Doug Beghtel / The OregonianOSU student Kathy VanWormer gets final instructions from a teammate as she prepares for a test drive of their solar car, Rain Dancer

CORVALLIS — A solar car sits in a sun-splashed driveway in Corvallis, its sleek shiny surface interrupted only by a compact plastic bubble over the cockpit.

Switches click and components engage, and the car moves silently into the street, its first test drive after three years in the making.

“I can’t steer right now, by the way,” comes the muffled voice of Oregon State University student Kathy VanWormer, 26, who’s tucked into the driver’s seat wiggling a toy-like blue wheel back and forth.

So goes the final de-bugging of Rain Dancer, a solar car designed and built by a group of OSU students. The team, led by VanWormer and Hai-Yue Han, are getting ready to head to Plano, Texas, for the start of the North American Solar Challenge, a 2,400-mile race that will end in Calgary, Canada.

read more:

http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2008/07/osu_students_enter_solar_car_i.html

Earth’s Core, Magnetic Field Changing

Fast, Study Says

The findings suggest similarly quick changes are simultaneously occurring in the liquid metal, 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) below the surface, he said.

The swirling flow of molten iron and nickel around Earth’s solid center triggers an electrical current, which generates the planet’s magnetic field.

(Learn more about Earth’s interior.)

The study, published recently in Nature Geoscience, modeled Earth’s magnetic field using nine years of highly accurate satellite data.

read more:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080630-earth-core.html

STOP US SENATE BILLS S2191 & S3036 - CLIMATE SECURITY ACT SHAMS

By Rosalind Peterson
July 1, 2008
NewsWithViews.com

Two climate security act shams, U.S. Senate Bills S2191 and S3036, were debated on the floor of the U.S. Senate between June 2-6, 2008. Senators Boxer and Lieberman will be bringing this legislation forward, in the near future, once they have the sixty votes needed pass either one of them.

These bills are designed to sell out the health and welfare of the people of the United States in order to establish a national and international Cap & Trade Money Market Scheme, and under Section 6E, “…initiate programs to “mitigate” the impacts of any unavoidable global climate change…” These bills have nothing to do with “Climate Security”. They are designed to fleece the American people out of $Billions of their tax dollars to support a questionable “market scheme of carbon trading” by selling “emission allowances” to polluters to allow them to pollute more in the future.

This year a so-called environmental group, the Environmental Defense Fund, is promoting the passage of these bills which would move the United States EPA into becoming, a market based “Climate Change Credit Corporation”, instead of an agency that works to reduce air pollution at it source, in order to protect human health and our air, water, soil, and trees from the detrimental effects of ever-increasing air and water pollution.

Another new board will be established if #3036 is passed: The “Carbon Market Efficiency Board.” The term of a board member has been changed to where an appointed board member could serve for up to 14 years. This private corporation and board will be made up of presidential political appointees with little or no Congressional oversight or regulations.

The buying and selling of bogus pollution credits will not be regulated under this bill. It is like having the American taxpayers fund a worldwide gambling casino made up of American assets. And it appears that nothing will happen until 2012; doing nothing to implement the reduction of air pollution for four years.

Taxpayers will fund this new, private, and mostly unregulated private corporation, which will negate the purpose and goals of the EPA as stated: “The mission of the Environmental Protection Agency is to protect human health and the environment.”

Senators Boxer, Feinstein, Lieberman, and Warner, staunch supporters of these bills, did not write into the 500+/- pages of legislation that the EPA libraries, closed by the Bush Administration, should be reopened and funded. These bills do not stress that polluters should be fined for polluting our environment, rivers, lakes or streams. Instead they reward polluters by allowing them to purchase bogus emission credits which allow them to continue to pollute unabated for years. Instead of structuring higher EPA fines for polluters to pay if they exceed pollution laws…these bills provide an escape hatch for polluters and negate EPA rules and regulations at the same time.

We know that many financial markets, like the oil futures markets, are unregulated and have cost Americans $Billions of dollars in ever increasing fuel prices. These bills set up a system that will operate under a similar structure.

In the end the taxpayers will pay because corporations will transfer their costs to consumers through higher prices. Goods arriving from other countries will have higher prices due to emissions charges, and we will fund this private corporation through higher gasoline and income taxes, a double and triple tax on all citizens. This will add to speculation in the emissions credit markets and will enrich those industries that are not polluting, giving them bogus emission credits that they can then sell to polluters.

The American taxpayer fleecing will be complete if either of these bills pass. The self-reinforcing bubble market created by the buying and selling of emissions credits will eventually collapse and then the taxpayer will fund that collapse. If our elected officials want to reduce pollutants all they need to do is set standards for polluting industries to meet, under EPA rules and regulations, and have them enforced. Polluters who continue to pollute each year would pay heavier and heavier fines to the EPA who can then redirect the money to technologies that will reduce air pollution.

