Plan text

Text the United States federal government should

substantially increase its funding and incentives for offshore
methane hydrate research and commercial extraction using
carbon injection

***ADV 1 is WARMING ***

Subpoint 1 is the Methane BurstsModule

Methane hydrates are melting now that leads to massive
methane blowouts that lock in positive feedbacks and
guarantee global extinction only a risk extraction solves
and the Alaskan Arctic is key
Light 12 (Malcolm, PhD from the University of London, Charting Mankinds Arctic
Methane Emission Exponential Expressway to Total Extinction in the Next 50 Years,
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2012/08/charting-mankinds-expressway-toextinction.html // AK)
Unless immediate and concerted action is taken by governments and oil companies to
depressurize the Arctic subsea methane reserves by extracting the methane,
liquefying it and selling it as a green house gas energy source, rising sea levels will breach the
Thames Barrier by 2029 flooding London. The base of the Washington Monument
(D.C.) will be inundated by 2031. Total global deglaciation will finally cause the
sea level to rise up the lower 35% of the Washington Monument by 2051 (68.3 m or 224
feet above present sea level). Introduction Recent atmospheric methane observations (May 01,
2012) at Barrow Point Alaska show extreme methane concentrations as high as 2500
ppb (2.5 ppm Methane, Figure 1)(Generated by ESRL/GMD May 01, 2012 from Carana, 2012b). The present
atmospheric methane concentration at Point Barrow exceeds all previous
measurements in the Arctic and if it represented the mean atmospheric
concentration after an extended period of subsea Arctic methane emission (10 to 20
years) at a methane global warming potential (GWP) of 100 (Dessus et al. 2008) it
would be equal to a 2.5 degrees C mean global temperature increase and a
methane-carbon output of some 6 Gt. This would be equivalent to adding and extra
250 ppm of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere or about 2/3 of the present carbon
dioxide content. The rising light Arctic methane migration routes have been interpreted on the Hippo profile in
Figure 2a (from Wofsy et al. et al. 2009) using the inflexion points on the temperature and methane concentration
profiles similar to the system used to identify deep oceanic current trends using salinity and temperature data
(Tharp and Frankel, 1986). The light Arctic methane is rising almost vertically up to the stratosphere between 60o
North and the North Pole. This is consistent with the methane rising in the same way as hydrogen with respect to
the cold dry polar air because it has almost half the density of air at STP(Engineering Toolbox, 2011) (methane in
wet air may be transported horizontally by storm systems).

In addition because methane has a

global warming potential of close to 100 during the first 15 to 20 years of its life (Dessus et al. 2001)
it will preferentially warm up and expand compared to the other atmospheric gases
and thus drop even further in density making it much lighter than the air. This methane rises into the upper
stratosphere where it is trapped below the hydrogen against which it has an upper diffuse boundary as shown by

It is
clear from the flattening of the methane concentration trend in the stratosphere
between 30 km and 47 km (Nassar et al. 2005) that this probably represents an
expanding, world encompassing methane global warming veil (Figure 2a after Nassar et al.
the fall off in methane concentration between 40 km and 50 km altitude (Figure 2a after Nassar et al. 2005).

2005). This stratospheric methane is above the ozone layer and it appears entirely stable between 30 km and 40
km where it shows little change (Figure 2a after Nassar et al. 2005). It

is therefore very likely that the

methane global warming veil will form a giant reservoir for quickly rising low density
methane emitted into the dry Arctic atmosphere by progressive destabilization of
subsea Arctic methane hydrates (Light, 2011, 2012) combined with smaller amounts of methane
formed by methanogenesis (Allen and Allen, 1990; Lopatin 1971). Much of the dry, light methane is able to bypass

There is a
transition zone from about 60o to 65o North where the methane begins to spiral
outwards from the Arctic region towards the mid latitudes and upwards towards the
stratosphere to reach the base of the ozone layer where it is being mixed into the
stratosphere by giant vortices active at different times (Light 2012; NSIDC 2011a). The continuous
the ozone layer unimpeded in a tropospheric - stratospheric circulation system to be discussed later.

vertical motion of the methane in the Arctic region as it rises to the stratosphere between 60o to 65o North which
has a lateral motion impressed on it at lower latitudes must set up a methane partial pressure - concentration
gradient between the Arctic surface atmospheric methane emissions and the stratospheric methane global warming

Therefore any marked increase in the surface methane concentration and partial
pressure should be marked by similar increases in the upper stratosphere within the
methane global warming veil. A further consequence of the light methane rising like
hydrogen into the upper stratosphere where it forms a stable zone beneath the
hydrogen between 30 km and 50 km height, is that this methane is never recorded
in the mean global warming gas measurements made at Mauna Loa. We therefore
have a completely separate high reservoir for methane, which at the moment we
only have vague information on and it may contain sufficient methane gas to
multiply the Mauna Loa readings by a considerable amount. G raphic Display of The Effects of
veil.

the Methane Warming Veil Figure 2b is a graphic display of the atmosphere from 0 to 55 km altitude versus
increasing Arctic atmospheric methane concentration reaching up to 6000 ppb (6 ppmv methane). The troposphere,
tropopause, stratosphere, stratopause, mesosphere, and ozone layer are from Heicklen, 1976. The various events
related to global warming (droughts, water stress, coral bleaching and death, deglaciation, sea level rise and major
global extinction) are from Parry et al. 2007. Figure 2b has been designed to graphically portray the growth of the
subsea Arctic atmospheric methane as new observations become available and how this build up strengthens the
methane concentration in the stratosphere where it forms a world encompassing methane global warming veil at an
altitude of 30 km to 47 km. Figure 2b will be used to progressively chart mankind's Arctic methane emission,

As the light-rising Arctic methane is

spread around the world by the Arctic stratospheric vortex system (NSIDC 2011a), it can
be expected to lead to more ozone and water vapor in the stratosphere, both of
which will add to the greenhouse effect and thus cause temperatures to increase
globally. In the Arctic, where there is very little water vapour in the atmosphere, the ozone layer may well be
exponential expressway to extinction within the next half century.

further depleted, because the rising methane behaves like a chloro-fluoro-hydrocarbon (CFC) under the action of
sunlight increasing the damaging effects of ultraviolet radiation on the Earths surface (Engineering Toolbox, 2011;

Large abrupt releases of methane in the Arctic lead to high local

concentrations of methane in the atmosphere and hydroxyl depletion, making that
methane will persist longer at its highest warming potential, i.e. of over 100 times
that of carbon dioxide. (Carana, 2011a). The presence of a large hole in the Arctic ozone
layer in 2011 is most likely a result of this same process of ozone depletion caused
by a buildup of greenhouse gases from the massive upward transfer of methane from the Arctic
Anitei, 2007).

emission zones through the lower stratosphere up into the stratospheric veil between 30 km and 47 km height

The extremely high

content of atmospheric methane measured in May 2012 at Barrow Point Alaska
(2500 ppb) represents a very dangerous turn of events in the Arctic and further
substantiates the claim that the whole Arctic has now become a latent subsea
methane hydrate sourced blowout zone which will require immediate remedial
action if there is any faint hope of containing the now fast increasing ( exponential)
rates of methane eruptions into the atmosphere (Light 2012c - Angels proposal; see end of this
text). The exponential increase in the Arctic atmospheric methane content from the
destabilization of the subsea methane hydrates is defined by the exponential
decrease in the volume of Arctic sea ice caused by the resulting global warming due
to the build up of the atmospheric methane (Carana, 2012d). The exponential increase in
the Arctic atmospheric methane is also implied by an exponential decrease in the
continent wide reflectivity (albedo) of the Greenland ice cap caused by increasing
rates of surface melting (Figure 3; NASA Mod 10A1 data, from Carana, 2012c). Albedo data for Greenland
(Science Daily, 2011). Anomalous Arctic Atmospheric Methane Concentrations

shows that it will become free of a continuous snow cover by about 2014, so that the underlying old ice cover which

This darker material

will become a major heat absorber after 2014 starting the fast melt down of the
Greenland ice cap and this process will probably affect the older ice in the floating
Arctic sea ice fields. The Arctic ocean will also become free of sea ice by 2015
exposing the low reflectivity ocean water directly to the sun, causing a high rate of
has low reflectivity will be totally exposed to the sun in the summer (Carana, 2012c).

