American peoples in order to cross their land, what cut the state gets of the revenues- so it's not happening immediately. However, it will eventually happen if energy demands keep growing the way they have been.

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[johnny maxwell]

clean-burning...

It should be emphasized that methane (and it is methane ice we are talking about) burns clean in that it produces but CO2 and water. However, being a fossil fuel it is dirty in the sense of CO2 emissions.

Re:

[falconwolf]

clean-burning...
It should be emphasized that methane (and it is methane ice we are talking about) burns clean in that it produces but CO2 and water. However, being a fossil fuel it is dirty in the sense of CO2 emissions.

While when methane is burned it emits CO2, methane itself is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. If because of global warming the methane trapped under ice is released it will have more of am impact on temperatures than the CO2 buring it produces will. This is a growing conc

Re:Clean-burning? Sure...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. You must be a real hoot at parties.

Re:

[linvir]

Wow. You must be a real hoot at parties.

I've noticed this one a lot lately. It's also my most favourite troll one-liner right now. Whoever you are, please, please keep posting this.

Also, in before "you must be a real hoot at parties".

Re:

[Columcille]

the humor is weak with this one

Re:

[UserGoogol]

Yes, but fortunately the humor is also weak with Tod Minuit. There's nothing funny about saying "4.6 million dollars a barrel? lol, that's a bit pricey." Misinterpreting what people say can be funny, but it is not in this case.

I give this...

[bhmit1]

a snowball's chance in hell of ever working.

Clathrates

[mdsolar]

This mixture forms all over the contenental shelves. And, as pointed out here, in Alaska as well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_hydrate [wikipedia.org].

There has been an ongoing effort, especially by the Navy, to figure out ways to exploit these deposits. The rapid release of the methane may be a hazard to drilling and shipping and is also considered a possible cause for rapid climate change in the past.
--
Solar really is clean. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html [blogspot.com]

Desalination

[mdsolar]

Twice in one day I've answered myself. Do I hear and echo? I forgot to mention an application in desalination. See this patent: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5553456.html [freepatentsonline.com]

You better watch out there mister

[linvir]

Those Arabs will give us the flag-burning of a lifetime if we ever fuck with them. I bet you didn't think of that, did you?

Re:

[Kadin2048]

...Like by, say, invading a predominantly Arab country?

chemical reaction

[zyzzx0]

if memory serves correctly, natural gas = CH4
so the chem reaction:
CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2H2O

Seems like a lot of CO2 for being such a clean energy source.... but what the hell do i know?

Re:chemical reaction

[pz]

Clean burning fuel has nothing to do with C02, but everything to do with nitrogen and sulfer compounds, often call NOx and SOx ("x" because the number of oxygen atoms varies depending on the species). Those two classes of compounds are responsible for smog, acid rain, and, in part, the ozone layer depletion. Given the choice between burning, say, coal, which produces an excess of NOx and SOx, and methane which produce only traces of same when properly combusted, I'll take the methane, thank-you-very-much.

Clean burning is relative

[WindBourne]

There folks in Pennsylvania that will tell you that they have clean burning coal. And compared to what is coming our of a number of mines in China, they are correct. Of course, the west tells you that we have the clean burning coal. And compared to the east coast, it is. Now the methane folks say that they are clean burning, and compared to coal, they are. But The only true clean buring is pure hydrogen. And I would not be surprised that down the road somebody will show that there is a side reaction that oc

Re:

[dbIII]

It's better coal in China but they are using it in some places without the sort of pollution controls you would need in Pennsylvania - so they get more NOx, SOx and dust, hence smog and acid rain.

As for hydrogen - the problem is how to get it more eaily than using hydrocarbons without some fourth generation nuclear plant we don't have a clue how to make yet. For now natural gas (which isn't all methane) and methane looks good and it makes more sense to me to use that to burn or in your fuel cell instead of

Re:

[belg4mit]

True, though you should note that NOx are largely dependent upon combustion conditions
and not so much fuel source; fuel + air (80% N2) at several thousand degrees = NOx.
Luckily, that provides us with a reason to mobilize lots of platinum and rhodium.