The majority of the 500 pages in the two bills set up the parameters for this money market scheme while gutting the EPA Clean Water Act’s water protections to allow commercial-scale injections of toxic chemicals underground (geosequestration). If these schemes were safe and worked these bills would not need to lower our Clean Water Act standards. We can’t protect our water supplies from being contaminated by toxic waste sites or waste disposal sites in general, at this time. And we don’t know if these toxic sequestration schemes will work.

There is evidence that a few sequestration schemes have failed. Geosequestration is designed to help the coal companies pollute more and would clearly benefit the coal industry and their drive to expand this highly polluting industry. And clearly there are few places where geosequestration could be used safely at this time.

Last September 2007, the United Nations held its 60 Annual Conference on Climate Change. And the drumbeat for climate change “mitigation” was almost a motto of the conference. However, the word “mitigation” was never defined and these bills fail to define the word “mitigate” or what types of programs would be used to initiate climate change “mitigation”. Thus, open-ended funding will be provided for massive mitigation experimentation at the expense of public health, crop production, and the protection of our environment from the assaults of unregulated pollutants.

California Senator Boxer’s Bill S3036 was used last week, in a “bait and switch” tactic, to replace Senator Lieberman’s Bill S2191…S3036 was defeated in the Senate by a narrow margin on June 6, 2008. When contacted after this vote, her Washington, D.C., office stated that this bill would be introduced again as soon as they had enough votes to pass it. (Note: Both S2191 and S3036 have almost the same wording and goals.)

These two bills do not speak to alternative means of transportation, bullet trains, or funding any other alternatives which could be immediately implemented. This bill is a regressive tax on all of us without funding the alternatives that are needed to reduce our carbon imprint. When you raise the taxes on gasoline, diesel fuel, home heating fuels, etc., you increase the price of basics like food and clothes.

And where does this wealth go…to set up a private Climate Change Corporation that will use our tax dollars to allow polluters to pollute more by purchasing bogus emissions credits in an unregulated money market scheme. This bill is not helping reducing our use of oil…there are few if any realistic alternatives at this point…it is about the redistribution of our tax dollars to foreign markets, speculators, banks (a section in this bill), and corporations.

California Senator Boxer Senator Lieberman are the driving forces behind these Climate Security Act shams and California Senate Feinstein is supporting this legislation along with Senators McCain and Clinton.

If we don’t take action today this bill will pass and our tax dollars will go to fund a private corporation, the Climate Credit Corporation, while air pollution that degrades the quality of our air, water, and environment will continue unabated.

According to the Congressional Research Service Summary the Act:

1) “…Requires the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to…Provide(s) for the selling, exchanging, transferring, submitting, retiring, or borrowing emissions allowances…” and

2) “Provides for the distribution of emission allowances…”

3) This bill “…Establishes in the Treasury and provides for allocations…” and

4) Establishes the Climate Change Credit Corporation to auction emission allowances…”

5) “Amends the Safe Water Drinking Act to require the Administrator to permit commercial-scale underground injection of carbon dioxide for purposes of geological sequestration…”

Information on Carbon Trading: “Cap & Trade Money Market Schemes”

1, Communities for a Better Environment Fall 2006 Newsletter: Richard Drury’s article: “Pollution Trading: We Don’t Buy it” Excellent Article on the “Pollution Shell Game.”

2, Los Angeles Times April 1, 2007 “Carbon Trading Won’t Work”

3, Cap & Trade Article Part I

4, Cap & Trade Article Part II

5, According to Source Watch this group has “…evolved into George Bush’s favorite environmental group…”

6, U.S. Senate Bill 3036 Text

7, U.S. Senate Bill 2191 Text

8, U.S. EPA Information

Information on Experimental Weather Modification Bills:

9, Contact your elected officials and defeat these two bills experimental weather modification bills from passage in 2008. U.S. Senate Bill 1807 & U.S. House Bill 3445 brought to you with compliments from Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.

10, In a speech (June 5, 2008),on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Senator Salazar of Colorado, spoke of the drought which has decimated his state in the last two years. The Senator blamed global warming as the cause of these problems without realizing that the Colorado drought started at the same time a massive experimental weather modification scheme was initiated in Wyoming. It is easy to blame global warming for all of our problems rather than look at the experiments we are conducting on ourselves with more than 50 experimental weather modification programs ongoing in the United States (according to NOAA records).

NOAA - Current Weather Modification Programs – How are they linked to current weather problems and agriculture declines due to the disruption of local micro-climates?

10, NOAA 2005 Listing of Experimental Weather Modification Programs.