temperature rise in Arctic waters and the consequent destabilization of shelf and
slope methane hydrates releasing large volumes of methane into the atmosphere
(Carana, 2012d; AIRS data Yurganov, 2012). As a consequence, the enhanced global warming
will melt the global ice sheets at a fast increasing rate causing the sea level to
begin rising at 15.182 cm/yr in the first few years after 2015 giving an accurate way
of gauging the worldwide continental ice loss (Figure 3). This sudden increase in the
rate of sea level rise will mark the last moment mankind will have to take control of
the Arctic wide blowout of methane into the atmosphere and a massive effort must
be made by governments and oil companies to stem the flow of the erupting subsea
methane in the Arctic before this time.The loss of complete snow cover in Greenland
precedes the loss of the sea ice cap in the Arctic by a year which may be due to the
more extreme weather conditions that usually prevail over continents than over the
sea which moderates the weather.Methane and Ozone Circulation The components of the atmosphere undergo diffusion by a
number of processes. The mean speed of horizontal displacement of the stratosphere around the Earth is known to be about 120 km/hr from the Krakatoa
eruption in 1883 (Heicklen, 1976). Winds also transfer material northward and southward in the stratosphere in quite a different pattern to that of the
tropospheric wind flows (Heicklen, 1976). Mean wind velocities within the global methane warming veil and above it (36 km to 91 km altitude) are some
48 m/sec during the day and 56 m/sec at night (Olivier 1942, 1948). Large latitudinal variations in the atmospheric density at 100 km altitude require
meridional flows of 10 to 50 m/sec (Heicklen, 1976). At subarctic latitudes at the height of the global methane warming veil (30 km to 50 km altitude) the
ozone concentration lies between 1.7 to 1.9*10^12 molecules/cc to 5.4*10^10 molecules/cc and does not vary during the day (Heicklen, 1976). The subarctic ozone reaches a maximum in the lower stratosphere in winter at an altitude of 17 km to 19 km (7.7*10^12 molecules/cc) and in summer at an
altitude of 18 km to 19 km (5.1*10^12 molecules/cc)(Heicklen, 1976). The seasonal variation of ozone in the stratosphere in Arctic latitudes is caused by a
circulation transfer system which moves ozone from the upper stratosphere in equatorial and mid-latitudes to the Arctic lower stratosphere during the
winter (Heicklen, 1976). The stored Arctic lower stratospheric ozone is lost in the summer by chemical dissociation when it moves downwards or by
photosynthetic destruction if it moves upwards (Heicklen, 1976). The Hippo methane concentration and temperature profiles shown in Figures 2a and 2b
extend from the surface to some 14.4 km altitude and from the North Pole southwards across the Equator to a latitude of -40o south (Wofsy et al. 2009).
As already described the methane flow trends on Hippo methane concentration and temperature profiles have been interpreted in detail using a similar
system to that used by the Meteor expedition in determining deep ocean circulation patterns from salinity and temperature data (Figure 2a - see Tharp
and Frankel, 1986). Methane erupted from destabilizing methane hydrates in the subsea Arctic and of methanogenic origin has almost half the density of
air at STP in dry Arctic conditions and is seen to be rising vertically to the top of the Troposphere between 70o North and the North Pole on the Hippo
methane concentration profiles (Engineering Toolbox, 2011; Wofsy et al. 2009 ). On the Hippo data, at latitudes less than 70o North, the rising methane
clouds are being spun out and laterally spread in the middle and upper troposphere and upper stratosphere by stratospheric vortices (NSIDC, 2011a). The
methane appears to be entering the lower stratosphere in the low latitudes between 25o North and the equator which it then overlaps and is carried into
the Southern Hemisphere to almost -40o South (Figure 2a)(Light 2011c). In the equatorial regions the growth of the methane global warming veil will
amplify the effects of El Nino in the Pacific further enhancing its deleterious effects on the climate. As this vertically and laterally migrating methane
enters the stratosphere in equatorial and mid-latitude positions it is helping to displace the equatorial and mid-latitude ozone which migrates downwards
and northwards towards the north pole (Heicklen, 1976) to complete the cycle. The methane may be partly drawn up into the lower and upper
stratosphere by a global pressure differential set up by the poleward and downward motion of the ozone (Heicklen, 1976) Once the methane has entered
the stratosphere and has helped to displace some of the ozone, it is able to accumulate in the upper stratosphere beneath the hydrogen as a continuous
stable layer between 30 and 47 km forming a world wide global warming veil (Figures 2a and 2b; Light 2011c). In the Arctic region methane has been
shown to rise nearly vertically and is locally charging the global warming veil in addition to methane that has diffused from mid latitude and equatorial
regions. There must therefore exist a partial pressure gradient between the Arctic surface methane anomalies and the upper stratosphere methane global
warming veil such that any increase of the surface methane concentration and partial pressure should lead to a transfer of methane into the upper
stratosphere and to a similar increase in the partial pressure and concentration of the methane there. The methane partial pressure gradient that exists
between the anomalous Arctic ocean surface methane emissions and the stratospheric methane global warming veil at 30 km to 47 km height is partly
controlled by the complex motions and reactions of the Arctic ozone layer which separates the troposphere from the upper stratosphere and shows little
variation in the day or between summer and winter (Heicklen, 1976). Consequently the concentration of the methane in the upper stratospheric global
warming veil should track the increase of Arctic atmospheric methane to some degree and knowledge of the latter can allow absolute maximum estimates
to be made on the magnitude of the former. This will give a rough estimate of what the highest value the methane concentration is likely to reach within
the global warming veil within the Arctic area. This is a worst case scenario which has to be assumed in order to prevent Murphys law being operative (i.e.
if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong in estimating the maximum methane value). An alternative is to view this solution of the methane concentration
in the global warming veil as German over-engineering in order to eliminate any possible errors in the estimate of the maximum value. My Father, a Saxon
would have commended me on this approach. This is precisely what mainstream world climatologists have failed to do in their modeling of the effects of
Arctic methane hydrate emissions on the mean heat balance of the atmosphere and why we are now facing such a severe climatic catastrophe from which
we may very likely not escape. Let us hope and pray that the Merlin Lidar methane detection satellite does not find methane magnitudes in the Arctic
global warming methane veil (30 km 47 km altitude) at the levels predicted in this paper, when it is launched in 2014. The maximum global methane veil
concentration in the mid latitudes (30o to 60o North) between 30 km and 40 km altitude was estimated by occultation at some 0.97 ppmv methane (970
ppb) between February to April, 2004 (Nassar et al. 2005). In 2004 - 2005 the Arctic atmosphere at Point Barrow, Alaska reached an anomalous maximum
of some 2.014 ppmv methane (2014 ppb)(Carana, 2012e). This means that the most extreme methane concentration anomalies in the Arctic (Point
Barrow) are leading the maximum concentration in the global warming methane veil by some 1.044 ppmv methane (1044 ppb). Consequently as a first
rule of thumb assuming that the vertical methane partial pressure gradient has remained relatively unchanged, we can estimate the maximum methane
concentration within the Arctic methane global warming veil between 30 km and 47 km height by subtracting 1.044 ppmv methane (1044 ppb) from
measured surface Arctic atmospheric value at the same time. High methane concentrations of 2 ppmv (2000 ppb) were being reached in the Arctic in
2011 (position a. in Figure 2b) similar to those recorded in 2004 2005 at Point Barrow Alaska (Carana, 2012e). It is therefore likely that by 2011 that the
maximum concentration of methane in the methane global warming veil had remained relatively unchanged since 2004. This is consistent with the start of
major methane emissions in the Arctic in August 2010 as recorded at the Svalbard station and in the East Siberian Shelf in 2011 which would not have
given the emitted gases sufficient time to reach the upper stratosphere(Light, 2012a, Shakova et al. 2010a, b and c). On May 01, 2012 an atmospheric
methane concentration of 2.5 ppmv (2500 ppb) was recorded at Point Barrow indicating an increase in the maximum methane concentration anomaly of
0.5 ppmv methane (500 ppb) in one year (yellow spike on Figure 1; position b. in Figure 2b)(ESRL/GMO graph from Carana 2012b). We can therefore
predict conservatively that the maximum concentration of the methane in the Arctic stratospheric methane global warming veil between 30 km and 47 km
altitude may be as high as 1.456 ppmv methane (1456 ppb) (= 2500 -1044 ppmv) (position b. in Figure 2b)(ESRL/GMO graph from Carana 2012b).
Assuming that the maximum Arctic surface atmospheric methane content continues to increase now at a rate of 0.5 ppmv (500 ppb) each year we can
roughly predict that by 2013 it will have reached 3 ppmv (3000 ppb) and by 2014, 3.5 ppmv (3500 ppb) which is when the Merlin Lidar methane detection
satellite will be launched (Ehret, 2010). Using the previous method of predicting the maximum likely methane content in the Arctic methane global
warming veil between 30 km and 47 km altitude, the maximum for 2013 is 1.956 ppmv methane (1956 ppb)(position c. in Figure 2b) and for 2014 is 2.456
ppmv methane (2456 ppb) (position d. in Figure 2b). This means that by the time the Merlin Lidar satellite is launched the Arctic Ocean will have emited

Once the entire atmospheric mean exceeds a 2oC

temperature increase it will precipitate fast deglaciation, the start of widespread
inundation of worldwide coastlines, extensive droughts and water stress for billions
sufficient methane to have surpassed the 2oC anomaly limit.

