As Geotimes
went to press, the price of a barrel of oil was at an all-time high of $55,
the presidential candidates were debating about U.S. energy policy, and oil
operations in the Gulf of Mexico were still recovering from the devastation
of Hurricane Ivan, which hit Florida in September. It only seems natural then
that some scientists are looking toward a new potential resource — gas
hydrates — with high interest and great hope. But the jury is still out,
as you will learn in this month’s stories, which take a look at the past,
present and future of these unique substances.
“Gas hydrate” — even the term itself sounds unusual. The hydrates
may look like ice, but they burn with what some scientists claim is the largest
untapped reservoirs of natural gas on the planet. Located onshore in permafrost
regions and offshore on the seafloor, hydrate deposits are sensitive to changes
to their environment and only stable within a distinct pressure and temperature
range. In “Methane Hydrate and Abrupt Climate Change,” Gerald Dickens
describes how destabilization of marine deposits of methane hydrate may have
released large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas, into the ancient atmosphere
— potentially leading to global change. Similarly, researchers have investigated
how more recent blowouts of gas hydrates on the seafloor could be responsible
for disappearances of ships and planes in the Bermuda Triangle, as Megan Sever
reports in this month’s Geophenomena.
Our look at the possible impacts of gas hydrates continues with “Gas Hydrates
as a Future Energy Resource,” where Timothy Collett draws from various
assessments of the distribution and occurrence of gas hydrates to discuss their
viability within our energy mix portfolio. Progress has been rapid in recovering
hydrates from beneath the snow and ice in the world’s permafrost regions,
but assessing and understanding their marine counterpart is a bit more challenging,
as Naomi Lubick discusses in “Detecting Marine Gas Hydrates.”
The clear message from all of these stories is that more work is necessary to
understand gas hydrates. By nature, science is speculative, and thus only time
will tell how hydrates, or any resource for that matter, could play into our
energy future. The world’s supply of oil, a conventional resource much
better understood than hydrates, still stands at the center of controversy,
as Rasoul Sorkhabi discusses in “The End of Oil?” In this Geomedia
special, he discusses five recent books on the subject of the world running
out of oil, and makes a strong case for a diverse mix of resources. That mix
could take shape in a number of ways, and again, we can only speculate on the
outcome.
As we head toward winter, which is sure to be punctuated by high natural gas
prices in a predicted El Niño year, it is important to remember the role
that science — however uncertain — plays in helping to create solutions
for the future. In next month’s Geotimes, we will continue to explore
energy issues with a look at oil and natural gas, and in particular some oil
hot spots that are further heightening the debate over and complexity of oil
and politics.
I hope you enjoy the this month’s issue and that it leads to some speculations
of your own.
Lisa Pinsker
Geotimes Managing
Editor
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