11, NOAA 2006 Listing of Experimental Weather Modification Programs

12, NOAA 2007 Listing of Experimental Weather Modification Programs

13, Honey Bee Decline Articles & Documents

14, U.S. House of Representatives Passed U.S. House Bill 6304 – FISA Amendment Act of 2008 on June 20, 2008. When the U.S. Senate Returns from their 4th of July vacation they will discuss passage of this bill which will allow continued Spying on United States citizens. This bill also gives amnesty to all of the telecom companies that allegedly colluded with the Bush Administration in spying on American citizens without obtaining a Court Order from the FISA court…among other abuses. It is time to object to the loss of our 4th Amendment Rights under the U.S. Constitution.

15, Ex-TVA Head Denouces Plans for Nuclear Plants. By David Flesser, Chattanooga Times, June 13, 2008. “Former TVA Chairman S. David Freeman returned to his native Chattanooga Thursday to denounce proposals by the Tennessee Valley Authority to build more nuclear reactors. ‘Unfortunately, the concern over global warming has provided an opening where the nuclear industry has risen up from the dead,’ Mr. Freeman told reporters during a news conference organized by citizen groups opposed to building more nuclear reactors. ‘There’s a whole new generation that didn’t live through the first nuclear era and frankly the industry is touting much more success than their record would support. The only thing new is the history we’ve forgotten’… Mr. Freeman, an 82-year-old lawyer and engineer who has headed four U.S. utilities, accused TVA officials of being ‘nucleoholics’ addicted to atomic power despite the agency’s costly mistakes from overbuilding nuclear plants a generation ago.”

© 2008 Rosalind Peterson - All Rights Reserved

In 1995, Rosalind, now retired, became a certified California United State Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency Agriculture Crop Loss Adjustor working in more than ten counties throughout California. Rosalind has a BA degree from Sonoma State University in Environmental Studies & Planning (ENSP), with emphasis on using solar power, photosynthesis, agriculture, and crop production.

Between 1989 and 1993 Rosalind worked as an Agricultural Technologist for the Mendocino County Department of Agriculture. After leaving Mendocino County she took a position with the USDA Farm Service Agency as a Program Assistant in Mendocino, Sonoma, and the Salinas County Offices, where she worked until becoming certified as a crop loss adjustor for the State.

E-Mail: info@californiaskywatch.com

UV Index Cities Map

This map shows predicted UV Index values during the solar noon hour for about 50 U.S. cities. It is created daily by the National Weather Service.

http://www.epa.gov/sunwise/uvindexmap.html

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/oregon-quakes.html

Earthquake Map and response cruise trackline

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July 18- 28 2007: Gorda-Blanco-Southern Juan de Fuca earthquake sequences

Epicenter map of the recent 2007 events. (click for full size)

For the past 10 days we have watched a week long, systematic progression of earthquakes beginning at the Northern Gorda, moving to the eastern and western Blanco Transform, and ending at the Cleft-Vance intersection at the southern Juan de Fuca Ridge.This week of earthquake activity on SOSUS stands out since we had been observing little to no earthquake activity from the JdF during the prior three months.
The recent plate boundary sequence began on July 18 at 2014Z with a large earthquake that occurred in the central valley of the northern Gorda Ridge. The event was followed by 20 aftershocks. Although this was a relatively a small sequence of events, it is interesting to note the earthquakes were located on the intra-segment high where the 1996 eruption centered. This Gorda earthquake swarm was followed for the next 5 days by earthquakes along the entire Blanco Transform.

read more:

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/acoustics/seismicity/nepac/gorda0707.html

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CONCERN:

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Oregon tsunami may turn out bigger than thought

Posted by Michael Milstein, The Oregonian March 08, 2008 09:01AM

When a tsunami strikes the Oregon coast - as many have before and will again - the merciless wall of water could loom far higher and rush farther inland than anything coastal communities have planned for.

That unsettling realization comes from new computer simulations of the way the earth and water would behave during a severe offshore quake, based partly on lessons from the deadly tsunami that roiled the Indian Ocean in 2004. The tsunami there, which killed nearly a quarter of a million people, towered close to 100 feet high in places - more than twice what scientists pictured when they first drew tsunami hazard maps for Oregon coast communities.

The undersea rift, or subduction zone, that triggered the Indian Ocean tsunami - among the deadliest natural disasters in history - is almost identical to the one that lies quietly off Oregon. And that raised the question: Could a tsunami like that hit Oregon and the rest of the West Coast?

The answer is yes, according to new projections of how an earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the Oregon coast would send a tsunami ashore at Cannon Beach.

