Send all your eco-inquiries to Jennifer Grayson at eco.etiquette@gmail.com. Questions may be edited for length and clarity.
The oil and dispersants in the Gulf are enough to worry about, but why is no one talking about the methane from the spill possibly reaching the atmosphere? Could this have an effect on climate change? And if so, shouldn't BP be liable not only for the damage caused by oil, but for the potentially massive greenhouse impact?
-Josh
Methane. Long associated with bovine burps and putrid landfills, it's what triggered the explosion that caused the Deepwater Horizon to burn and sink in the first place, unleashing a torrent of crude into the Gulf of Mexico that has now surpassed the Exxon Valdez as the worst oil spill in United States history. The gas is also still being released along with the oil: According to BP scientists, the mixture spewing from the ocean floor is about 40 percent natural gas (read: mostly methane), and 60 percent petroleum compounds.
Just to refresh your memory, methane is a greenhouse gas that is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, methane concentrations in the atmosphere have more than doubled over the past two centuries, mostly due to human activity.
A potent greenhouse gas. That makes up close to half of the recently revised estimate of the 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil leaking each day. Of which an unknown portion is escaping into the atmosphere. You're right to ask: Why is no one talking about this?
When I contacted Jeff Chanton, a professor in the Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science at Florida State University who has been closely following the BP spill, he was quick to point out that the immediate short-term threat to the ecosystem in the Gulf, is, of course, the oil itself.
But, he says, "Methane is undeniably bubbling out with this oil and escaping to the atmosphere," he says. "This will exacerbate the greenhouse effect."
How much so, though, is not so clear. Based on Chanton's recent research looking at natural oil seeps on the sea floor, he estimates that anywhere from 10 to 50 percent of the methane released might make its way into the air. This, he says, is because the oil actually forms a protective coating around the methane bubbles, allowing the gas to escape to the surface instead of being dissolved in seawater and consumed by natural methanotrophic bacteria.
"We looked at several sites this past summer, and at one of the sites, the natural seep was very oily," he says. "At the site that was very oily, we did find elevated methane concentrations in the atmosphere over the site. But another site that was more shallow, where the bubbles were not oily, we didn't see that. So the oil helps the methane get to the surface by kind of armoring the bubbles and then they don't dissolve as much."
So now, for the holy cow analysis: For calculation's sake, let's use the flared natural gas figure reported by BP on June 14: 33.2 million cubic feet. (Keep in mind that this is based on the 15,420 barrels of oil BP claimed to collect that day; it doesn't account for the potential methane emissions associated with the oil that was not collected.)
Using the EPA Interactive Units Converter:
1 cubic foot (CF) methane (CH4) = .04246 pounds of CH4
33.2 million CF CH4 x .04246 = 1,409,672 pounds CH4 = 639.4 metric tons CH4
639.4 metric tons CH4 = 13,427.4 metric tons CO2 equivalent a day
For comparison, that's more than 80 percent of daily CO2 emissions for the entire New York metro area.
Of course, I'm neither scientist nor mathematician, which is why I'll be closely following the results of a team of researchers currently studying the methane leaking from the Deepwater Horizon disaster site. The group, led by Texas A&M College of Geosciences chief scientist John Kessler, hopes to uncover (along with other important data, like the precise amount of oil that has spilled) just how much of the greenhouse gas is being released into the atmosphere.
Should the spill be deemed a contributor to climate change, however, count it highly unlikely that BP will be held accountable. If Washington can't agree on a price point for carbon pollution, monetizing methane doesn't stand a chance.
Besides, getting BP to pay every penny for the damage that is measurable (like lost jobs) will be challenging enough, despite the president's insistence to the contrary: Twenty-one years after the Valdez oil spill, ExxonMobil still owes $92 million.
BP CEO Tony Hayward, however, has repeated his promise that the company will pay all "legitimate" claims arising from the Gulf spill. Let's hope that methane is the only hot air the company is spewing.
An abbreviated version of this article originally appeared on The Red, White and Green.
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Jennifer Grayson: Eco Etiquette: How Can I Recycle Flip-Flops?
Send all your eco-inquiries to Jennifer Grayson at eco.etiquette@gmail.com. Questions may be edited for length and clarity. Help! I am drowning in old flip-flops. Can...
See: Life Threatening Danger at http://www.aesopinstitute.org updated today.
Also, What to Do! and Worst Case Scenario - on the same website.
If a thin oil slick reaches the Atlantic and Arctic oceans it might accelerate Global Warming.
Chris Landau, a geologist, believes they need to drill 8 or more new, vertical wells, in a circle around the gusher, on the assumption that far more oil will be produced than can otherwise be controlled.
He states that huge quantities of oil might continue to be produced.
You may want to also read Moving Beyond Oil and Running on Water on that Aesop site.
With adequate support, a 24/7 development program could move breakthrough technologies into production.
We can supersede oil faster than might be imagined.
This may prove to be an emergency equivalent to all out war!
These new technologies are much less complicated than weapons systems.
The science is hard to believe, as it disagrees with conventional wisdom. But, independent and National laboratories are increasingly involved. Once prototypes for schools are in production, it will become obvious that gasoline, oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear power will face low cost competition that can leave all of them behind.
Recognize this emergency! We have a difficult, but possible, job to do!
So, let's begin to really do it! An important step is to learn more about what to do!
You might send your Woods Hole contact a link to my website: http://www.aesopinstitute.org
Several other articles could also prove of interest.
Also, there should be an INVESTIGATION about why BP didn't impose the same safety standards in America as they would in the North Sea. I saw a sarcastic smile on Hayward's face the whole time he was being interviewed. He wasn't sorry. He was laughing at us--at the small people who live in America.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming, according to Mike Hulme, a prominent climate scientist and IPCC insider. The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was “only a few dozen experts,” he states in a paper for Progress in Physical Geography, co-authored with student Martin Mahony.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/06/13/the-ipcc-consensus-on-climate-change-was-phoney-says-ipcc-insider/
The methane which is being released has not been measured accurately but neither BP nor anyone else can pay for this. It is far past the point at which tossing money at it will do any good. The problem is described here: http://drtom.posterous.com/why-everyone-is-stalling
however things are looking so bad regarding global warming at this point-it cannot get much worse.
At another Blog- Climate Progress the opinion on the Medias Role in the scant coverage of the dire future we many have- and the lack of real coverage on the increasing strange weather are probably a necessitated calculated risk of cover-up.
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1059976/pg1
Anyway this is the video I got.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jPjJPVdR4g
I don't know anyone who cuts down trees. A couple of years ago, here in Austin, a company accidently cut down some trees in South Austin..........what a firestorm!
One of the best things about living in Austin is the town slogan "Keep Austin Weird" A push against big business and the like. All my friends shop locally owned....and mostly green.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVdnkMxocl0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1jDJ1ARPJQ
THIS topic is of monumental importance and it's been hard enough to find analysis on longer term impacts on the Gulf Stream.
Many thanks to the author for raising this point.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51843
The Atlantis is the next rig BP will blow up in a couple years. They'll say the same thing over and over again, just like they did when the spilled oil in a pipeline in Alaska.
The Pentagon should get a contract with a different oil company with a better record. It is time to throw BP off the bus.