Methane Clathrates - the next big disaster?

BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill is an ecological disaster on a grave scale.

Thousands of species will be harmed, tens to hundreds of thousands of people will have their lives changed, and BP, the US government, and insurers, will spend tens to hundreds of billions of dollars in measures that may require decades to make full redress. This is, unfortunately, not the largest disaster BP and other petroleum companies are preparing to risk, in-hand with governments fearing deflection to growth imposed by rising energy costs. Over the last decade exploration into methane clathrate mining has received serious funding, with about $150 million allocated in the US. Other nations such as Japan are also pursuing methane extraction. Methane clathrates--essentially methane locked in ice crystals--are the other fossil fuel; the one not included in the 5 or 6 teratons of carbon widely believed to exist of coal, oil, tar, and gas.

When Dr Myles Allen pointed out to us that fossil fuel stocks were limited to that figure, as an experiment we put 6 teratons of carbon into our model to look at the temperature increase if we burnt all the fossil fuel. The outcome was in the region of 6-8 degrees of warming. That is, up to 2 degrees worse than the worst case scenario imagined in Mark Lynas' book 'Six Degrees' (a shortfall Lynas is aware of and comments on). 6-8 degrees is catastrophic to our present way of existing. Fortunately only 2-4 teratonnes of that carbon will be accessed in the foreseeable future: so frankly when I saw that number I felt a mild sense of relief. Anything over 4 degrees associates with vast desertification, loss of anything up to 90% of Earth's present diversity of animal species, and possible stagnation of the oceans. With fossil fuel stocks limited, the very worst looked like falling short of apocalypse. But...

But what if there were more fossil fuels available? I've seen ranges of anything from 0.5 to 10 teratonnes more carbon predicted to be available in the methane stock. The figures that look most credible to me so far suggest 3-5 teratons. 3-5 teratons carbon locked in a form that is both unstable and holds 20x greater warming potential than carbon as CO2. Let's imagine that only a third of that can be accessed by mining; which is the assumption made in the IPCC reports. This extra teratonne of carbon might equate to 2 degrees more warming. That makes me very nervous, and my threshold for 'nervous' in this context is to do with our survival as a species - not some fluffy notion of having a pretty Earth around to enjoy. However, among the risks noted with drilling for methane is the risk of destabilising clathrate fields releasing very large amounts of methane very quickly. Even should that not happen, warming of the oceans and melting of permafrosts are already releasing methane at a fast rate. Forcing that warming is a bad idea.

Ironically at this point, gas from destabilised methane clathrate is identified as the cause of the explosion in the Deepwater Horizon rig. That should sound a warning shouldn't it? Spoiling the Gulf of Mexico should be the largest environmental disaster BP are prepared to risk.

This week I will be adding the methane clathrate exploitation chain of cards into Fate of the World so that you can discover what you would try 'if you knew you could not fail', as reads the plaque on BP CEO Tony Hayward's desk. Burn, baby, burn...

-Klaude (Producer of Fate of the World)

(A teratonne of carbon is about one hundred and twenty years worth of emissions at our current rate; just so you know.)

Image from "NASA's Terra Satellites Sees Spill" on May 24. Source: Nasa (http://bit.ly/aZhZ6P)