Re:

[LoRdTAW]

The problem with NOx is that it is formed from excess oxygen and the ~78% nitrogen in the air during the combustion process. So even hydrogen and methane will produce NOx as a side effect when burned. Thats why exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) was invented for internal combustion engines. SOx and NOx was a big issue with the new 2007 diesel emissions. The answer was low sulfur fuel, aggressive EGR along with diesel particulate filters. Methane and hydrogen will eliminate sulfur emissions but not NOx unless w

Re:chemical reaction

[Chris Burke]

Well, "clean" and "environmentally friendly" aren't always the same... Methane burns cleanly, pretty much as cleanly as combustion can possibly get. "Clean" here is implying "without partial combustion byproducts that result from burning gasoline, diesel, biodiesel, wood, or pretty much any other organic substance". So in the sense of what we traditionally think of as pollutants, the noxious fumes that come from your car's tail pipe, it's clean. Is it going to reduce greenhouse gasses? Well, not so much.

So it turns out that this particular find is not a solution for global warming. Yet if we are going to continue burning organic materials for energy, and we assuredly are for the next decade at least, then I'd rather it be a "clean" burning hydrocarbon.

Re:

[Max Littlemore]

Is it going to reduce greenhouse gasses? Well, not so much.

Except that CH4 is far worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Burning methane, especially in a system that cools the exhaust to capture liquid water, is actually better than releasing it into the atmosphere as is. "When averaged over 100 years each kg of CH4 warms the Earth 23 times as much as the same mass of CO2" - wikipedia.

Given the rate that polar ice is already melting, the sooner this technology is used commercially, the better.

Re:chemical reaction

[Ungrounded Lightning]

In hydrocarbons burning the hydrogen provides most of the energy. Burning the carbon provides some, but the carbon is mainly useful for packing the hydrogen in a form more dense than H2 gas for convenient storage and handling.

As hydrocarbons go, CH4 has a higher ratio of hydrogen to carbon than any other molecule: Every bond on every carbon holds a hydrogen, none are "wasted" connecting to other carbons.

So if you're going to burn hydrocarbons for energy, methane releases the least CO2 for a given amount of energy produced.

Re:

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Burning it is better than letting the methane itself become a greehouse gas. IIRC, methane about 130x times worse than CO2 in terms of greenhouse gas potential. A lot of this stuff is naturally just bubbling out of the ocean floor. Our cattle are making some too, but I don't know if it's significant compared to other sources.

Re:

[falconwolf]

if memory serves correctly, natural gas = CH4
so the chem reaction:
CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2H2O

Seems like a lot of CO2 for being such a clean energy source.... but what the hell do i know?

Ah but methane is much more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2 is Methane is 30 tymes [rcn.com] more effective according to this webpage as a greenhouse gas. However according to New Scientist [newscientist.com] methane is 21 tymes more effective. One tonne of methane has the same warming effect as 21 tonnes of CO2. [newscientist.com] So it's better to burn

Re:

[packeteer]

The point is that the old problem we knew about in the atmosphere was small particle pollution. Ironically the small particles in the air have been shielding us from the full effect of global warming through a process coined as global dimming. Even though the earth is more of a greenhouse now it is in fact getting less sunlight overall, this means that some of our models about how much CO2 relates to a certain tempurature chance in the atmosphere might be off. The terrible part is that we might undervalu

Re:

[pintpusher]

sorry, seriously OT, but I love your sig. However, be sure you mount read-only before you fsck. The long term damage is catastrophic. Trust me on this, I've got the results of three read-write fsck's running around my house right now...

Re:

[sholden]

Surely we could just pump out some more CO2 to give those plants more food, to counteract that...

Re:

[sumdumass]

No, Plant pump out enough Co2 on their own. It is called asperation and is why the Co2 reading will be higher at night.

Re:

[networkBoy]

Um....
As I understood it plants release O2, not CO2, they are more active with an energy source (sunlight) which is why you will see less O2 at night.
-nB

Re:

[sumdumass]

The produce oxigen durring their respirations process but in turn create Co2 durring the aspiration process. One is durring the Day and the other is at night.

More oxigen is emited then Co2 overall so they do supply a net gain in oxigen.

Re:

[sholden]

But they only pump out the CO2 they've taken in. They aren't using nuclear fusion to make carbon after all.

daytime:
6H2O + 6CO2 + energy -> C6H12O6+ 6O2

nighttime:
C6H12O6+ 6O2 -> 6H2O + 6CO2 + energy

But they only respirate out 50% of the carbon they took in - so the net effect is taking in CO2 and turning it into biomass.