of people (Figure 2b)(after Parry et al. 2007). This high predicted concentration of
methane in the Arctic methane global warming veil in 2014 is consistent with the
exponentially falling albedo data for the Greenland ice cap which suggests that
major melting will begin in 2014 (Carana, 2012c). The exponential reduction in volume of
the Arctic sea ice to zero in 2015 (Carana, 2012d) will precipitate a massive
increase in the release of Arctic subsea methane from destabilization of the
methane hydrates as the dark ice free Arctic ocean absorbs large quantities of heat
from the sun (Light, 2012a). MERLIN Lidar Satellite The MERLIN lidar satellite (Methane Remote Sensing Lidar Mission) , which is a joint
collaboration between France and Germany will orbit the Earth at 650 km altitude and will be able to detect the methane concentration in the atmosphere
from 50 km altitude to the surface of the Earth (Ehret, 2010). The Lidar methane detection instrument was jointly developed by DLR (Deutches Zentrum
fr Luft und Raumfahrt), ADLARES GmBH and E. ON Ruhrgas AG (Ehret, 2010). This satellite is scheduled to be launched sometime in 2014 (Ehret, 2010)
and will be the first time that real time data will be able to detect the concentration of methane within the world encompassing methane global warming
veil between 30 km and 47 km altitude and give us the first detailed picture of the size of the beast we are dealing with. Previous indications of this layer
in the mid latitudes was made using occultation (Nassar et al. 2005) The high anomalous atmospheric methane contents recorded this year (May 01) at
Barrow Point Alaska (see Figure 2b, Carana 2012b) and the fact that they may be linked via a stable partial pressure gradient with increased maximum
methane contents in the world encompassing global warming veil (estimated at ca 1456 ppb methane) makes it imperative that the Merlin lidar satellite
be launched as soon as is feasibly possible so we can get a clear idea of how high the Earths stratospheric methane concentrations are. The Merlin
satellite will continuously give us real time information on the size of the stratospheric methane global warming veil that is gathering its strength in the

This information shows how extremely serious the Arctic methane

emission problem is and how urgently we need to measure the status of the Arctic stratospheric methane global warming veil between
upper atmosphere.

30 km and 47 km height. An early warning of high methane contents in the methane global warming veil will give humanity time to react to the existing
and new threats that are developing in the Arctic. Methane detecting Lidar instruments could also be installed immediately on the International Space
Station to give us early warning of the methane build up in the stratosphere and act as a back up in case the Merlin satellite fails. Sea Level Rise The
progressive rise in sea level from 2015 is shown on Figures 3, 4 and 5. Figures 4 and 5 are simplified versions of Figures 7, 8 and 9 in Light 2012a and
Figures 12 and 13 in Light 2012c. The various events related to global warming (droughts, water stress, coral bleaching and death, deglaciation, sea level
rise and major global extinction) are from Parry et al. 2007. At the time of total worldwide deglaciation, the sea level is estimated to rise some 68.3 metres
(224 feet) (Wales, 2012) The maximum time of inundation of various coastal cities, coastlines and coastal barriers is shown on Table 1 (after Hillen et al.
2010; Hargraves, 2012). Rising sea levels will breach the Thames Barrier by 2029 flooding London. The base of the Washington Monument (D.C.) will be
inundated by 2031. Total global deglaciation > will cause the sea level to rise up the lower 35% of the Washington Monument by 2051 (68.3 m or 224 feet
above present sea level). Because of the massive increase in the strength of the storm systems and waves, high rise buildings in many of the coastal city
centers will suffer irreparable damage and collapse so that the core zones of the cities will be represented by a massive pile of wave pulverised debris.
Unfortunately by that time a large portion of sea life will be extinct and the city debris fields will not form a haven for coral reefs. The seas will probably
still be occupied by the long lasting giant jellyfish (such as are now fished off Japan), rays and sharks (living respectively since 670, 415 and 380 million
years ago) and the sea floor by coeolocanths (living since 400 million years ago)(Calder, 1984). The city rubble zones will probably be occupied by
predatory fish (living since 425 million years ago)(Calder 1984). Life will also continue in the vicinity of oceanic black smokers so long as the oceans

If left alone the subsea Arctic methane hydrates will

explosively destabilize on their own due to global warming and produce a
massive Arctic wide methane blowout that will lead to humanitys total
extinction, probably before the middle of this century (Light 2012 a, b and c). AIRS
atmospheric methane concentration data between 2008 and 2012 (Yurganov 2012) show that the Arctic has
already entered the early stages of a subsea methane blowout so we need to step
in as soon as we can (e.g. 2015) to prevent it escalating any further (Light 2012c). The Arctic
Natural Gas Extraction, Liquefaction & Sales (ANGELS) Proposal aims to reduce the threat of large,
abrupt releases of methane in the Arctic, byextracting methane from Arctic
methane hydrates prone to destabilization (Light, 2012c). After the Arctic sea ice has gone
(probably around 2015) we propose that a large consortium of oil and gas
companies/governments set up drilling platforms near the regions of maximum subsea methane emissions
remain below boiling point. ANGELS Proposal

and drill a whole series of shallow directional production drill holes into the subsea subpermafrost free methane

in order to depressurize it in a controlled manner (Light 2012c). This methane will

be produced to the surface, liquefied, stored and transported on LNG tankers as a
green energy source to all nations, totally replacing oil and coal as the major
energy source (Light 2012c). The subsea methane reserves are so large that they
can supply the entire earths energy needs for several hundreds of years (Light
2012c). By sufficiently depressurizing the Arctic subsea subpermafrost methane
it will be possible to draw down Arctic ocean water through the old eruption sites and fracture systems and
destabilize the methane hydrates in a controlled way thus shutting down the entire
Arctic subsea methane blowout (Light 2012c).
reservoir

Subpoint 2 is Marine Carbon Injection Module

Warming is real and anthropogenic
Waltham 14, Dr. David Waltham is a teacher and researcher in Earth Sciences

and Geophysics at the University of London. He has a PhD in Signal Processing, the
application of nonstationary statistical methods to the processing of seismic
reflection data, at Kings College London. (Three reasons why climate change is
real, and humans are causing it Paleoclimatology can answer the question of
anthropogenic climate change by using fossils to show links between global
temperatures and CO2 levels,
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/25/three-reasons-climatechange-real-and-humans-cause-it, 6/25/2014) Kerwin
Dire warnings of imminent human-induced climate disaster are constantly in the
news but predictions of the end of the world have been made throughout history
and have never yet come true. Even in the brief period of recorded history, natural
climate change has always been with us whether it is the volcanically induced
crop failures that helped precipitate the French revolution or the medieval warm
period that allowed Vikings to colonise Greenland. So how can we trust that the
computer models scientists use to make predictions are reliable? There is
sometimes reluctance to take experts' words for anything and so we would like to
be shown the evidence. Unfortunately, that is difficult when the details are buried
under hundreds of thousands of lines of computer code which implement
mathematical algorithms of mind-numbing complexity. There is, however, one
branch of science that can reliably give an answer that is easy to understand and
hard not to believe. Evidence written in stone Paleoclimatology the study of
Earth's past climates has used fossils to show links between global temperatures
and carbon-dioxide levels. This record is written in stone. There are fossil plantleaves from 55m years ago that have a microscopic structure which can be
accurately reproduced in modern plants only when grown in a carbon-dioxide-rich
atmosphere. Is it a coincidence that, at the time, it was so warm that crocodiles
were living within the Arctic circle? And this is not an isolated case. A sedimentary
record covering half a billion years shows us exactly what we would expect to see if
climate modellers have done their sums right. Fossil and chemical traces in rocks
indicate that warm periods in Earth's history are associated with higher
concentrations of carbon dioxide and quantitative studies show that this correlation
is, if anything, even stronger than predicted. Simple calculations Those 55m yearold leaves suggest that carbon dioxide concentrations were about four times the
present-day levels and back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate that global mean
temperatures were around 7C higher. For comparison, the largely computer-based
predictions published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change imply that
quadrupling carbon-dioxide concentrations should increase temperatures by
between 3C and 9C. The simple paleoclimate example may not nail the case for a
worryingly strong link between carbon dioxide and temperature, but it is good
supporting data. What is most important, however, is that this evidence is hard to
refute. Counter arguments are unconvincing There is little doubt that the recent
rapid increase in carbon dioxide is linked to human activities such as burning of
fossil fuels and deforestation. But does the paleoclimate evidence really tell us that
increased carbon dioxide must mean increased temperatures? One objection might
be that ancient climate change is really evidence for varying solar brightness.
Fluctuating carbon dioxide levels are then a response to climate variation rather

than the cause. However, solar physics tells us that the sun was fainter 55m years
ago rather than brighter, as would be needed for higher temperature. Another
concern is that some important processes, such as ice-sheet disintegration, only
affect climate very slowly. Our warming ice sheets may take centuries to disappear
completely but, when they do, the replacement of reflective-ice by heat-absorbing
rock will warm our planet yet further. The existence of potential complications like
these makes comparisons between paleoclimate change and modern climate
change difficult but it is also one of the reasons why multiple approaches are
needed. If different researchers using different methods nevertheless come up with
more or less the same answer, perhaps they are onto something. Climate change
deniers also confuse the argument by suggesting there is nothing we can do
anyway. China and other rapidly developing countries will dominate carbon dioxide
output in the 21st century. But that is irrelevant if we are simply asking: "Will
increased carbon dioxide levels change our climate?" The ConversationThe fact that
political and technical problems are massively more complex than anything in
climatology is not a reason to stick our heads in the sand. Widespread agreement
that man-made global warming is highly likely would be progress.

