STRANGE BUBBLES IN A BEAUTIFUL AND PEACEFUL CANADIAN LAKE - They erupt in fire if lit with a match - They are methane gas formed when microbes consume organic matter at the bottom of the lake

©http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/. Unauthorized duplication of this blog's material is prohibited.   Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full credit and link is given to Otters and Science News Blogspot.  Link to this post:  http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2015/01/strange-bubbles-in-beautiful-and.html - Thank you for visiting my blog.
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A photographer has captured amazing images of methane bubbles in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada

The pictures show a frozen lake with the icy 'circles' trapped underneath in fascinating formations

In the summer the bubbles simply rise to the surface and pop, but in the winter they are frozen within the ice

Methane is 25 times more potent as a heat-trapping gas than carbon dioxide, and ignites easily when lit

These lakes may look like they are full of bizarre floating sea creatures, but they are actually filled with thousands of frozen bubbles.

 

Snapped across Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada, the natural wonders are made of highly flammable gas methane.

See more images

THE EERIE BEAUTY OF TOXIC METHANE BUBBLES IN CANADIAN LAKE

Pictures capture highly-flammable methane trapped just inches below surface of frozen lake

Bubbles are formed when plants on the lake bed release methane gas, which freezes as it reaches the lake surface

Scientists believe that if the temperature of the planet continues to rise, gas could be released into the atmosphere

Stunning photographs taken at Lake Abraham in Canada by Darwin Wiggett

See pictures here - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2512751/Stunning-images-toxic-highly-flammable-methane-bubbles-trapped-just-inches-surface-frozen-lake.html

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ENERGY NEWS -

EPA releases study favorable to fracking

Latest EPA methane release study is based on the fracking industry's own figures

 
Yahoo News: 

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has dramatically lowered its estimate of how much Methane, a potent heat-trapping gas, leaks during natural gas production

 

EPA now says that tighter pollution controls instituted by the industry resulted in 20 percent reduction from previous estimates.

 

EPA revisions came even though natural gas production has grown by nearly 40 percent since 1990.

 

EPA said it made the changes based on expert reviews and new data from several sources, including a report funded by the oil and gas industry. But the estimates aren't based on independent field tests of actual emissions, and some scientists said that's a problem.

 

Robert Howarth, a Cornell University professor of ecology who led a 2011 methane leak study that is widely cited by critics of fracking, wrote in an email that "time will tell where the truth lies in all this, but I think EPA is wrong."

                

Howarth said other federal climate scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have published recent studies documenting massive methane leaks from natural gas operations in Colorado and other Western states.

 

Howarth wrote that the EPA seems "to be ignoring the published NOAA data in their latest efforts, and the bias on industry only pushing estimates downward — never up — is quite real. EPA badly needs a counter-acting force, such as outside independent review of their process."

 

The new EPA figures still show natural gas operations as the leading source of methane emissions in the U.S., at about 145 million metric tons in 2011. The next biggest source was enteric fermentation, scientific jargon for belches from cows and other animals, at 137 million metric tons. Landfills were the third-biggest source, at 103 million metric tons.

 

The EPA revisions have international implications, too. The agency says the new report, Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, was submitted to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change by an April 15 deadline.

Read more:  http://news.yahoo.com/epa-methane-report-further-divides-161201451.html

Fracking news:  http://ecowatch.com/p/energy/fracking-2/

Video Gasland Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phCibwj396I
Video Gasland Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_uNx2fXlfE

ENERGY NEWS

 

Japan starts Methane Mining

 

 

 

Ready for more global warming, submarine earthquakes, and tsunamis? Why not? Methane will be cheap.

Also known as  Fire Ice, Methane Hydrates or Methane Clathrates.


They is a huge reservoir of fuel trapped inside ice crystals deep in the ocean floor, under layers of sediments. They could hold up to 15 times the amount of gas in shale deposits, and represent more carbon than all the world's fossil fuels combined. Japan has already started extraction.

 

RISKS
 

Methane use as fuel would result in accelerated global warming. There is also the risk of drilling and pipeline accidents deep in the ocean and along lower margins of continental slopes where land meets ocean. 
 

William Harris writes: Even if you can situate a rig safely, methane hydrate is unstable once it's removed from the high pressures and low temperatures of the deep sea.

Methane begins to escape even as it's being transported to the surface. Unless there's a way to prevent this leakage of natural gas, extraction won't be efficient. It will be a bit like hauling up well water using a pail riddled with holes.