Re:

[sumdumass]

I was under their apseration cycle (at night) they produced more Co2 then they took in. It was my understanding that the conversions/preparing of some acids that help in the photosynthesis cycle caused this.

However, I cannot find anything on the web in detail enough to colaborate this. I might have remebered it wrong. I do know that durring the aspiration cycle, they produce/emit significantly more Co2 then regular oxigen and this difference is measurable. Although durring the respiration cycle, more oxigen

Re:

[Planesdragon]

[water vapor] is [the gas most responsible for] the green house effect.

Yes, and your point is?

the problem with global warming is not the greenhouse effect per se, but rather its increase. Unless you have a 65,000 year trendline for water vapor, it's essentially irrelevant to the debate.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The amount of water vapor in the air regulates itself by rain and surface condensation, CO2 doesn't. The amount of water vapor able to solve into air is limited by pressure and temperature. Seems to me more like general global temperature increase will accelerate the greenhouse effect because of more water vapor can be contained in the air.

Re:

[Don853]

The idea that water vapor is the most important gas when it comes to keeping the sun's heat around the earth is completely true, and totally misleading. Without any heat retention by the atmosphere, the Earth would have an average temperature well below zero. Water vapor makes up the majority of the difference between the earth in a deep freeze and the earth in its current state. The majority of the difference between the earth in 1800 and the earth in 2000 is carbon dioxide, since that's increased appre

Re:

[sumdumass]

This is because the focus has been primarily on "human caused" global wamring. In these models, they suggest water vapor is a feedback and not a forcing. If you were to look at the Sun as the cause, then it would be a forcing but the problem would corect itself when the solar radiation returns to normal.

And with a model like this, You don't get famous, don't have grants offered to furhter the doomsday studies, you don't get failed or rejected policies being promoted as "the cure"(you know who you are Kyoto)

Re:

[UserGoogol]

It's not a greenhouse gas if it's trapped in ice, though.

Although yes, to rule it out entirely simply because methane produces CO2 is silly. Switching to non-carbon-producing energy sources is a great idea if it can be done, but switching from oil to methane isn't terrible in the meantime.

Drilling in Alaska?

[ArcherB]

Scientists with the federal Energy Department paid $4.6 million to drill for the hot ice just below the surface of the Milne Point well, which is situated northwest of Prudhoe Bay

I guess Prudhoe Bay is OK. As long as it's not in ANWR a few hundred miles away. I guess there is no wildlife at Prudhoe Bay.

Re:

[AK Marc]

I guess Prudhoe Bay is OK. As long as it's not in ANWR a few hundred miles away. I guess there is no wildlife at Prudhoe Bay.

So, it's ok to paint grafitti on the Washington Monument because the Lincoln Memorial is right there. Or are you saying that, given equal resources under an unremarkable farm in Iowa and under Old Faithful geyser, you might as well dig up Old Faithful because there are other geysers around?

One area is a National Fucking Wildlife Reserve and the other is not. Do you not understand

Re:

[UbuntuDupe]

I think we need a new term instead of "environmentalist". Basically, in a sense, everyone's an environmentalist. They don't want to breathe smelly air and they don't want the planet to become uninabitable. But that's not what people intend when they refer to "the environmentalists". What people actually have in mind is "someone favoring hampering economic activity as long as that also helps some environmental concern that most people don't share".

What's a name we can use, just for that group? "Anti-gro

Re:

[ArcherB]

Finally, an environmentalist who is friggin honest!!! I'm so tired of people claiming they are against ANWR because of it may ruin the sex lives of friggin elk! I don't care about the elk that lives thousands of miles away, who will just have to find another way place to slap the fat. I've gotten desperate enough to do it beside a dumpster in my high-school days... Trust me, the elk will get by just fine!

Of course, we both know that we are going to burn the oil anyway. Personally, I'd just much rather i

Re:

[PetiePooo]

why oh why can't slashdot it it's geekful wisdom implement a double-enter = new paragraph option?

The same reason they can't implement a preview button.

Oh... wait. Never mind. *wink*

Why ruin Alaska for natural gas?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

There are tons and tons of the stuff at the bottom of the oceans. It's called methane clathrate [wikipedia.org] and I'm sure it'd be easier to extract than ice.

Re:Why ruin Alaska for natural gas?