Reductions in emissions alone are insufficient even absent a

methane leak, current consumption levels have made CO2
based warming inevitable - strongly err affirmative
Mills 11Robin Mills, Head of Consulting at Manaar Energy Consulting, Non-

Resident Scholar at INEGMA, MSc in Geological Sciences from Cambridge, Capturing

Carbon: The New Weapon in the War Against Climate Change, p. 41
Even if carbon dioxide emissions were to stop today, the built-in inertiain the climate
system would lead to temperatures increasing further . In addition to the 0.75CC rise since the nineteenth century,
we are already committed to a further warming of 0.6C. If emissions, and hence temperatures, continue to rise, warming may be as much as 4C by 2050
and locally much more, 15C hotter in the Arctic and 10C in western and southern Africa. At this level, climate impacts will become more and more

Extinctions are likely to increase sharply, while extreme heat-waves,

forest die-offs, flooding of major river deltas, persistent severe droughts, mass migrations,33 wars and famines
are all possible. We may soon pass, or already have passed, the point at which, over the next few centuries, parts of the West Antarctic and
Greenland ice sheets melt irreversibly, with potential sea level rises of 1.5 and 2-3 metres respectively.34 Due to feedback
mechanisms and poorly understood components of global climate, there is even the possibility of a sudden,
rapid catastrophic change. For example, open ocean absorbs more heat from the sun
than ice. Meltingpermafrost35 and warming ocean bottom waters36 release carbon dioxide and the powerful
greenhouse gas methane, driving further warming. Carbon sinks will become increasingly
ineffective37 as forests die off, soils dry out and warmer oceans dissolve less carbon
dioxide, so that ecosystems may become net contributors of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere,
rather than net absorbers as today. The shade of clouds may diminish over warming oceans,38 while melting ice shelves may lead to
serious.

sudden collapse of grounded ice, and hence rapid rises in sea level. The picture is complicated further by some offsetting effects, due for instance to
increased plant growth in a warmer, more CO2-rich world. Changes in cloudiness, snowfall and albedo (reflectiveness) of vegetation may have warming or

non-linear effects can lead to prolonged

droughts in the Mediterranean, California41 or West Africa,42 or to weakening of ocean circulation43 with knock-on
effects including a rise in North Atlantic sea levels of up to 1 metre, a collapse of fisheries, disruption of the South
Asian monsoon,44 and possibly (albeit unlikely) sharp cooling in Europe.45 Similar rapid changes are documented from
cooling effects. Such positive feedbacks may greatly accelerate warming. Unpredictable,

Earth history, as at the end of the Ice Ages. At one time, at the end of the so-called Younger Dryas event around 12,000 years ago, Europe warmed by

It seems increasingly clear, from geological studies, that the

climate system is unstable and prone to abrupt transitions from one state to another, so
further warming might trigger entirely unforeseen consequences .47 We should not give in to
some 5C within two decades.4"

alarmism, and such disastrous shifts are thought to be unlikelybut their consequences are serious enough to be worth guarding against. This is about as

many individuals and corporations continue to deny the reality of

anthropogenic climate change. The US petroleum and coal businesses, in particular certain commentators,49 and many of the
far as the weight of consensus has reached,48 Yet

general public across the world, 50 continue to maintain that the climate is not warming, that elevated carbon dioxide does not cause warming, that rising
carbon dioxide and temperatures are not caused by humans, that the consequences of climate change will be benign, or some combination of these
positions. Beyond this understanding, there remains great uncertainty and debate on how much warming will occur for given changes in atmospheric
carbon dioxide, how serious the impacts of this warming will be, how the climate will change at regional and local levels, how much it is worth spending to

Despite
extensive and continuing research, these major uncertainties will persist for the
foreseeable future. Some of the debate is a normative one, about the values of our civilisation, and therefore is not even capable of being
solved by scientific inquiry. Such uncertainty and controversy, though, is not a reason for inaction. After all,
we ban certain drugs suspected to be carcinogenic, without waiting for absolute proof, and we will
only know the truth about some of these climate change disasters when they actually strike. I will
reduce climate change,51 exactly what types of action we should take, and how we should go about encouraging global action.

take as my starting point here, in this fast-evolving area of research, the view that we should attempt to keep total warming below 2-3C.52 The original
goal of the EU, recommended by the International Climate Change Task Force, was for a maximum temperature rise of 2C,53 but given the delay in

Anything above 2C is already

dangerous but, with luck, avoiding rises over 3C will prevent the most damaging
effects of climate change. Otherwise, we will venture into uncharted territory,
where the risk of abrupt climatic changes is high: 'Once the world has warmed by 4C, conditions will be so
taking major action, and the latest science, this already seems to be very tough to achieve.

different from anything we can observe today (and still more different from the last ice age) that it is inherently hard to say where the warming will
stop.'55

Only carbon dioxide REMOVALand Injection solvesslow

absorption rate proves-other approaches fail
Mills 11Robin Mills, Head of Consulting at Manaar Energy Consulting, NonResident Scholar at INEGMA, MSc in Geological Sciences from Cambridge, Capturing
Carbon: The New Weapon in the War Against Climate Change, p. 41
Indirect capture is therefore the ultimate backstop for climate policy. Storage capacity permitting , we can at a cost in money and
energy,removeany quantity ofcarbondioxide from the atmosphere . This may be crucial if we
discover that we are on the path to sudden, catastrophic climate change. Even if we
were to halt all emissionsimmediately, it would takemillennia for the elevated
concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide to be fully absorbed. By contrast, air
cap-ture might be able totake us back to pre-industrial levels within some decades. As a
'geo-engineering' solution, it addresses the problem directly, rather than reducing global warming indirectly .141 Undesirable sjdeeffects are, as far as we can tell now,minimal compared with other geo-engineering techniques ,
and it also addresses the other key issue of ocean acidification. Some major studies have dismissedair capture without
,

serious consideration,14- mainly on cost grounds. It is, indeed, likely to be one of the more expensive carbon mitigation options, but it does not have to

It is intended to
address otherwise intractable polluterssuch as flying, and to provide a way of returning rapidly to
a pre-industrial atmosphere. In contrast to other 'carbon offset' schemes such as forestry (see Chapter 4), which have been heavily
compete with CCS on large centralised sources, nor with major low-carbon power solutions such as wind or nuclear.

criticised,141 it offers completely verifiable, and unde-niably 'additional', reductions. I will return to this issue in Chapter 6.

US leadership on marine CCS spills over globally by demonstrating

economic feasibilitymodeling gets China and India on board
MIT 7MIT Panel Provides Policy Blueprint for Future of Use of Coal as

Policymakers Work to Reverse Global Warming, p. http://web.mit.edu/coal/

Leading academics from an interdisciplinary Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) panel issued
a report today that examines how the world can continue to use coal , an abundant and inexpensive
fuel, in a way that mitigates, instead of worsens, the global warming crisis . The study, "The Future of Coal
Options for a Carbon Constrained World," advocates the U.S. assume global leadership on this issue through adoption of significant policy actions. Led
by co-chairs Professor John Deutch, Institute Professor, Department of Chemistry, and
Ernest J. Moniz, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems, the
report states that carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is the critical enabling
technology to help reduce CO2 emissions significantly while also allowing coal to
meet the world's pressing energy needs. According to Dr. Deutch, "As the world's
leading energy user and greenhouse gas emitter, the U.S. must take the lead in
showing the world CCS can work. Demonstration of technical, economic, and
institutional features of CCS at commercial scale coal combustion and conversion plants will give policymakers

and the public confidence that a practical carbon mitigation control option exists , will
reduce cost of CCS should carbon emission controls be adopted, and will maintain the low-cost coal option in an environmentally acceptable manner." Dr.
Moniz added, "There are many opportunities for enhancing the performance of coal plants in a carbon-constrained world higher efficiency generation,
perhaps through new materials; novel approaches to gasification, CO2 capture, and oxygen separation; and advanced system concepts, perhaps guided
by a new generation of simulation tools. An aggressive R&D effort in the near term will yield significant dividends down the road, and should be
undertaken immediately to help meet this urgent scientific challenge." Key findings in this study: Coal is a low-cost, per BTU, mainstay of both the
developed and developing world, and its use is projected to increase. Because of coal's high carbon content, increasing use will exacerbate the problem of
climate change unless coal plants are deployed with very high efficiency and large scale CCS is implemented. CCS is the critical enabling technology
because it allows significant reduction in CO2 emissions while allowing coal to meet future energy needs. A significant charge on carbon emissions is
needed in the relatively near term to increase the economic attractiveness of new technologies that avoid carbon emissions and specifically to lead to
large-scale CCS in the coming decades. We need large-scale demonstration projects of the technical, economic and environmental performance of an

Several integrated large-scale

demonstrationswith appropriate measurement, monitoring and verification are needed in the United States over the next
decade with government support. This is important for establishing public
confidence for the very large-scale sequestration program anticipated in the future . The
integrated CCS system. We should proceed with carbon sequestration projects as soon as possible.

regulatory regime for large-scale commercial sequestration should be developed with a greater sense of urgency, with the Executive Office of the
President leading an interagency process. The U.S. government should provide assistance only to coal projects with CO2 capture in order to demonstrate
technical, economic and environmental performance. Today, IGCC appears to be the economic choice for new coal plants with CCS. However, this could
change with further RD&D, so it is not appropriate to pick a single technology winner at this time, especially in light of the variability in coal type, access
to sequestration sites, and other factors. The government should provide assistance to several "first of a kind" coal utilization demonstration plants, but
only with carbon capture. Congress should remove any expectation that construction of new coal plants without CO2 capture will be "grandfathered" and
granted emission allowances in the event of future regulation. This is a perverse incentive to build coal plants without CO2 capture today.