Scientists verified the projections by looking for - and finding - sand washed far inland by huge prehistoric tsunamis, hard evidence that waves have struck there before.

read more:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/pdxgreen/2008/03/oregon_tsunami_may_turn_out_bi.html

Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral IndustriesNew preliminary mapping, which may still be fine-tuned, outlines the probable reach of various sized tsunamis that could hit Cannon Beach

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Tsunami history of an Oregon coastal lake reveals a 4600 yr record of great earthquakes on the Cascadia subduction zone

Harvey M. Kelsey^,1, Alan R. Nelson², Eileen Hemphill-Haley³ and Robert C. Witter⁴

¹ Department of Geology, Humboldt State University, Arcata, California 95521, USA
² U.S. Geological Survey, M.S. 966, P.O. Box 25046, Denver, Colorado 80225-0046, USA
³ Department of Geology, Humboldt State University, Arcata, California 95521, USA
⁴ William Lettis and Assoc., Inc., Suite 262, 1777 Botelho Drive, Walnut Creek, California 94596, USA

Bradley Lake, on the southern Oregon coastal plain, records local tsunamis and seismic shaking on the Cascadia subduction zone over the last 7000 yr. Thirteen marine incursions delivered landward-thinning sheets of sand to the lake from nearshore, beach, and dune environments to the west. Following each incursion, a slug of marine water near the bottom of the freshwater lake instigated a few-year-to-several-decade period of a brackish (4 salinity) lake. Four additional disturbances without marine incursions destabilized sideslopes and bottom sediment, producing a suspension deposit that blanketed the lake bottom.

Considering the magnitude and duration of the disturbances necessary to produce Bradley Lake’s marine incursions, a local tsunami generated by a great earthquake on the Cascadia subduction zone is the only accountable mechanism. Extreme ocean levels must have been at least 5–8 m above sea level, and the cumulative duration of each marine incursion must have been at least 10 min. Disturbances without marine incursions require seismic shaking as well.

read more:

http://bulletin.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/117/7-8/1009?HITS=10&hits=10&field_name=fulltext&fieldvalue=cascadia+subduction+zone&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT&src=gsw&titlefield=lemhwcomptitle%2Clemextcomptitle&abstractfield=lemhwcompabstract%2Clemextcompabstract&fulltextfield=lemcontent?field_name=fulltext&fieldvalue=cascadia+subduction+zone&src=gsw

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Scientists Eye Possible Link Between Cascadia Zone, San Andreas Fault

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new comparison of earthquakes that have taken place along the West Coast during the past 10,000 years suggests that seismic activity in the Cascadia Subduction Zone off Oregon and Washington may actually have triggered earthquake events in the San Andreas Fault in the San Francisco Bay area.

The analysis also concludes that major earthquakes occur much more frequently in the southern part of Cascadia – in a range of 270 to 525 years depending on location – rather than every 500-600 years as is known for northern Cascadia.

The study is being published in the April issue of the Bulletin of Seismological Society of America.

http://www.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/search?fieldvalue=cascadia+subduction+zone&field_name=fulltext&src=gsw

read more:

http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2008/Apr08/cascadia.html

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Earthquake ‘Pulses’ Help Predict
Tsunami Impact

http://oceanandair.coas.oregonstate.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=content.display&pageID=97

WASHINGTON - The Defense Department, the nation’s biggest polluter, is resisting orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up Fort Meade and two other military bases where the EPA says dumped chemicals pose “imminent and substantial” dangers to public health and the environment.

The Pentagon has also declined to sign agreements required by law that cover 12 other military sites on the Superfund list of the most polluted places in the country. The contracts would spell out a remediation plan, set schedules, and allow the EPA to oversee the work and assess penalties if milestones are missed.

The actions are part of a standoff between the Pentagon and environmental regulators that has been building during the Bush administration, leaving the EPA in a legal limbo as it addresses growing concerns about contaminants on military bases that are seeping into drinking water aquifers and soil.

read more:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25450859/

WOODLAND, Wash. — Residents in the southwest Washington town of Woodland said a storm roared like a tornado through the area Sunday.

Strong winds toppled trees and knocked out power, and some people in the area declared it a funnel cloud.Lloyd Schiermeister, a farmer in Woodland, said winds broke big limbs before taking out power lines serving the area.He said it could’ve been worse if the storm brought down nearby oak trees.

“Those big oak trees up there shook like crazy,” he said. “But it didn’t take ‘em down, which I’m sure glad (about).”

