In surveying the environmental damage unleashed from the BP oil spill, could we be missing the 800-pound gorilla in the closet? While oil poses undeniable ecological risks, methane (CH4) could prove daunting as well. As it turns out, crude which is destroying the Gulf of Mexico contains about 40 percent methane which may suffocate marine life and create vast "dead zones" where oxygen becomes so depleted that nothing is allowed to live.
Methane is a colorless, odorless and flammable substance which forms a major component in natural gas. It is used to heat people's homes, and gets burnt off from crude before oil is shipped to the refinery. Though BP has sought to do just that as it captures crude from its breached well, some of the gas has escaped containment efforts and has wound up in the water. As small microbes living in the sea feed on oil and natural gas, they consume large amounts of oxygen which they require in order to digest food.
That in turn exerts an unfortunate ripple effect: when oxygen levels decrease, the breakdown of oil can't advance any further. What's more, most life cannot survive under such conditions. To make it more concrete, think about the plight of the enigmatic giant squid. Living in deep waters, the squid will be severely disrupted by lower oxygen levels. That in turn stands to have an effect on the food chain, since giant squid provide the meal of choice for endangered sperm whales.
While many will focus on methane's impact upon local wildlife, the compound, also known as marsh gas, also stands to affect climate. Indeed, though some of the methane from the Gulf will dissolve in the water, other parts will be emitted to the Earth's atmosphere. That is a problem, since methane is already contributing to our global warming dilemma. Once in the atmosphere, methane absorbs terrestrial infrared radiation that would normally move into outer space. This phenomenon can contribute to atmospheric warming, which is why methane is considered a greenhouse gas.
Though methane is not as abundant as carbon dioxide, it is twenty times more potent and scientists believe that over the eons it has played a key role in spurring climate change. Some of that history, which has to do with oceans, now pertains to the disaster which we confront in the Gulf. When it is released into the ocean-atmosphere system, methane reacts with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. This in turn may result in something called marine dysoxia, a phenomenon which kills off oxygen-using animals.
Some experts believe that marine dysoxia may be responsible for major oceanic extinctions. "We know that millions of years ago, there were vast undersea eruptions where methane gas escaped just like it is doing right now," says oceanographer John Kessler of Texas A&M University. "It is thought that this methane eventually contributed to climate change," he adds.
Fifty five million years ago, there's evidence of a submarine landslide off the coast of Florida and huge volcanic eruptions under the North Atlantic. That in turn may have released trapped methane which made global temperatures skyrocket by 4-8 degrees Celsius. At the time, summer heat waves scorched the landscape in Spain, giving rise to desert terrain. As far north as England and Belgium, palm mangroves thrived while Mediterranean algae proliferated in the Arctic Ocean.
Though you wouldn't know it from listening to the media, methane has been contributing to global warming more recently. In the tropics, as I disclose in great detail in my recent book No Rain in the Amazon: How South America's Climate Affects the Entire Planet (Palgrave-Macmillan), methane emissions result from such human related (or anthropogenic) activities as livestock and other agricultural practices.
Methane emissions however are also linked to the oil and gas industry. Indeed, right now in the U.S., oil and gas operations represent approximately 23 percent of yearly methane emissions and 2 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. And while underwater methane emissions are certainly worrying, this is just the tip of the iceberg: every day, the oil industry contributes to global warming simply through its routine operations.
During the production, processing, storage, transmission and distribution of natural gas, methane losses are prone to occur. Moreover, because gas is frequently encountered in association with oil, the production, refinement, transportation, and storage of crude oil is also a source of methane emissions.
As they move abroad, U.S. oil companies exacerbate methane emissions in the tropics. As I reveal in my book, petroleum corporations have set up shop in the Amazon rainforest, thereby contributing to high levels of pollution. In Ecuador, Texaco left a legacy of disease and environmental damage on a massive scale [for a thorough discussion of the issue, see my online review of the recent documentary, Crude]. As part of its operations, the company set up industrial infrastructure including methane gas burn-off stacks. Running 24 hours a day, the stacks turned life into a living hell for local residents.
In the town of Shushufindi, Texaco drilled for oil which brought up massive quantities of methane and tainted water intermingled with oil, heavy metals and oil byproducts. This "production water," which the Indians claimed was cancer-causing, was simply dumped into pits. Indians charged that alongside the Napo River, a tributary of the Amazon, people fell ill from unknown diseases. Manuel Silva, a farmer and environmental activist, told the Boston Globe, "Many people just faint for no reason...It is very common for people to lose their memory, especially the people who live close to the pits and the flares."
In a very general sense, Americans know that oil is polluting though the majority fails to grasp the diverse environmental risks associated with its production. Hopefully, methane emissions from the BP disaster will not result in even greater ecological disaster, yet if anything the environmental tragedy in the Gulf may serve to focus the public's attention on the critical issue of methane.
If there is one silver lining to the Gulf tragedy it is this: methane has a relatively short atmospheric lifetime. As such, the compound is a prime candidate for mitigating global warming over the near-term, say in the next 25 years or so. If and when the authorities manage to get a handle on the BP disaster, it will be high time to engage the public about the need to grapple with this potent but little known greenhouse gas.
