US claims 'unprecedented' success in test for new fuel source

[IDemo]

Could the future of cleaner fossil fuel really be frozen crystals now trapped in ocean sediments and under permafrost?

Backed by an oil industry giant, the Obama administration recently tested a drilling technique in Alaska's Arctic that it says might eventually unlock "a vast, entirely untapped resource that holds enormous potential for U.S. economic and energy security." Some experts believe the reserves could provide domestic fuel for hundreds of years to come.

Those 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.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/05/11522433-us-claims-unprecedented-success-in-test-for-new-fuel-source?lite

[Champion Jack]

1. Could this be the same Oil industry giant who tells us that fracking is safe?

That natural gas is clean and will provide 100 years of energy for the US?

[IDemo]

2. Conoco Phillips

If they're using CO2 rather than fracking fluids, that's a start. The question would be - will the CO2 remain sequestered or seep back into the atmosphere over time? And would drilling activity cause methane releases which would completely negate the benefits of CO2 sequestration anyway?

[eppur_se_muova]

3. One more step AWAY from a carbon-neutral world.

The methane is burned to produce more carbon dioxide. Any methane that leaks out is 14 times more effective as a GHG than CO2.

This "new" fuel source is just more natural gas in a slightly different form, still a fossil fuel.

[FogerRox]

4. When renewasble price come down enough

Investments like this wont even be on the table.

[GliderGuider]

5. This is boneheaded on so many levels

More drilling in the far north.
Leaking methane into the atmosphere.
But the big one is the fact that every molecule of methane turns into four molecules of CO2 when it's burned. So unless the process uses four times as much CO2 as the methane it recovers, it's a climate change loser to start with.

I'm really concerned that we're starting to treat obscenities like this as though they are no big deal. what does that say about the point we're at in our trajectory?

[IDemo]

6. Truthfully, I suspect that the methane releases already occurring without our help mean Game Over

And now, a new study from NASA shows large methane releases directly from seawater, along with what we already knew was coming from thawing tundra.