Neighbors found themselves without electricity for about four hours Sunday night. For a while, they feared they would lose more than that.Traven Patterson said the strong winds laid trees out and drove frightened cattle across fields near Woodland.”(I heard) some pretty strong winds, a loud roar,” Patterson said. “I walked outside, a tornado just missed me to the southwest.”The tornado-like wind then headed toward La Center, where it darkened skies and tossed around more debris.The National Weather Service hasn’t confirmed a tornado touched down, but it’s possible for funnel clouds to form with such an unstable atmosphere.Tornado Or Not? Storm Hits Woodland

http://www.kptv.com/news/16752254/detail.html#-

http://www.newmoa.org/prevention/mercury/lamprecycle/

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Environmental Assessment and Risk Analysis Element

Research Project Summary
February 2004

Release of Mercury From Broken Fluorescent Bulbs

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/dsr/research/mercury-bulbs.pdf

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Maps/US2/43.45.-130.-128.php

Methane gas hydrate forming below a rock overhang at the sea floor on the Blake Ridge diapir. This image, taken from the DSV Alvin during the NOAA-sponsored Deep East cruise in 2001, marked the first discovery of gas hydrate at the sea floor on the Blake Ridge. Methane bubbling out of the sea floor below this overhang quickly “freezes,” forming this downward hanging hydrate deposit, dubbed the “inverted snowcone.”

oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/…/media/hydrate2.html

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Fiery Ice From The Sea: A New World Energy Source?

ScienceDaily (Nov. 5, 2002) — If you know anything about methane gas – and the Office of Naval Research thinks you should – it probably has something to do with swamp gas, and a faintly unpleasant sulfurous smell that rises from country marshes on sultry, summer evenings, or perhaps – for more romantic types – stories of Will-o’-the-Wisp, the flickering lights seen at night above that very same swamp (mundanely, methane igniting spontaneously with traces of odorous hydrogen sulfide found in the bog’s rotting organic matter).

Forget it.

Start thinking about methane hydrates - a crystalline form of methane gas and pure water that exists when pressures are sufficiently high, or temperatures sufficiently low. If you manage to keep that pressure high or that temperature low, it looks like a lump of ice. There are mega-tons of the stuff at the bottom of the ocean all over the world and in the Arctic permafrost (about 300,000 trillion cubic feet of it) and it is the cleanest and most abundant source of energy in the world. There is at least twice as much of it around as fossil fuels (some say 10 times as much). And, when burned as a fuel, it releases less carbon dioxide pollution than anything else around.

So why aren’t we using it?

read more:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/11/021105081158.htm

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New scientific theory, hydrate hypothesis, suggests global warming catastrophe

Source: Copyright 2006, Planet Save
Date: February 24, 2006
Byline: Brad Arnold
Original URL

A recent scientific theory called the “hydrate hypothesis” says that historical global warming cycles have been caused by a feedback loop, where melting permafrost methane clathrates (also known as “hydrates”) spur local global warming, leading to further melting of clathrates and bacterial growth.

In other words, like western Siberia, the 400 billion tons of methane in permafrost hydrate will gradually melt, and the released methane will speed the melting. The effect of even a couple of billion tons of methane being emitted into the atmosphere each year would be catastrophic.

The “hydrate hypothesis” (if validated) spells the rapid onset of runaway catastrophic global warming. In fact, you should remember this moment when you learned about this feedback loop-it is an existencial turning point in your life.

By the way, the “hydrate hypothesis” is a weeks old scientific theory, and is only now being discussed by global warming scientists. I suggest you Google the term.

I’ve been circulating the following paper:

read more:

http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=53034&keybold=Arctic%20methane%20clathrates

Related News

12/12/2000 - Frozen methane may offer hope as alternate fuel, Dallas Morning News

18/10/2006 - Making fire from ice: a new fuel for the 21st century, Independent (UK)  [search]

10/1/2007 - Potential time bomb on NZ shores, New Zealand Press Association  [search]

9/1/2007 - New Zealand: Frozen methane deposits in NZ seabed to be probed, New Zealand Press Association  [search]

12/12/2006 - Shallow fuels bring bad news, Nature  [search]

24/2/2006 - New scientific theory, hydrate hypothesis, suggests global warming catastrophe, Planet Save  [search]

14/2/2006 - Exploring energy trapped in ice, United Press International  [search]

4/4/2005 - US in race to unlock new energy source, Guardian  [search]

21/2/2003 - Methane on ice: a climate shock in store?, Australian Broadcasting Corporation

28/1/2006 - Scientists discover frozen methane gas deposit off California, Associated Press  [search]

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Scientists Gain New Insights Into ‘Frozen’ Methane Beneath Ocean Floor

ScienceDaily (Nov. 7, 2005) — An international team of scientists supported by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) has completed a unique research expedition aimed at recovering samples of gas hydrate, an ice-like substance hidden beneath the seafloor off Canada’s western coast. Gas hydrate, a mixture of water and mostly methane, is believed to occur under the world’s oceans in great abundance, but it quickly “melts” once removed from the high pressure and cold temperatures of its natural environment, making it very challenging to recover and analyze.