Believe it or not, this leakage may be the least of the worries. Many geologists suspect that gas hydrates play an important role in stabilizing the seafloor. Drilling in these oceanic deposits could destabilize the seabed, causing vast swaths of sediment to slide for miles down the continental slope.

Evidence suggests that such underwater landslides have occurred in the past (see sidebar), with devastating consequences. The movement of so much sediment would certainly trigger massive tsunamis similar to those seen in the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004. How Frozen Fuel Works

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-tech/energy-production/frozen-fuel4.htm

 

R.P. Siegel writes: How much of this push into more and more risky forms of energy production, is based on true need, in the absence of viable alternatives, and how much of it is, as I have suggested before, the actions of a very deep-pocketed energy industry using the prospect of lower prices to forestall any movement away from their products, regardless of the risks; be it offshore drilling, tar sands oil pipelines, fracking and now methane hydrates.

All of these energy sources have been known for 40-50 years, but were considered either too risky or not economically viable at the time. What is driving the transformation of that viewpoint? Is it desperation or is it greed, or perhaps some combination of the two?

http://www.triplepundit.com/2013/03/methane-hydrates-energy-salvation-worst/

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Also read: Game Over for the Environment - http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2013/03/19/methane-hydrates-bigger-than-shale-gas-game-over-for-the-environment/

THE LOUISIANA SINKHOLE - THE MOST IGNORED CRISIS IN THE U.S.A

UPDATE - Response operations at the 8.6-acre sinkhole in Assumption Parish were halted Tuesday after seismic monitors noted an increase in underground tremors that have been linked with “burps” and edge collapses in the yawning slurry hole, state regulators and parish officials said.

 

The failure of a Texas Brine Co. LLC cavern, known as Oxy Geismar No. 3, is believed to be the cause of the sinkhole and other related developments, including gas becoming trapped underground in the vicinity of the sinkhole. About 350 residents remain under evacuation orders in the Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou communities.

 

Located near the edge of the salt dome, the Texas Brine cavern underwent a sidewall collapse at a depth of more than 5,000 feet that has allowed millions of cubic yards of rock to flow into the brine-filled cavity. This shift in the earth led to the formation of the sinkhole, found Aug. 3 in a swampy area of northern Assumption Parish.

 

Texas Brine now has 17 vent wells flaring off methane gas trapped under the area. Two more wells were added Tuesday

Read more -  http://theadvocate.com/news/ascension/5291883-123/tremors-detected-sinkhole-work-suspended

Hat tip to ENENEWS

Smithsonian Magazine VIDEO :  Giant Sinkhole Is Swallowing Up a Louisiana Bayou Community

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A TRILLION TONS OF METHANE INTO OUR ATMOSPHERE? A NEW STUDY

©http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/. Unauthorized duplication of this blog's material is prohibited.   Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full credit and link is given to Otters and Science News Blogspot. 
Link to this post:  http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2013/02/climate-news-trillion-tons-of-methane.html - Thank you for visiting my blog.
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New study on rising temperatures and

 the release of Siberian methane into the atmosphere

 

Study of Siberian permafrost caves shows global warming of just 1.5C 'would pump out a TRILLION tonnes of methane and CO2'

 

An ice hall in the Ledyanaya Lenskaya Cave: Stalactites and stalagmites only grow in the presence of liquid water. By dating them researchers worked out when they last grew and what the global temperatures were

 

U.N. studies show global temperatures have already risen by 0.7C

Huge increase in levels of CO2 could accelerate global warming

Infrastructure built on top of permafrost across the world would collapse

Governments currently committed to no more than 2C climate change

A little increase in global temperatures could unleash catastrophe. The Earth warming process feeds on itself. A small increase past a certain point could release unimaginable amounts of methane, now frozen in Siberian permafrost. 

Methane in the atmosphere would then act as a trigger for more global warming, precipitating a catastrophe.

Climate change is a fact, and it has been so for four and a half billion years. Ours is a living planet, and so it evolves, it suffers from crises, it adapts, it changes constantly.

In spite of disagreements over planet cooling and warming aside, present conditions point to global warming. I live in Canada and Arctic ice IS MELTING. 

Maybe these conditions will reverse, maybe not. And if they do not,  even small increases in global temperatures could unleash a catastrophe, once stored methane evaporates into the atmosphere.

A temperature increase of only 1.5 C could accelerate melting of Siberian permafrost adding 1,000 gigatones of carbon dioxide and methane to our atmosphere.