Emissions will be stabilized only through global adherence to CO2 emission

constraints. China and India are unlikely to adopt carbon constraints unless the
U.S. does so and leads the way in the development of CCS technology.

Further development of methane hydrate is key to make them

commercially viable the technology is successful and solves
Nago et al. 11 (Annick, Antonio Nieto, The John and Willie
Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering,
The Pennsylvania State University, Natural Gas Production
from Methane Hydrate Deposits Using Clathrate
Sequestration: State-of-the-Art Review and New Technical
Approaches // AK)
This paper focuses on reviewing the currently available solutions for natural gas production from methane hydrate

Methane hydrates are ice-like materials, which form at low

temperature and high pressure and are located in permafrost areas and oceanic
environments. They represent a huge hydrocarbon resource, which could supply the
entire world for centuries. Fossil-fuel-based energy is still a major source of carbon
dioxide emissions which contribute greatly to the issue of global warming and
climate change. Geological sequestration of carbon dioxide appears as the
safest and most stable way to reduce such emissions for it involves the trapping
of CO2 into hydrocarbon reservoirs and aquifers. Indeed, CO2 can also be
sequestered as hydrates while helping dissociate the in situ methane hydrates. The
studies presented here investigate the molecular exchange between CO2 and CH4
that occurs when methane hydrates are exposed to CO2, thus generating the
release of natural gas and the trapping of carbon dioxide as gas clathrate. These
projects include laboratory studies on the synthesis, thermodynamics, phase
equilibrium, kinetics, cage occupancy, and the methane recovery potential of the
mixed CO2CH4 hydrate.An experimental and numerical evaluation of the
effect of porous media on the gas exchange is described. Finally, a few field
studies on the potential of this new gas hydrate recovery technique are presented.
1. Introduction Since their initial discovery by Sir Davy Humphrey in 1810, natural gas hydrates have
deposits using CO2 sequestration.

graduated from a laboratory oddity to a hydrocarbon production nuisance as seen forming inside the chamber bell

being considered as a
potential energy resource for the future. For many decades, countries such as the USA, Canada,
used to cap the spill in the deep water horizon oil well, and so forth, before

Japan, India, and China have funded major research projects to get a better understanding and knowledge of
natural gas hydrates [1].

Resource assessment studies have demonstrated the huge

potential of gas hydrate accumulations as a future energy resource [2]. World

energy demand is steadily rising due to global population and economic growth.
World energy consumption is expected to increase from 472 quadrillion Btu to 678
quadrillion Btu in 2030, that a total increase of 44% from 2006 to 2030 [3]. China and
India are currently the fastest growing non-OECD economies, and their combined energy consumption is expected
to represent 28% of the world energy consumption in 2030 [4]. Despite recent progress in obtaining energy from

nearly 80% of the world energy supply will still be generated from oil,
natural gas, and coal. The combustion of these fuels is a major source of carbon
dioxide emissions. Unfortunately, a perceived change in the global climate has been
attributed to the increasing concentration of Green House Gases such as CO2 in the
atmosphere. Geological sequestration of CO2 is a potential solution to this problem.
Typical geological sequestration consists in capturing and storing the gas in a
geological setting such as active and depleted oil/gas reservoir, deep brine
formations, deep coal seams, and coal-bed methane formation [5]. Sequestration of
CO2 in marine and arctic hydrates is considered as an advanced geologic
sequestration concept, which needs further investigation [6]. Gas hydrates are
found in nature, in permafrost and marine environments. They contain mixtures of
gases such as methane and ethane, with carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide as
trace. Methane is the predominant component of natural gas hydrates, which is the
reason they are simply called methane hydrates. Gas hydrates form under specific conditions: (1)
nonfossil fuels,

the right combination of pressure and temperature (high pressure and low temperature), (2) the presence of
hydrate-forming gas in sufficient amounts, and (3) the presence of water. CO2 and CH4 hydrates are of interest with

In addition, CO2 hydrates are

more stable than CH4 hydrates, and the exposition CH4 hydrates to carbon dioxide
has resulted in the release of methane, while carbon dioxide remained trapped.
Thus, the use of carbon dioxide to recover natural gas from hydrate deposits has
gained more and more relevance in the industry. Other techniques are being explored in the area
CO2 being a preferential hydrate guest former when compared to CH4.

of production from hydrate deposits. However, the resource is still not commercially viable due to technical,

Any further investigation of the mixed CO2CH4 gas

hydrate properties could lead to major breakthroughs in the fields of unconventional
resource production and carbon sequestration. 2. What Are Methane Hydrates? Natural gas hydrates, commonly
environmental, and economic issues.

called methane hydrates, are crystalline compounds, which are constituted of gas and water molecules. The water molecules or host molecules form a
hydrogen-bonded lattice, in which gas molecules or guest molecules are entrapped. The presence of guest molecules stabilizes the lattice due to the sum
of the attractive or repulsive forces between molecules known as the Van der Waals forces. There is no bonding between the host molecules and the guest
molecules, that is, the gas molecules are free to rotate inside the lattice [2, 79]. Gas hydrate formation and dissociation are described by the following
equations: and , where NH is the hydration number and G is the guest molecule. Gas hydrate formation is an exothermic process while gas hydrate
dissociation is endothermic. Gas hydrates come under three distinguishable structures: type I, type II, and type H. All structures involve a network of
interconnected cages. Structure I (sI) hydrates display unit cells that are constituted of 46 water molecules organized into 2 small cavities and 6 large
cavities. The small cavities are dodecahedral cages with 12 pentagonal faces. They are usually denoted as 512 cages. The large cavities are 14-sided
polyhedra (tetrakaidecahedron), which are usually denoted as 51262. The unit cells of Type II hydrates (sII) contain 136 water molecules. They are
organized into 16 small cavities and 8 large cavities. The small cavities are of the same kind as the small cavities in sI hydrates. However, the large
cavities are hexacaidecahedra (51264) with 12 pentagonal faces and 4 hexagonal faces [9]. In 1987, a new hydrate structure was discovered and called
structure H (sH). This structure contains 34 water molecules in its unit cell, forming a hexagonal lattice. Type H hydrates display three types of cavities:
three 512 cages, two 435663 cages, and one large 51268 [9, 10]. Because of the size difference between the cages, the three types of hydrates tend to
trap different kinds of molecules. Type I hydrates are usually formed with smaller molecules such as ethane and hydrogen sulfide. Type II clathrates are
formed by larger molecules such as propane and isobutane. Type H hydrates require the presence of a small molecule such as methane and a type H gas
former like 2-methylbutane and cycloheptane to be created. They are less common in nature than the other types of gas hydrates [9, 10]. Figure 1
illustrates the different sorts of hydrate structures and some of their gas-forming molecules. These structures have been observed with X-ray diffraction.
239397.fig.001 Figure 1: Different types of clathrate hydrates [9]. Methane and carbon dioxide both form type I hydrates. The comparison of their hydrate
phase equilibrium conditions suggests the occurrence of a transition zone between both hydrate equilibrium curves where CO2 hydrates can exist while
CH4 hydrates dissociate into methane gas and water. The hydrate phase diagrams of both compounds are presented in Figure 2. In addition, the heat of
formation of carbon dioxide hydrate (57.98kJ/mole) is greater than the heat of dissociation of methane hydrate (54.49kJ/mole). The heat released from
the formation of carbon dioxide hydrate in the presence of methane hydrate should be sufficient to dissociate the methane hydrate and recover methane
gas [11]. Thirdly, it has been experimentally proven that carbon dioxide is preferentially trapped over methane in the hydrate phase [12]. These
observations fuel the growing interest in the use of carbon dioxide for natural gas recovery from gas hydrate deposits. 239397.fig.002 Figure 2: CH4 and
CO2 hydrate phase diagrams [2]. Gas hydrates can be naturally found in permafrost areas and subsea environments. The temperature and pressure
gradients which are at play underneath the Earth help define specific hydrate occurring zones, when associated to the thermodynamic hydrate equilibrium
conditions. These zones are called hydrate stability zones [8]. Figure 3 displays the hydrate stability zones in permafrost and marine environments. fig3
Figure 3: Hydrate stability zones in permafrost and marine environments [2]. Assessment methods for gas hydrates include seismic studies (bottom
simulating reflectors), pore water salinity measurements, well-logging, and direct observations from core samples [13]. So far, 89 hydrate locations have
been discovered all over the world [14]. These locations are presented in Figure 4. 239397.fig.004 Figure 4: World gas hydrate locations [13].3. Current
Research Status Three main production methods have so far been explored for the recovery of natural gas from hydrate deposits: depressurization,
thermal stimulation, and inhibitor injection [8, 15, 16]. These methods aim at thermodynamically destabilizing the reservoir environment to provoke the
release of the entrapped gas [17, 18]. They have been investigated experimentally, numerically, and in the field. However, they have not yet been used
for commercial production of natural gas hydrates due to remaining technical and economic issues. A fourth method was introduced a few years ago and
is based on the concept of hydrate guest molecule exchange between methane and carbon dioxide in the hydrate phase. In 1996, Ohgaki et al. [12]
examined the possible interactions between these two hydrates by injecting carbon dioxide (gas) into an aqueous-gas hydrate system containing
methane. CO2 displays a higher chemical affinity than CH4 in the hydrate structure since it has a higher heat of formation and equilibrium temperature;
that is, at 1000psi, the equilibrium temperature of CH4 hydrate is approximately 283.15K while the equilibrium temperature of CO2 hydrate is around