We’re interested in gas hydrate because we believe these deposits have played an important role in ancient global climate change,” explains Michael Riedel of Natural Resources Canada’s Geological Survey of Canada, IODP Expedition 311’s co-chief scientist. “This expedition is the first to explore a transect of deep drilling research sites across the Cascadia Continental Margin and will yield new data that will help us understand the deep origin of the methane that composes the gas hydrate, how the methane is transported into the sediments where gas hydrate exists, and how methane is eventually released into the ocean, and possibly, into the atmosphere where it could impact climate.”

read more:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/11/051107083255.htm

News Feature for Spring 2004

NRC’s Steacie Institute: Canada’s Leaders in Gas Hydrate Research

NRC-SIMS (Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences) provides the “molecular” foundation in Canada for doing gas hydrate analysis. Hydrates are ice-like substances found both off-shore on the continental margins in permafrost all over the globe and form when gas, usually methane, is in contact with water under the right temperature and pressure conditions. Gas hydrates represent one of the world’s largest untapped reservoirs of energy and, according to some estimates, have the potential to meet global energy needs for the next thousand years

Canadian gas hydrate research began at NRC’s Chemistry Division with Dr. Don Davidson in the 1950’s. He was mainly interested in fundamantal science, and worked on hydrates well before natural hydrates were found. The science has come a long way from its humble beginnings when, in 1810, Humphrey Davy put chlorine in water and got a solid compound that was stable above the melting point of ice.

Several kinds of gas hydrate structures have since been produced and discovered at SIMS. Drs. John Ripmeester, Chris Ratcliff and John Tse actually created a gas hydrate called “Structure H” and were able to predict that it would be found “in nature” , recently confirmed in a sample hydrate recovered off the coast of Vancouver Island. The significance of “Structure H” to Canadians could be enormous; these particular water molecule cages (called clathrate structures) contain a variety of hydrocarbons and are more stable than methane hydrates. Canada’s West Coast has been closed to petroleum exploration for a number of years. Finding other hydrocarbon reservoirs suggests the possibility of future energy exploration in that area. Geologists are excited about the prospect but all the implications of “structure H” are yet to be discovered.

read more:

steacie.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/…/spring2004_e.html

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Fire In The Ice: Gas Hydrate Project Could Unlock Vast Energy Resource In Alaska

ScienceDaily (Feb. 22, 2007) — Drilling is complete on an Alaskan North Slope well, cofunded by the Department of Energy, that could prove to be an important milestone in assessing America’s largest potential fossil energy resource: gas hydrate.

Gas hydrate is an ice-like solid that results from the trapping of methane molecules - the main component of natural gas - within a lattice-like cage of water molecules. Dubbed the “ice that burns,” this substance releases gaseous methane when it melts.

The size of the global gas hydrate resource is staggering, holding more ultimate energy potential than all other fossil fuels combined, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). In the United States, where gas hydrate occurs beneath the permafrost of Alaska’s arctic north and below the seabed offshore, the volume of this resource is massive. USGS estimates that the Nation’s gas hydrate deposits contain 200,000 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas. Compare this with a known recoverable natural gas resource of approximately 1,500 Tcf. If just one percent of the gas hydrate resource could be rendered producible, our Nation’s natural gas resource base would more than double.

read more:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070221180908.htm

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Marine gas hydrates

Marine gas hydrates are ice-like substances consisting of rigid water molecule cages stabilized by enclosed gas molecules, notably those of hydrocarbons and primarily methane. Hydrates are stable at high pressures and temperatures above 0^o C, and thus are found on continental shelves at depths of a few hundred metres below the seafloor where water depths exceed about 300 m. Hydrates are estimated to be the largest reservoir type of natural gas. Hence, they have the potential for a major clean energy source and their release may significantly impact global climate.

Marine hydrates are detected primarily by seismic methods, through a bottom-simulating reflector or “BSR” which follows across the seafloor and often cuts across stratigraphy. The BSR is thought to mark the base of the hydrate stability field, separating high-velocity hydrated sediments from normal sediments or possibly low-velocity gas-saturated sediments below the BSR.

The wide range of expertise available in SEOS makes the school a world leader in methane hydrate research. Hydrates on the Vancouver Island margin are probably the best-studied occurence of hydrates in the world. In SEOS, many multidisciplinary projects examining hydrates off the Vancouver Island, Japan and other margins are underway. Geophysical researchers include Spence, Hyndman, Chapman and Dosso.