[MaineCoon]

Clathrates are exactly what the article is talking about, without using the word - methane trapped within the structure of water ice.

Better to burn it before it melts on it's own from global warming (if there is any possibility of that). Methane is something like 23x worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas by mass.

Re:

[ArcherB]

Why ruin Alaska for natural gas?

We are already drilling at Prudhoe Bay. Are you implying that the drilling there has done no damage? The why not drill at ANWR?

Re:

[Jartan]

Why ruin Alaska for natural gas?

They're trying to remove the snow. I know you've been in an igloo all your life and this probably seems frightening but trust us, it's going to be OK.

Re:

[Chris Burke]

I know you've been in an igloo all your life and this probably seems frightening but trust us, it's going to be OK.

Oh yeah, I should just trust you. That's exactly what the doctor said when he wanted me to leave the womb, and I've regretted that decision ever since. I'm not falling for it again!

not renewable

[polar red]

This is certainly not renewable.

Re:not renewable

[AgentBif]

This is certainly not renewable.

Do you even know what the hell you are talking about?

Of course it's renewable. All you gotta do is:

• grow some dinosaurs
• kill em
• let em stew under the ice for another hundred million years
• ...
• profit!

Re:not renewable

[linvir]

All you gotta do is:

• grow some dinosaurs

You fool! You foolish fool! Did you learn NOTHING from Jurassic Park?

Nor is it 'clean burning' (anymore) ...

[taniwha]

makes CO2 (greenhouse gas) - if you want to burn it you need to find a way to sequester the carbon

is methane 'clean burning'

[falconwolf]

makes CO2 (greenhouse gas) - if you want to burn it you need to find a way to sequester the carbon

Burning and converting methane into CO2 is much cleaner than allowing methane to be emitted into the atmostphere. Methane is more than 20 tymes more potent then co2 as a greenhouse gas.

Falcon

Let's hope to God there isn't

[greg_barton]

Clean burning energy? Only if the burning bit is our whole planet. [energybulletin.net]

Mods for this article....

[gardyloo]

... just remember that if you mod something "flamebait" in the threads for this particular submission, they should automatically also be modded "insightful".

CO2

[iamacat]

This is a step in the wrong direction - burning this natural gas will still produce greenhouse effect, causing all this ice to really become hot sooner than we would prefer. Even burning fast-growing wood would be more ecologically friendly.

Every Joule is Precious

[DumbSwede]

Coming on the heals of this article Fuel Tanks Made of Corncob Waste [slashdot.org], this could be quite serendipitous.

They use lots of Natural Gas for taxis in China. I asked a driver about it, he claimed it to be about half the cost per mile compared to gasoline. Seeing how the tank dominated the trunk of these taxis, I suspect it could rupture in a rear end collision. I doubt these particular taxis would be permitted on American roads, but perhaps the new "Corncob Waste" tanks will make them smaller, safer, and economical for American use.

While methane releases CO2, it still decreases our reliance on foreign oil sources. I think de-funding terrorism is higher on most Americans to-do lists than stopping Global Warming. You can argue whether these priorities are out of wack, but I'm sure this is the way most will see it.

I personally think we Should drill for oil in Alaska as well as pursuing these other cleaner sources of energy. Failing to do so will only result in more reliance on Coal and even worse ecological damage as we rip up the Earth for Tar Sand and Oil Shale. Oil is a passing fad. We will have fusion someday, but for now we have little choice but to use what is at hand. This isn't to say conservation is not good also, just that some conservation measures fail the unintended consequences test. The DOE has an over 20 billion dollar year budget, the world barely can scrape together 15 billion over a 10 or 15 year time span for ITER. If we through 5 billion a year at it, I bet we'd have commercial fusion up and running in under 10.

Re:

[vandan]

I think de-funding terrorism is higher on most Americans to-do lists than stopping Global Warming.

This statement carries the assumption that the main global terrorists are foreign powers with oil. They're not. They're US powers with oil. The foreign ones come a distant 2nd. They exist, sure, but they exist because of US terrorism and foreign policy, not in spite of it. But I agree with the sentiment that 'they' need to be de-funded.

The DOE has an over 20 billion dollar year budget

That's a drop in the

global warming and terrorism

[falconwolf]

While methane releases CO2, it still decreases our reliance on foreign oil sources. I think de-funding terrorism is higher on most Americans to-do lists than stopping Global Warming. You can argue whether these priorities are out of wack, but I'm sure this is the way most will see it.