286.15K. Ohgaki et al.s experiments resulted in the synthesis of a mixed CO2CH4 hydrate. The equilibrium concentrations obtained for CO2 were
greater in the hydrate phase than those of CH4 and less than the concentrations of CH4 in the gas phase. Nakano et al. (1998) [19] performed a similar
study using carbon dioxide and ethane and obtained comparable results. Smith et al. (2001) [20] inquired the feasibility of exchanging carbon dioxide with
methane in geologic accumulations of natural gas hydrates. They numerically investigated the effect of the pore size distribution on the conversion of CH4
hydrate to CO2 hydrate. It was demonstrated that the guest molecule exchange between CO2 and CH4, in porous media was less thermodynamically
favored, as the pore size decreased. They recommended these numerical results be validated by laboratory experiments. Seo et al. (2001) [21]
experimentally investigated hydrate phase equilibrium processes for mixtures of CO2 and CH4. They determined the existing conditions of quadruple
points () in order to examine the hydrate stability. It was noted that the equilibrium curves of the mixed hydrates lied between those of simple carbon
dioxide and methane hydrates. For a given mixture, the concentration of CO2 in the hydrate phase decreased as the pressure was lowered. In 2003, Lee et
al. [22] published the results of their study on the thermodynamics and kinetics of the conversion of CH4 hydrate to CO2 hydrate. They analyzed the
distribution of guest molecules over different cavities for pure methane hydrates and different mixtures of CO2CH4 hydrates, using solid state NMR
methods. It was observed that the cage occupancy ratio of CH4 in the pure methane hydrate decreased as the concentration of CO2 in the mixture
increased. This was explained by the fact that CO2 preferentially occupied large 51262 cages in the mixed hydrate. In terms of kinetics, it was noticed that
the conversion of CH4 hydrate to CO2 hydrate happened much more quickly than the formations of pure CO2 and CH4 hydrates. The amount of CH4 that
could be recovered from the gas hydrate of composition was limited to 64% of the original entrapped gas, even with a CO2 concentration of 100mol%.
Ota et al. (2004) [23] focused on the gas exchange process using liquid CO2. They performed laboratory measurements using the Raman spectroscopy
and numerical simulations, and they found similar results in terms of feasibility of the molecular gas exchange. Stevens et al. (2008) [24] took the studies
on this topic one step further by publishing his work on the gas exchange between CO2 and CH4 in hydrates formed within sandstone core samples. He
used a MRI to analyze the samples and realized there was formation of CO2 hydrate at the expense of the initial CH4 hydrate. Diffusion seemed to be the
main driving force behind the conversion from CH4 hydrate to CO2 hydrate. A considerable amount of CH4 was released during the process, which was
judged as rapid and efficient. There was no free water present. The permeability of the core was reduced during CH4 hydrate formation. This reduced
permeability was maintained constant during the CH4CO2 exchange, and the permeability levels were considered sufficient for gas transportation. In
2008, Youngjune et al. [25] made a major discovery while they were inquiring the effect of the injection of a binary mixture of N2 and CO2 on methane
hydrate recovery. They found out that the injection of a binary mixture of N2 and CO2, instead of the traditional pure CO2, increased the percentage of
methane recovered from 64% to 85% for type I gas hydrates. They also looked at the potential influence of structural transition by forming a type II CH4
C2H6 hydrate and injecting CO2 and a mixture of CO2 with N2. It was determined that the hydrate structure changed from type II to type I during the gas
injection, thus increasing the gas recovery to more than 90% for CH4. Besides these major thermodynamically related numerical and laboratory
investigations, several studies were conducted to evaluate the potential of this new concept as a field scale production method for methane hydrate
deposits. In 2003, Rice [26] proposed a scheme for methane recovery from marine hydrate accumulations. In this scheme, the produced methane would
be converted into hydrogen and carbon dioxide; then, the carbon dioxide would be reinjected into the ocean to be converted into CO2 hydrates and finally
the produced hydrogen would be used as fuel. Methane would be recovered from hydrates using depressurization combined with thermal stimulation. No
direct molecular gas exchange between CH4 and CO2 was inferred in this production scheme. In 2004, McGrail et al. [27] investigated Ohgaki et al.s
method to determine the rate of CO2 gas penetration in the bulk methane hydrate, using the Raman spectroscopy. They discovered that the rates of CO2
gas penetration were too low for this method to be useful for gas hydrate production. Then, they performed a preliminary study on a new enhanced gas
hydrate recovery concept based on the injection of a microemulsion of CO2 and water in the methane hydrate core samples. The technique was validated
through laboratory experiments and numerical simulation, using a custom model based on STOMP-CO2. Finally, Castaldi et al. (2006) [28] examined the
technical feasibility of applying a down-hole combustion method for gas recovery from hydrate accumulations, while sequestrating CO2 as hydrates. The
gas molecular exchange between CH4 and CO2 was not directly mentioned, but they suggested there should be equality between the rates of CO2
hydrate formation and CH4 hydrate dissociation, during the process. In 2006, Goel [11] released a review of the status of research projects and issues
related to methane hydrate production with carbon dioxide sequestration. It was concluded that although several studies had been performed on the
topic, additional experimental data was needed on the topic of CH4CO2 molecular gas exchange in hydrate-bearing sediments. He emphasized the
importance of fully knowing the thermodynamics and kinetics of the formation and dissociation of this mixed hydrate and of the conversion process, in
porous media. He also pointed out the essence of understanding the equilibrium conditions of the mixed hydrate in sediments as a function of pressure,

4. Conclusions This paper

is a brief review of the studies that have been performed on the gas molecular
exchange between CO2 and CH4 within the hydrate phase. As this paper highlights,
such studies are even more essential in this day and age, as we need to quickly
discover and exploit new sources of energy in a sustainable and energy-efficient
manner. An emphasis is put here on experimental, numerical, and field
investigations of the gas hydrate recovery process using CO2, clathrate
sequestration. All studies present positive outcomes and further research on the
topic is encouraged to make this new recovery technique commercially viable.
temperature, mole fraction of CO2 and CH4 in the mixture, pore size, porous material, and flow properties.

Warming causes extinction

IPCC 14, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (Summary for

Policymakers, http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/WG2AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf,
2014) Kerwin
A: OBSERVED IMPACTS, VULNERABILITY, AND ADAPTATION IN A COMPLEX AND
CHANGING WORLD A-1. Observed Impacts, Vulnerability, and Exposure In recent
decades, changes in climate have caused impacts on natural and human systems
on all continents and across the oceans. Evidence of climate-change impacts is
strongest and most comprehensive for natural systems. Some impacts on human
systems have also been attributed5 to climate change, with a major or minor
contribution of climate change distinguishable from other influences. See Figure
SPM.2. Attribution of observed impacts in the WGII AR5 generally links responses of
natural and human systems to observed climate change, regardless of its cause.6 In
many regions, changing precipitation or melting snow and ice are altering
hydrological systems, affecting water resources in terms of quantity and quality
(medium confidence). Glaciers continue to shrink almost worldwide due to climate
change (high confidence), affecting runoff and water resources downstream