Current and recent projects

1. Deep-towed seismic survey : summer 2002 (He, PhD project)
   • deep-towed seismic survey using the new multichannel DTAGS profiler, in collaboration with the U.S. Naval Research Lab (NRL)
   • examine the area near ODP Site 889, where we have previously discovered vents and recovered hydrates
   • obtain high-resolution images of the BSR and related structures and determine accurate velocities of the hydrate and underlying gas regions, including possible variations near the vents.
2. Submersible sampling program - carbonate ridge and mud volcano : spring 2002 (?)
   • propose to use the Canadian remotely-operated submersible to make visual observations and take samples of sediments, fluids and biological material
   • examine possible carbonate ridges where massive amounts of gas hydrate (one tonne or more) were recovered by a commercial fishing vessel off Vancouver Island in November 2000
   • perhaps examine mud volcano located in the deep ocean basin near the southern edge of the Nootka Fault Zone, where CTD anomalies of temperature, oxygen and light backscatter extended 50 m above the sea floor.
3. 3D seismic investigations (Riedel et al. 2001,2002)
   • imaging of gas/fluid vent fields associated with gas hydrates, near ODP Site 889
     • COAMS multichannel streamer (1200 m length), 40 lines @ 100 m spacing, plus two single-channel grids, 25 m spacing
     • blank zones identify vents, with both planar and cylindrical geometry; seafloor mound, 8 m high, associated with cylindrical vent
     • submersible observations and sampling found seafloor carbonate and abundant clams and tubeworms near vents
   • new 3D single-channel grids collected near 80-m-high carbonate mounds (Hoehne, M.Sc. project) and at site where fishboat recovered massive amounts of hydrate
4. Piston coring near vents: physical properties and sedimentology (Novosel, M.Sc. project)
   • 26 cores in Jul/Aug 2000: hydrate recovered in 4 cores
   • 19 cores in Jul 2001: geochemistry in collaboration with U.S. Naval Research Lab
5. Integration of ODP drillhole and seismic results (Yuan et al. 1996, 1999)
   • multichannel seismic, detailed semblance velocity analyses: high velocities (i.e. hydrates) identified above the BSR
   • full waveform inversions: low velocities (i.e. gas) below BSR
   • sonic logs, physical properties, geochemical analyses: estimate concentration of hydrates in sediments (Cascadia, Nankai, Chile margins)
6. Ocean bottom seismometer and single channel seismics (Fink and Spence, 1999):
   • marine cruise in collaboration with U. of Cambridge: detailed mapping of hydrates near ODP drillhole
   • marine cruise in collaboration with Dalhousie University
   • traveltime inversions
   • synthetics: velocity structure
7. Deep tow seismics (Chapman et al, 2002)
   • marine cruise in collaboration with Naval Research Laboratory

Selected publications

1. Chapman, N.R., J. Gettrust, R. Walia, D. Hannay, G.D. Spence, W. Wood, and R.D. Hyndman. High resolution deep-towed multichannel seismic survey of deep sea gas hydrates off western Canada, Geophysics, accepted Sept 2001 (20 pages, 11 figures).
2. Ganguly, N., G.D. Spence, N.R. Chapman and R.D. Hyndman. 2000. Heat flow variations from bottom simulating reflectors on the Cascadia margin. Marine Geology, 164, 53-68.
3. Gettrust, G., W. Wood, D. Lindwall, R. Chapman, R. Walia, D. Hannay, G.Spence, K. Louden, R. MacDonald, and R.D. Hyndman. 1999. New seismic study of deep sea gas hydrates results in greatly improved resolution. EOS, 80, 439-440.
4. Hyndman, R., G.D. Spence, R. Chapman, M. Riedel, R.N. Edwards. Geophysical studies of marine gas hydrates in northern Cascadia, in Natural Gas Hydrates: Occurence, Distribution, and Detection, AGU Geophysical Monograph 124, 273-295.
5. Hyndman, R.D., Spence, G.D., Yuan, T. and Davis, E.E. 1993. Regional geophysics and structural framework of the Vancouver Island margin accretionary prism, ODP Init. Repts, Cascadia Margin Volume 146, 399-419.
6. Hyndman, R.D., Wang, K., Yuan, T. and SPENCE, G.D. 1994. Tectonic thickening, fluid expulsion and the thermal regime of subduction zone accretionary prisms: the Cascadia margin off Vancouver Island, J. Geophys. Res. 99
7. Fink, C.R. and Spence, G.D. 1999. Hydrate distribution off Vancouver Island from multi-frequency single channel seismic reflection data, J. Geophys. Res., 104, 2909-2922. Abstract.
8. Riedel, M., G.D. Spence, N.R. Chapman, and R.D. Hyndman. 2001. Deep sea gas hydrates on the northern Cascadia margin, Leading Edge, 20(1), 87-91, 109.
9. Riedel, M., G.D. Spence, R.D. Hyndman and N.R. Chapman. 2002. Seismic investigations of an apparent active vent field associated with gas hydrates offshore Vancouver Island, J. Geophys. Res., accepted Nov 2001 (20 pages, 15 figures).
10. Spence, G.D., N.R. Chapman, R.D. Hyndman, and C. Cleary, 2002. Fishing trawler nets massive ‘catch’ of methane hydrates, EOS, (accepted Oct 2001).
11. Spence, G.D. and R.D. Hyndman, 2002. The challenge of deep ocean drilling for natural gas hydrate, Geoscience Canada, (accepted Oct 2001).
12. Yuan, T., R.D. Hyndman, G.D. SPENCE, and B. Desmons. 1996. Velocity structure of a bottom-simulating reflector and deep sea gas hydrate concentrations on the Cascadia continental slope, Journal of Geophysical Research, 101, 13655-13671.
13. Yuan, T, Hyndman, R.D., Spence, G.D., Minshull, T.A., and Singh, S.C. 1999. Seismic velocity studies of a gas hydrate bottom-simulating reflector on the northern Cascadia continental margin: Amplitude modelling and full waveform inversion, J. Geophys. Res., 104, 1179-1191.