Nikolas Kozloff is the author of No Rain in the Amazon: How South America's Climate Affects the Entire Planet (Palgrave-Macmillan). Visit his blog, http://www.nikolaskozloff.com/
Since an event like this is unprecedented, (in so many ways), I will play the Devils Advocate. The well will not collapse, it will erupt. Some reports say that they are sonar imaging a large bubble of gas forming beneath the rock. If a large enough bubble comes up under the ship(s) they can be sunk. Ships float by displacing water, not methane! A big enough bubble can drop a ship as much as a hundred feet. They have found trawlers in the North Sea resting on top of naturally occurring gas leaks. Most of the time, the ships didn't even have enough time to send out a distress call.
Evil floats, so the BP managers who tell them to ignore the warning signs will probably escape unscathed.
Everyone should be wearing life preservers that will give you time to get to the surface after your ship is dragged down such as a Steinke Hood or a Submarine Escape Immersion Equipment (escaping from compartments that contain air before it gets too deep) (SEIE) MK-10. There may be very little warning time, as the bubbles tend to increase pretty quickly. When the sonar shows something big coming up from sea bottom, sound the alarms and GET THE HELL OUT OUT OF THERE!
What is the reason for the disconnect? In spite of what they say, most people show little concern about the future, especially what they perceive as the far future. The young believe they are immortal; they smoke and do other activities with abandon, with no regard for the consequences. While they are the ones who will be most affected by global warming, their increased drive for material consumption has taken first priority. The old believe their days are numbered, and they will not suffer greatly from climate effects. As one friend said to me: "suppose in the twenty or so years you have left the sea level rises one foot; you can live with that". TO BE CONTINUED
So, there is no constituency that sees the true emergency that is unfolding, and is willing to take the drastic steps required to counter it. Most people and corporations don't want to undergo the near-term economic dislocations and other hardships that are required. If the truth be known, concern for future generations makes nice political theater, but very few really believe it.
I see absolutely no chance that we will avoid the worst of global warming, and I believe the runaway conditions will bring it on far sooner than anyone predicts in print. If anyone believes we have immigration problems now, when people are trying to enter the USA to increase their standard of living, what will be the immigration problems for the USA and Canada when people want to enter for survival purposes?
See: Life Threatening Danger and Ticking Time Bomb at http://www.aesopinstitute.org
Also, What to Do! on the same website.
This may prove to be a dire emergency! Far greater than has so far been generally understood.
Recognize the dimensions of this extraordinary set of problems!
A scientist has stated that if a thin film of oil from this geyser covers the surface of the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans, it will raise the temperature sufficiently to accelerate the melting of the permafrost, releasing huge additional amounts of methane and accelerating the possibility of reaching a Tipping Point.
If that occurs most life in the Northern Hemisphere may be at hazard.
Methane may have all but eliminated life on earth twice before in the history of the planet. In one case only single celled animals survived. Recovery took millions of years.
This may become the most threatening event in history.
Wise leadership will seek to confirm or refute this information. If it is accurate, we need an all out effort to do what we can to keep the oil from spreading into the Atlantic.
There is no sign that is a priority at this time.
We need much better leadership from the White House - fast!
For far more detail and information, see: What to Do at www.aesopinstitute.org
There may still be sufficient time to take significant action!
A possible near-term end to most human life on earth is not something to ignore.
See http://www.aesopinstitute.org for articles that open new doors to both problems.
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January 15, 2010
The Guardian/UK
Arctic Permafrost Leaking Methane at Record Levels
by David Adam
Scientists have recorded a massive spike in the amount of a powerful greenhouse gas seeping from Arctic permafrost, in a discovery that highlights the risks of a dangerous climate tipping point.
http://www.commondreams.org/print/51662
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March 4, 2010
National Science Foundation
Methane Releases From Arctic Shelf May Be Much Larger and Faster Than
Anticipated
Thawing by climate change of subsea layer of permafrost may release
stores of underlying, seabed methane
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=116532&org=NSF&from=news
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March 4, 2010
ClimateProgress.org
Science stunner: Vast East Siberian Arctic Shelf methane stores
destabilizing and venting
NSF issues world a wake-up call: "Release of even a fraction of the
methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming."
by Joseph Romm
[This article includes extensive background references re methane/
climate change issue.]
http://climateprogress.org/2010/03/04/science-nsf-tundra-permafrost-methane-east-siberian-arctic-shelf-venting/
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More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/20/deepwater-methane-hydrates-bp-gulf/print
http://climateprogress.org/2010/05/21/arctic-sea-ice-area-extent-volume-record-low/#more-25710
http://climateprogress.org/2010/05/24/arctic-sea-ice-extent-volume-nsidc-record-steve-goddard/
http://www.scientificblogging.com/print/6800
Still unknown, however, is the environmental threshold point -- the tipping point of no return: five years, 10 years, 25 years or slightly more, or has it already occurred but we, the public, haven't yet been told. If so, when will we be told?
This is a result of nature not being linear but being fractal and working on power laws. The result of this fact is that sometimes even large changes in one or several parameters do nothing at all to unhinge the system, while in other circumstances even a small change in one parameter can tilt the system and dip it into chaos until a new equilibrium is found.
It's quite possible that no one really knows - because no one really understands - where we are today.
There are some safe choices, however, as switching to fuel-cells, but humans won't go there for some reason.
You can repeat your suggestion all you want. Just don't expect to be taken seriously.
I say methane isn't the problem, it's the solution. Let's see an airplane that runs on CNG, a diesel locomotive, cars, motorcycles, lawn mowers. This is doable. There's plenty of the stuff, apparently.
http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/511natgascombust.html