Peak Oil? Send It To The Scrap Heap Of History?

Five or six years ago in Bellingham, Washington a City Council Member raised the specter of "Peak Oil" as a reason to vote against a grocery store.  After all, the Councilman explained, due to Peak Oil (maximum production had been reached so resources could only decline even as demand increased so, most people would be priced out of the transportation marketplace) the new store would be an isolated and empty eyesore on the city's landscape in just a few years because...

Well, just because...

Enter, Methane Hydrates...

The following is heisted from the Department of Energy website...  The thing to keep in mind is, estimates of the energy potential of Methane Hydrates range from "more than all the other fossil fuels on earth" to one estimate given out by a nationally respected research laboratory about ten years ago mentioning a range of from 350 - 3,500 years worth of energy.

So:
"Methane hydrate is a cage-like lattice of ice inside of which are trapped molecules of methane,  the chief constituent of natural gas. If methane hydrate is either warmed or depressurized, it will revert back to water and natural gas. When brought to the earth's surface, one cubic meter of gas hydrate releases 164 cubic meters of natural gas. Hydrate deposits may be several hundred meters thick and generally occur in two types of settings: under Arctic permafrost, and beneath the ocean floor. Methane that forms hydrate can be both biogenic, created by biological activity in sediments, and thermogenic, created by geological processes deeper within the earth."

While global estimates vary considerably, the energy content of methane occurring in hydrate form is immense, possibly exceeding the combined energy content of all other known fossil fuels. However, future production volumes are speculative because methane production from hydrate has not been documented beyond small-scale field experiments. 

Peak Oil?   Send it to the scrap heap of history

Methane is a clean burning natural gas as well as a powerful greenhouse gas

The U.S. Department of Energy methane hydrate program aims to develop the tools and technologies to allow environmentally safe methane production from arctic and domestic offshore hydrates. The program includes R&D in:

• Production Feasibility: Methane hydrates occur in large quantities beneath the permafrost and offshore, on and below the seafloor. DOE R&D is focused on determining the potential and environmental implications of production of natural gas from hydrates.
• Research and Modeling: DOE is studying innovative ways to predict the location and concentration of subsurface methane hydrate before drilling. DOE is also conducting studies to understand the physical properties of gas hydrate-bearing strata and to model this understanding at reservoir scale to predict future behavior and production.
• Climate Change: DOE is studying the role of methane hydrate formation and dissociation in the global carbon cycle. Another aspect of this research is incorporating GH science into climate models to understand the relationship between global warming and methane hydrates.
• International Collaboration: International collaboration continues to be a vital part of the program since gas hydrates represent research challenges and resource potential that are important on a global scale.

Let's Find Some Middle Ground On Global Warming

It’s been a dangerous life for me.

When I was a grade school kid we were all going to die in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.

The Olympic Rain Forest in the year 2100 as envisioned in the 1950s 

In High School and College I learned we were actually all going to die under a sheet of ice as global cooling had its way.

Downtown Phoenix under a sheet of ice in the year 2100 as envisioned in the 1970s

Today I know the “truth.”  We are all going to die as global warming destroys the earth and anyone denying that is an Eco-Nazi… or worse.

Downtown Miami below sea-level in the year 2100 as envisioned in 2012

Well, the truth is, we should all work to be the best stewards of our environment possible.

In terms of environmental enhancement our problem is not temperature extremes, it is temperament extremes. 

The pop-environmental movement is a far greater threat to quality of life and environmental improvement than global warming is.  The vehement “deniers” are an equal threat.

Where there is middle ground, we should find it.

The Dirt On Composting

Imagine you were hired by some fiendish, mad, corporate devil (aren’t the bad guys always corporate devils?) to devise a plan to pervert the army of earth loving, sensitive hearted and always sustainability conscious angels (aren’t eco-warriors and warriorettes always angelic?), causing them to become, unknowingly, foul polluters of the very environment they purport to love. 

You’re given one hour to hatch your dastardly plot.

 “Oh, drat! No fair!” you shout after considering the conundrum for all of ten seconds.  “I can’t take your money!  A plan like that is already in place and working magnificently.  Governments across North America have already accomplished the task and revel in its success.  Nearly every sizable town in the country has already perverted the environmental movement, enlisting the boys and girls in creating and sustaining green house gas factories dedicated to pumping their major product, carbon dioxide and methane, directly into the atmosphere.

Processed yard waste ready to haul to the green house gas production facility

In my town they call it “Clean Green.”  In your town they may call it something else.

In the world of science the greenhouse gas factory is called “composting.”

Clean Green, and other, similar programs in my town and, probably, in yours, is based on collecting a variety of organic materials and composting them, either in commercial facilities or, even more subtle and effective in terms of creating and releasing prodigious quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, in home composting efforts. 

Composting is a pretty straightforward process taking place every day in the natural world.  Organic material is collected and encouraged to rot or, alternatively, be digested.   As the material rots or is digested, the carbon it contains is emitted in the form of a number of greenhouse gasses including carbon dioxide, methane and others.  The mix of gasses is largely determined by the nature of the  process; aerobic or anaerobic. 

There are important differences between the two.

It might be a little simplistic but, is helpful in understanding the important parameters of the issue to equate aerobic composting, composting requiring adequate oxygen, to the rotting one sees when any dead organic is left lying about.

Anaerobic composting can be likened to digestion.  Particular little critters break down the organics, mostly in the absence of much oxygen.

A well tended commercial operation based on aerobic composting, as most are, will be one in which the compost is turned regularly so as to provide for plenty of oxygen.  The product is a soil amendment with some nutrients available to fuel new plant growth.  Most of the off gasses from the process will emit to the atmosphere are in the form of carbon dioxide although contaminants part of the original “fuel” source (chemical applied to the foliage being ground and composted as well as other compounds) will also off gas.

A commercial composting operation will emit, over the course of a year, huge volumes of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

Poorly tended composters, sometimes commercial and nearly always the case in home composting operations, are more problematic.

When organics are piled up and left without proper turning to allow for the introduction of oxygen into the mix, anaerobic composting takes place.

When anaerobic composting is either chosen or, takes place as the result of neglect, large quantities of the carbon created as part of the composting process take the form of methane.

Natural gas, used by many in the world for heating, cooking, generating power and other necessities is primarily methane.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, “When released to the air, methane is a greenhouse gas that traps 20 times more heat than carbon dioxide (another greenhouse gas). When burned, methane releases up to 25% less carbon dioxide than the combustion of the same mass of coal and does not emit the nitrogen and sulfur oxides known to damage the environment.”

Now, the beauty of anaerobic composting is that it can be accomplished inside sealed vessels in a facility created for the purpose.  That means, if we really wanted to, as a matter of public policy, we could gather the organics we now process through our carbon production facilities (anaerobic composters) and use them to create methane which could then be piped into our natural gas pipelines.  The savings in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and, more important, the long term effects, would be stupendous.

But then, that would actually be green wouldn’t it? 

Other solutions also exist.  Most woody waste can be incinerated with the resulting energy captured and utilized to create electricity.  Biomass burning to create electricity is actually a greenhouse gas positive because it not only offsets fossil fuel use, it also results in the reduction of methane over composting.

If any phrase accurately describes the pop environmental movement it is, “Form over substance.”  Looking good is far more important than getting it right. 

If we really want to enhance our environment we really must focus more on “getting it right.”