geophys.seos.uvic.ca/hydrates.html

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New Zealand ’s natural gas hydrates

Vast areas of the offshore New Zealand continent are predicted to contain gas hydrates, in particular a gas hydrate province on the Hikurangi margin east of the North Island and a smaller province to the southwest of the Fiordland. We are currently focussing on studying gas hydrates in the Hikurangi margin by investigating potential accumulations of highly-concentrated gas hydrate (”sweet spots”), which may be a future natural gas resource, and the effect of gas hydrates on seafloor stability at a unique location offshore of Hawke’s Bay (”Rock Garden”).

Gas hydrate distribution on the Hikurangi margin

Methane hydrate cage (modified from:
http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/project-pages/hydrates/what.html )

Methane hydrate phase boundary: Methane hydrate is stable in permafrost areas and, much more commonly, in the deep ocean.

www.gns.cri.nz/research/gashydrates/index.html

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Saturday, November 24, 2007

What is Gas Hydrate?

A gas hydrate is a crystalline solid; its building blocks consist of a gas molecule surrounded by a cage of water molecules. Thus it is similar to ice, except that the crystalline structure is stabilized by the guest gas molecule within the cage of water molecules. Many gases have molecular sizes suitable to form hydrate, including such naturally occurring gases as carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and several low-carbon-number hydrocarbons, but most marine gas hydrates that have been analyzed are methane hydrates.

Gas Hydrates will be the coming future generation new source of energy.

It also called Natural Gas Hydrates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Gas_Hydrates

some even called Clathrate hydrate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_hydrate

Clathrate hydrates (or alternatively gas clathrates, gas hydrates, clathrates, hydrates etc) are a class of solids in which gas molecules occupy “cages” made up of hydrogen-bonded water molecules. These “cages” are unstable when empty, collapsing into conventional ice crystal structure, but they are stabilized by the inclusion of appropriately sized molecules within them. Most low molecular weight gases (including O2, H2, N2, CO2, CH4, H2S, Ar, Kr, and Xe), as well as some higher hydrocarbons and freons will form hydrate under certain pressure-temperature conditions. Clathrate hydrates are not chemical compounds. The formation and decomposition of clathrate hydrates are first order phase transitions, not chemical reactions.

Clathrates are believed to occur in large quantities on some outer planets, moons and trans-Neptunian objects, binding gas at fairly high temperatures. Clathrates have also been discovered in large quantity on Earth, e.g. in giant natural methane clathrate deposits on the deep ocean floor (e.g. in the northern headwall flank of the Storegga Slide, which is a part of the Norwegian continental shelf) and in permafrost regions (e.g. the Mallik gas hydrate field in the Mackenzie Delta of northwestern Canadian Arctic). Hydrocarbon clathrates are a problem for the petroleum industry, since their formation inside gas pipelines frequently leads to plug formation in the latter. Deep sea deposition of carbon dioxide clathrate to remove this greenhouse gas from the atmosphere has also been proposed.

Gas hydrates are created when water and gas combine to form a crystalline substance that looks like ice. This occurs when excess methane is present, and when temperature and pressure conditions are suitable. Gas hydrates are common in marine sediments along the margins of continents, where the methane originates from the decomposition of living things. Off the Oregon coast, the Juan de Fuca plate slides beneath the North American plate in a process called subduction. As subduction occurs, sediments are scraped off the Juan de Fuca plate and form ridges on the edge of the North American plate. This process leads to formation of gas hydrates.

USGS fact sheet on Gas Hydrates
http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/project-pages/hydrates/what.html
http://marine.usgs.gov/fact-sheets/gas-hydrates/title.html

Texas A&M University - College of Geosciences. article on:-
Resource Geosciences - Alternate Energy Sources from Deep Water.
http://www.gerg.tamu.edu/resource/alternateenergy.htm

From:

oil-n-gas.blogspot.com/

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