However that overlooks the fact that many care about global warming and some of them may feel justified in becoming a freedom fighter/terrorist striking against the US because it is the major emitter of greenhouse gases.

re: natural gas powered vehicles

[King_TJ]

Yeah.... I remember back in the early 90's, I took a telemarketing job for "Stanley Steemer Carpet Cleaners", and was surprised to find they were in the process of converting a number of their vans to run on natural gas. The biggest issue I recall they had was much less mileage per fill-up, and a gas pressure gauge that wasn't very linear. (Drivers complained that when the natural gas level started getting low, the gauge wouldn't accurately reflect it. It would suddenly drop to near empty and they would

Is there a military application?

[edwardpickman]

Remember the old ice bullets? Just imagine tanks firing flaming snowballs! They might not do much damage but they're likely to scare the hell out of the enemy. Just dress our troops in red suits with horns and they'd think they were fighting the devil himself with a legion of demons.

Re:

[BiggerIsBetter]

It's 2007. Which enemy are you thinking of?

"burning" "ice" and "drill"

[erroneus]

Those three words come up in searches revealing some interesting, if not bizarre porn...

Re:

[Forrest Kyle]

I bet you've been waiting years to put this knowledge to use. =D

Clean burning does not solve everything

[DuckWizard]

When you take energy that has been stored for millions of years (such as oil or methane in the ground) and burn it, you are releasing its energy (which has been out of circulation for a while) as heat into the atmosphere. Do some calculations and see that since we started burning oil, we've unleashed a disturbing amount of energy into the atmosphere - enough to cause some global warming on its own without even considering the greenhouse effect.

It's like printing an enormous amount of new currency. Sure, you can spend it, but there are consequences to releasing that much new currency into the economy.

Re:

[qbwiz]

I don't know. According to my calculations, the earth gets over 10^17 watts of solar energy. According to http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/EnergyUsag e.html [wolfram.com], people use slightly over 10^13 watts. So, we're increasing the earth's energy use by .007%, which doesn't seem too terrible to me.

Sweet!

[DigitAl56K]

So now instead of burning fuel which causes global warming and in turn melts the ice, we'll have cleaner fuel which doesn't melt the ice, and all we have to do is melt the ice to get it!

I love it when a plan comes together.

"Hot Ice" Is Cold and Does Not Burn

[radtea]

Sigh.

It would be nice to see a science article linked on /. whose author or editor does not feel it necessary to include outright falsehoods.

Clathrates have been known about for a long time. Extracting them economically is an interesting interim move to extend the natural gas supply. Here's a nice summary of the potential and problems with this fossil-fuel energy source [energycommission.org], in which the authors somehow manage to convey information and not wilfully and deliberately mislead their readers.

Reknewable resource

[truckaxle]

FTFA

BP says it new this form of methane was under the tundra all along.

Sean Doogan the author of this article is certaintly qualified to be a Slash editor...

Ice-nine?

[CritterNYC]

Am I the only one that saw "hot ice" and thought "ice-nine"? .... ah-whoom.

Oh, yeah, great idea

[wealthychef]

We really need to take some of our melting ice caps and burn them so we can melt more of our ice caps away.

Re:

[SirStanley]

I liken it more to Transparent Aluminum.

Re:

[twiddlingbits]

I thought "Hot Ice' was stolen diamonds. Guess I better quit watching those old movies and get with the modern term. Mining (drilling?) this stuff could cause problems, it has to be melted and the water left over has to go somewhere. I suppose they could just make the water back into snow or ice and no harm with that.

Re:"Hot ice"?

[dbIII]

Hot ice? Is that anything like "cold steam"?

Cold steam would be sublime.

Re:

[mrscorpio]

I think it's more like this: http://www.chattem.com/products/icy.asp [chattem.com]

Re:

[sumdumass]

Well, we definatly want to slow global warming in order to stop the hot ice from melting. So sure, there will be ice huggers but probably in a different sence.

Re:

[Fordiman]

Actually, the same argument that can be made for fossil fuels and global warming can be made here: it's carbon that was statically trapped that will now be released into the atmo.

Re:"Hot ice"?