(medium confidence). Climate change is causing permafrost warming and thawing

in highlatitude regions and in high-elevation regions (high confidence).7 Many
terrestrial, freshwater, and marine species have shifted their geographic ranges,
seasonal activities, migration patterns, abundances, and species interactions in
response to ongoing climate change (high confidence). See Figure SPM.2B. While
only a few recent species extinctions have been attributed as yet to climate change
(high confidence), natural global climate change at rates slower than current
anthropogenic climate change caused significant ecosystem shifts and species
extinctions during the past millions of years (high confidence).8 Based on many
studies covering a wide range of regions and crops, negative impacts of climate
change on crop yields have been more common than positive impacts (high
confidence). The smaller number of studies showing positive impacts relate mainly
to high-latitude regions, though it is not yet clear whether the balance of impacts
has been negative or positive in these regions (high confidence). Climate change
has negatively affected wheat and maize yields for many regions and in the global
aggregate (medium confidence). Effects on rice and soybean yield have been
smaller in major production regions and globally, with a median change of zero
across all available data, which are fewer for soy compared to the other crops.
Observed impacts relate mainly to production aspects of food security rather than
access or other components of food security. See Figure SPM.2C. Since AR4, several
periods of rapid food and cereal price increases following climate extremes in key
producing regions indicate a sensitivity of current markets to climate extremes
among other factors (medium confidence).11 At present the worldwide burden of
human ill-health from climate change is relatively small compared with effects of
other stressors and is not well quantified. However, there has been increased heatrelated mortality and decreased cold-related mortality in some regions as a result of
warming (medium confidence). Local changes in temperature and rainfall have
altered the distribution of some waterborne illnesses and disease vectors (medium
confidence).12 Differences in vulnerability and exposure arise from non-climatic
factors and from multidimensional inequalities often produced by uneven
development processes (very high confidence). These differences shape differential
risks from climate change. See Figure SPM.1. People who are socially, economically,
culturally, politically, institutionally, or otherwise marginalized are especially
vulnerable to climate change and also to some adaptation and mitigation responses
(medium evidence, high agreement). This heightened vulnerability is rarely due to a
single cause. Rather, it is the product of intersecting social processes that result in
inequalities in socioeconomic status and income, as well as in exposure. Such social
processes include, for example, discrimination on the basis of gender, class,
ethnicity, age, and (dis)ability.13 Impacts from recent climate-related extremes,
such as heat waves, droughts, floods, cyclones, and wildfires, reveal significant
vulnerability and exposure of some ecosystems and many human systems to
current climate variability (very high confidence). Impacts of such climate-related
extremes include alteration of ecosystems, disruption of food production and water
supply, damage to infrastructure and settlements, morbidity and mortality, and
consequences for mental health and human well-being. For countries at all levels of
development, these impacts are consistent with a significant lack of preparedness
for current climate variability in some sectors.14 Climate-related hazards
exacerbate other stressors, often with negative outcomes for livelihoods, especially
for people living in poverty (high confidence). Climate-related hazards affect poor
peoples lives directly through impacts on livelihoods, reductions in crop yields, or

destruction of homes and indirectly through, for example, increased food prices and
food insecurity. Observed positive effects for poor and marginalized people, which
are limited and often indirect, include examples such as diversification of social
networks and of agricultural practices.15 Violent conflict increases vulnerability to
climate change (medium evidence, high agreement). Large-scale violent conflict
harms assets that facilitate adaptation, including infrastructure, institutions, natural
resources, social capital, and livelihood opportunities.16

***ADV 2 is Clean Water

Advantage***

Subpoint 1: Shale Displacement

Fracking shale gas destroys the environment it causes leaks
and harms water quality
Foster 13-- professor of sociology at the University of Oregon
(John Bellamy, editor of Monthly Review, The Fossil Fuels War, Monthly Review,
Sep 2013, Proquest, Accessed 27 June 2014) DZ
Other unconventionals are also altering the terrain of the struggle. The last few years have witnessed
dramatic, new technological developments with respect to hydraulic fracturing
coupled with horizontal drilling or "tracking." Sand, water, and chemicals are
injected at high pressures in order to blast open shale rock, releasing the trapped
gas inside. After the well has reached a certain depth the drilling occurs horizontally.
Fracking has led to the rapid exploitation of vast, hitherto inaccessible, reserves of shale gas and tight oil in states

catapulting the
United States once again into the position of a major fossil-fuel power. It has already
led to substantial increases in natural-gas production , replacing dirtier and more carbonacross the country from Pennsylvania and Ohio to North Dakota and California, unexpectedly

emitting coal in generating electricity. Together the economic slowdown and the shift from coal to natural gas due to
fracking have resulted in a 12 percent drop in U.S. (direct) carbon dioxide emissions between 2005 and 2012,

the negative environmental and health

effects of fracking falling on communities throughout the United States are
enormous, if still not fully assessed. Toxic pollution from fracking is contaminating water
supplies and affecting wastewater treatment not designed to cope with such
hazards. Methane leakages from fracking, in the case of shale gas, are threatening
to accelerate climate change. If such leakages cannot be contained, tracked
natural-gas production could prove more dangerous to the climate than coal.
Fracking has also engendered earthquakes in the extractive areas. In response to such
reaching their lowest level since 1994.14 Nevertheless,

developments, a whole new environmental resistance to fracking has arisen in communities throughout North
America, Australia, and elsewhere.

Fracking targets rural communities which is classist.

Knoblauch, 2012 Reporter for EarthJustice [Jessica, FRACKING RUNS AFOUL

OF HOMETOWN U.S.A., EarthJustice , Fall 2012,

http://earthjustice.org/features/campaigns/fracking-runs-afoul-of-hometown-u-s-a,
15 September 14] KF
Filled with nostalgia for hot days and salty sweet Cracker Jacks, each year hundreds
of thousands of baseball fans make the pilgrimage to this tiny village in the northern
Catskill Mountains to celebrate America's oldest past time.
But Cooperstown's draw goes beyond Doubleday Field and the National Baseball
Hall of Fame. Its rustic yet sophisticated charm lures city dwellers and out-of-state
homesteaders craving fresh air, rural landscapes and down-home attractions.Spend
a day in Cooperstown and it's easy to see why novelist James Fenimore Cooper
immortalized it in The Leatherstocking Tales.
America's hometown, however, is under siege from an energy industry that
threatens its very character and livelihood. And, it's not alone. The extreme form of
gas extraction known as fracking is spreading to towns across the U.S., with more
than 200,000 wells drilled in just under a decade. With it, the boom brings
uncertainties about tainted water, poisoned animals and destroyed landscapes.
The oil and gas takeover of main street communities is cheered on by the usual
crowds, including pro-industry groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
which favor short-term private gain over the long-term interests of communities.
The national groups' views, however, can clash with their local counterparts, such

as the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce, which see and feel fracking's real-life
impacts. They know fracking threatens their neighborhoods, and support bans
against the practice. When it comes to politics and baseball, the locals always root
for the home team.

Fracking targets areas inhabited by minorities such as Native

Americans
Kashi, 2013 Reporter for theInternational Business Times
[David, North American Fracking Update: Canada's Native Americans' Fight To
Prevent Unconventional Drilling Leads To Violent Clash, International Business
Times, 10/21/13, http://www.ibtimes.com/north-american-fracking-update-canadasnative-americans-fight-prevent-unconventional-drilling-leads, 9/10/14]KF
The First Nations are protesting the controversial fracking technology being used on
their land, a practice that blasts millions of gallons of water and chemicals to
shatter deep-rock formations and release petroleum. Environmentalists and other
fracking opponents claim the technique contaminates groundwater. The technique
has been a major contributor to North America surpassing Saudi Arabia in oil and
gas production in the past year.
The First Nations, one of the largest indigenous groups in Canada, clashed with
police in New Brunswick when protestors tried to block oil and gas exploration by
the Houston-based energy company Southwestern Energy Company (NYSE:SWN).
Indigenous Americans in Canada protesting shale gas and oil exploration on native
lands came into conflict with Canadian police in a violent clash that ended with 40
people arrested and several police cars destroyed.

Methane Hydrates Displace Shale and key to reducing US

energy dependence shale oil cannot solve alone, because it is
a minor resource
Shimizu 2013 - The Sasakawa Peace Foundation at the CSIS
[Aiko student at the University of Pennsylvania Law School March 2013, The future
of US-Japan alliance collaboration, Energy Security and Methane Hydrate
Exploration in US-Japan
Relationshttp://csis.org/files/publication/issuesinsights_vol13no8.pdf, 6/29/14) HL
In the United States, natural gas accounts for almost a quarter of its energy supply
and is expected to remain constant over the next few decades. Yet energy demand
during this period is expected to continue increasing. The Energy Information Administration

(EIA) projects that the nation would have to increase its annual natural gas production by about 10 percent over the
next 25 years in order to keep up with the rising consumption level.20 Fortunately, the United States has an
abundance of domestic natural gas supplies. In fact, natural gas production is at an all-time high due to the socalled shale gas revolution.21 In their latest assessment, the Potential Gas Committee estimated that the country
has a total natural gas resource base of approximately 2,074 million cubic feet (Tcf).22 This amount included 1,836
Tcf of potential natural gas resources (including probable, possible, and speculative resources) and 238 Tcf of

more natural gas supplies would be needed as demand

continues to grow. If technologies can be developed for the purpose of making
methane hydrate a viable source for natural gas,the United States could decrease
its reliance on foreign energy sources. The abundance of natural gas that the US is
experiencing from the shale-gas revolution will not last forever.Shale gas deposits,
as a proportion of natural gas supplies in the world, may be minor in comparison to
methane hydrates.24 Although methane hydrate production may be more expensive
proved reserves.23 Nevertheless,

than conventional ways of extracting natural gas , the estimated cost of methane
hydrate extraction is similar to unconventional sources like shale gas .25