[dan828]

No no no. You got it all wrong. You slowly warm the ice cubes in an alcohol solution. I'm going to begin some preliminary experimentation this evening with an eye towards large scale experiments this weekend. I'll let you know how it goes.

Re:

[Kyle_Katarn-(ISF)]

Or you can just decrease the pressure. I remember seeing a demonstration once where water was placed in a beaker that was sealed at a near-vacuum. Even whenever submerged in liquid nitrogen, the water was still boiling and steaming.

Re:

[gardyloo]

This energy need not be heat energy and can easily be kinetic energy - the mechanism that's used by the vapuorisers you can easily buy at the pharmacy.

      Ah, but "heat" is just the name we give to kinetic energy where we've neglected to keep track of the particles' *directions* of movement and just have a good idea of their average *speeds*. It's really just a question of the scale at which you can afford to keep track of velocities accurately.

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[timmarhy]

it's natural gas idiot - it's as clean burning as it gets.

"the few remaining bit of ice left on the planet"

are you for real? there is litterally billions of tons of ice on this planet. i'm going to just assume you've never even been outside your own little burb on this one.

i think i know whats going on here, your one of these people who needs to feel self rightgeous about something, but because the world you live in is really quite good, you make up this imaginary enemy to attack. your own confusion is eveident in the fact you advertise an anti war demonstation in a thread about drilling for methane trapped in ice

Re:

[Tim C]

it's natural gas idiot - it's as clean burning as it gets.

Even cleaner than a pure H2/O2 mix? Didn't think so.

Burning methane produces CO2, which is a greenhouse gas. It is not clean-burning in that sense.

Re:

[sokoban]

How do you cleanly make H2?

Electrolysis requires a hell of a lot of electricity.

Zn/HCl is acceptable for extremely small quantities of H2, not for any sort of medium/large scale.

Steam reforming requires CH4, high temperatures (lots of electricity), catalysts, and separation of the products (1CO2 and 4H2 as products from CH4 and 2H2O)

Chlor-alkali requires a lot of heat (again from electricity), and mercury catalysts.

Thermochemical hydrolysis requires heat (from electricity) and FeCl2 in non-catalytic amounts

Re:

[sokoban]

it's natural gas idiot - it's as clean burning as it gets.

No, idiot. It's as dirty as it gets. It releases CO2. You didn't do well at comprehension at school, did you?

Well, "clean burning" generally refers to having low amount of sulfur and nitrogen oxide products as a result. Nitrogen and sulfur oxides are smog and acid rain respectively. Methane is pretty good about not producing much of either. You didn't do well in chemistry at school, did you?

Re:

[vandan]

It all depends on your focus. From the point of view of acid rain and other pollutants, sure, natural gas is 'clean' in that respect. But that's not where all the focus is recently. The focus is on CO2, and in that respect, natural gas is not 'clean'; it's a greenhouse gas.

Re:

[sokoban]

Okay, what other power source do you advocate?

Hydro: Not feasible for most of the world, also ecologically disastrous due to destruction of wetlands.

Wind: Not feasible for most of the world, expensive to maintain.

Solar: Not yet feasible for most of the world, unpredictable energy output, initially expensive, solar panel efficiency is getting better though.

Nuclear (fusion): Still at least a decade from being able to actually produce energy.

Nuclear (fission): Probably the cleanest method of electricity genera

Re:

[vandan]

I advocate an immediate end to the oil wars, US funding of global terrorism ... in particular Israel, and a diversion of all war spending to renewable technology research. You are generally correct when you say that each individual renewable technology won't provide a magic bullet solution. But the reason they can't provide now is that there's no money going into R&D. It doesn't make any sense for the energy companies to invest in it, because they'd be throwing their own money into a technology that the

Re:

[vandan]

just exactly what does "Justice for Palestine " look like, and what the $%@$%# does it have to do with invading Iraq for oil?

Good question. It means the right to their own land, for one thing. It means a dismantling of the terrorist, fundamentalist state of Israel and replacing it with an inclusive, secular state ( which Palestine was prior to 1947 ). It means the right of return for all Palestinian refugees - something which the Israelis have always argued Jews should have, regardless of whether they've

Re:

[vandan]

The British don't have it in their power to 'make' anything secular. Look at the problems they had with their occupation of Ireland. Palestine was secular. Period. Israel changed all that. The PLO and Hamas wish to be rid of all the Israeli occupiers is an understandable position considering what they've had to endure. But still, a majority of Palestinians just want to live in their own country in peace. They would be more than willing to accept a single-state solution, even if it meant that some of the occ

Re:NOT 'clean-burning' by any mean

[vandan]

By your logic, anything that releases CO2 is contributing to Global Warming, am I correct?

No. Only releasing CO2 that has been locked out of the ecosystem for an extended period of time affects climate change. All the rest is already factored into the system, and simple cycles around between plants and animals.

Well, in that case, let's kill all the animals. Dogs, cats, cows, every last one. After all, they're creating dangerous CO2. And then we can all starve to death and we'll die too. That should teach us for breathing. *cough* :P

That's the standard line from the pro-oil PR companies, yes. But it's absurd. The CO2 already in the ecosystem, as I pointed out above, is not contributing to climate change. It's in balance already. The old 'cows farting' line is quite warn out, and completely discredited. Only *new* sources of CO2, such as those locked up in fossil fuels, and which therefore add substantially to the atmosphere when burned, contribute to climate change.

This is a key point that people unsure on climate change are being fooled by. It shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the relationship between plants, animals and CO2.

Re:

[vandan]

your comment does not take into account that the number of livestock likely is increasing, while our rainforests and other "CO2 eaters" are decreasing.

No I didn't mention that, but I don't deny it either. I agree that we should stop cutting down trees to graise animals for food. It's incredibly inefficient, and not sustainable on a global scale. You're right there.

However.. "Manure management" is one of the key sources of methane emissions ( http://www.epa.gov/methane/sources.html [epa.gov] ). Methane is one of th

Re:

[IamTheRealMike]

It doesn't matter if the number of carbon atoms in the system is the same. The point is that the carbon has changed form - as methane it is a far worse greenhouse gas than CO2 would be.

Re:

[dbIII]

Cheney is a big oil trader, in the same vain as Bush. I hardly think it's off-topic to communicate to other link-minded people that he's coming to Australia

What is more - we just changed some gun laws yesterday so his team can carry them - lookout! - Cheney's got a gun!

Re:

[vandan]

Global warming while it may be real is not anything this planet hasn't been through many many times in the past

That's not really true. We have had climate change in the past, but not this fast. We're seeing changes that would have taken tens of thousands of years in previous changes take tens of years instead. And that's because we're digging up billions of tons of CO2 and pumping it into the atmosphere. No-one's done that before. Things haven't happened this fast before. Even the conservative reports are

Re:

[vandan]

There are a number of ways of tracking historical temperature and CO2 levels. One leading way is by drilling into ice ( ironically ) to extract 'cores' that can be sliced up an analysed. The ice traps a number of indicators of environmental variables, in much the same was as the fossil record is created, and new layers are added to the top each year. Analysis of radioactive isotopes present in organic matter gives us an incredibly precise indicator of the date that something was initially frozen. These comb

Re:

[Fex303]

How accurately can we separate man's impact, if any, from natural variation (assuming we know something about the natural short-term variation, if any)?

This is one of those lines that confuses me, especially when set out in the stronger version of the argument: "We don't know for complete certain that mankind is the sole cause of climate change, therefore we should do nothing."

In many ways the actual cause of climate change is a moot point. The climate is changing. This is having adverse effects on t

Re:

[vandan]

Again, read the conservative, establishment reports, keeping in mind they come through establishment filters. The facts are getting to the point where even long-term critics are having to make major concessions. For example here in Australia, Howard has been forced in the past year to switch from being a self-confessed 'climate change skeptic' to admitting that climate change is happening and that human activity is the main driving force behind it. Separating man's impact is as easy as graphing the rate of

Troll?

[mdsolar]

I made a lightbulb joke then complemented the poster?!? Mod the grandparent up!

Re:

[ScrewMaster]

As I understand it, because it burns rather hot tends to produce nitrous oxides. Or something like that. IANAC.

Re:

[ScrewMaster]

I doubt we'll ever need to invade Canada, per se. I can't imagine that Americans would tolerate slaughtering innocent Canucks for their petrochemicals. On the other hand, given the road that Bin Laden and George Bush have set us down, I wouldn't be surprised if Canada found itself annexed some day.

Never happen though. By the time China finishes off our industrial base so we can't support our military, and after Mexico has finished turning us into a clone of their own third-world nation, we wouldn't be ab