Racism guarantees a paradigm of violence and warit is

radically dehumanizing and anchors a perpetual, racist war
Nelson Maldonado-Torres, associate professor of comparative literature at Rutgers, 8 [Against War: Views
from the Underside of Modernity, p. 237-8] //DDI13
In this work I have attempted to make explicit the subtle complicities between dominant epistemological and
anthropological ideals and the exercise of violence. The works of Levinas, Fanon, and Dussel oppose what I have

called a paradigm of violence and war. This dominant paradigm is characterized by

making invisible or insignificant the constitutive force of inter human contact for the
formation of subjectivity, of knowledge, and of human reality in general .The relation
with objects, whether practical or theoretical, takes primacy over the relation
between human beings. The first motivation for this way of thinking is to attain
knowledge, truth, comprehension, or adequate understanding . The self is thereby
taken to be primarily a monad, a transcendental ego, or an autonomous and free
human being for whom the relation with the Other tends to represent only an
undesirable detour in the project of adequately representing the world . The self
becomes allergic to the Other, and the intersubjective contact is then accounted
for either in epistemological categories or in concepts tied to a theoretical approach .
This philosophical anthropology ends up legitimating the superiority of theory
over praxis and contemplation over liberation . One of my central points is that once a
civilization begins to conceive the humanity of the human in these terms it will
either commit violence with good conscience, find itself incapable of opposing
violence, or legitimize ideals of peace that are complicit with violence. I trace
dominant themes surrounding the discussion of the crisis or so-called malaise of Europe back to the allegiance of

a skewed vision of the human . Such a

combines claims for autonomy and freedom with the production of the color
line or the systematic differentiation between groups taken as the norm of the
human and others seen as the exception to it. The so-called discovery of the New
World became a crucial point in the establishment of this vision: it oriented Western
humanism in a radically dehumanizing direction. From then on, Western humanism
argued for the glory of Man and the misery of particular groups of human beings
simultaneously. Indeed, Man became the most glorious as he was able to claim
relative independence from God and superiority over the supposedly less than
human others at the same time. The relationship between (imperial) Man and God
has been ambiguous for the most part, but not so the relation between Man and his
inferior sub-others. It is as if the production of the " less than human" functioned
as the anchor of a process of autonomy and self-assertion . The paradigm of war,
at first reconciled to and to some extent promoted by imperial Christendom, legitimates war against God,
nature, and, particularly, the less than human others . The relationship with God and nature,
however, can vary. What typically remains constant for the warring paradigm is the
assertion of the color line. The distinction between God, Man, and the non-human
precedes the reduction of subjectivity to a totality or its naturalization. And it was
the colonized and the modern slave who experienced the systematic negation of
her and his subjectivity, long before positivism, naturalism, or philosophies of
history subsumed subjectivity in larger frameworks or anonymous mechanisms. In
modernity, the racialized others take the place of enemies in a perpetual
war out of which modern ideals of freedom and autonomy get their proper
Western civilization to practices that obey the logics opened up by
vision

sense. This is the foundation of modernity as a paradigm of war and the source of
many of its pathologies, crises, and evils.

Subpoint 2: Desalination
Water crises coming now-population booms and warming
Zakar and Fischer 2012 - Prof. @ University of Punjab and Prof.
@ University of Bielefeld[Muhammad Zakria and Florian Fischer "Climate
Change-Induced Water Scarcity: A Threat to Human Health*." South Asian Studies
27, no. 2 (Jul, 2012): 293-312, //proquest//(accessed June 27, 2014).] LJ
The concept of water scarcity needs to be understood in both global and regional
contexts. Hydrologists typically assess scarcity by looking at the population-water equation (Mukheibir, 2010).
From the water stress index, when a country falls below 1000 m3 of fresh water per person per year, it is
considered a water-scarce country; and if it is below 500 m3, the country is considered to be in absolute water

It is reported that currently about 1.2 billion

people do not have access to safe drinking water and this figure will be 2.7 to 3.5
billion people by 2025 if effective steps are not taken to mitigate the water scarcity problem (Mukheibir,
scarcity (Falkenmark, Lundquist, & Widstrand, 1989).

2010). The Middle East and some parts of Africa could suffer water scarcity as they are likely to run out of water

countries in Africa and the Middle East will be in

the grip of serious water scarcity within the next fifteen years . The most visible effect of
(Qadir et al., 2003). Table 1 shows that some

climate change is the change in availability and patterns of consumption of fresh water because of changes in
temperature, precipitation, productive capacity of the soil, and in the patterns of human settlement (Raleigh &
Urdal, 2007). Increasing climate variability is expected to alter the present hydrological resources and increase
pressure on the availability of water resources in some parts of the world (Mukherbir, 2010). Furthermore,

climate change could create a serious imbalance in the supply

and demand of water world-wide. It may be noted that water availability and consumption is contingent
upon the geographical and temporal availability of water. Unfortunately, water is in high demandin
regions like South Asia, Southeast Asia and North Africa, places where it is not
naturally abundant (Kanae, 2009). The reason for the high consumption of water in these regions is
intensive agricultural activities, as 70 percent of water in these regions is used for crop production.
anthropogenically induced

Figure 1 shows that already water-scarce countries such as Egypt, Jordan, and Pakistan are extensively using
renewable water resources for irrigation purposes, which is obviously not ecologically sustainable (Khan & Hanjra,

Many crop-producing regions are located in semi-arid areas and the

exploitation of water is greatest in these regions. To meet the huge demand for water,
sophisticated pumping technologies are used to extract groundwater, thus making
water use unsustainable and beyond the capacity of the hydrological cycle to
recharge. This is why, all over the world, groundwater sources are in decline due to over-pumping and pollution
(Schewartz & Ibaraki, 2011). There are persistent warnings that groundwater, especially in
parts of India, northern China, and Pakistan, is being depleted at a rate higher that
its replenishment (Butler, 2009).
2009).

Water scarcity drives war-creates conditions for conflict.

Zakar and Fischer 2012 - Prof. @ University of Punjab and Prof.
@ University of Bielefeld[Muhammad Zakria and Florian Fischer "Climate
Change-Induced Water Scarcity: A Threat to Human Health*." South Asian Studies
27, no. 2 (Jul, 2012): 293-312, //proquest//(accessed June 27, 2014).] LJ

Water scarcity and conflicts. Does water scarcity produce or promote violence? This question is difficult to answer.

There is an increasing incidence of conflict and violence in water-scarce areas , but it is

not clear whether the violence is a direct product of water scarcity or whether water scarcity promotes conditions

Water scarcity not only undermines individuals' health and

well-being but also weakens the state's capacity to provide services to the affected
population. Scarcity often has its harshest social impact when these factors interact
with other factors (Homer-Dixon, 1994). Water scarcity becomes more severe when it
undermines the societal capacity to adapt. Because scarcity decreases the state's
capacity to create markets and other institutions that promote adaptation (Homer-Dixon,
1994), it has an impact onsocietalresilienceagainstvariousthreats. For instance, in waterthat result in violent conflicts.

scarce regions many peasants try to supplement their falling income by cutting and
selling wood, which contributes to further deforestation (Homer-Dixon, 1994). Insuch
situations, if the state is weak, corrupt, or inefficient, water scarcity will damage other
systems as the state fails to promote the adaptive capacity of the people by giving
them alternative sources of income . Secondly, an unjust distribution of water may weaken the
relationship between the individual and the community by disrupting relationship networks and social support

water scarcity may intensify competition over resources, which places

an additional burden on the available water resources (Homer-Dixon, 1994).
systems. Thirdly,

Methane hydrates solve for coming water shortages desalination tech.

Sangwai 2013 - prof of Chemical Engineering at the Indian
Institute of Technology[Desalination of Seawater Using Gas Hydrates// Jitendra S. Sangwai1,*,
Rachit S. Patel2, Prathyusha Mekala3, Deepjyoti Mech3, Marc Busch5 http://www.google.com/url?
sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=25&ved=0CK8BEBYwGA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net
%2Fprofile%2FRachit_Singh_Patel%2Fpublication
%2F259266834_DESALINATION_OF_SEAWATER_USING_GAS_HYDRATE_TECHNOLOGY__CURRENT_STATUS_AND_FUTU
RE_DIRECTION%2Ffile
%2F3deec52aa1c4bed97c.pdf&ei=CiirU6r7BMa1O_GegbgM&usg=AFQjCNGOxvpxLhNTR5hY84bXS9OaUfOGvQ&sig2
=Lnyiu74yBBJ6ZetVOTIdAw //Accessed on June 29, 2014// December 2013] LJ

water forms an integral part of mankind and hence should require prime attention . Due
to industrialization and increased population, the shortage of water in several developing
countries is observed. Seawater forms a huge sourceof potable waterprovided the
economical desalination technology is in place . The available desalination technology,
though mature, require development to make them more economical . Gas hydrates may
come at help to make the process more economical . Gas hydrates are crystalline solids made of
the water (host) and the gas molecules (guest) such as methane, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, etc., which
are held within water cavities that are composed of hydrogen-bonded water molecules .
The gas hydrate as a technology has been successful for several potential applications in
various engineering fields, such as, gas separation, carbon dioxide sequestration, gas storage and
transportation, energy source, refrigeration and not the least, in the desalination of salt water .
The current work focuses on the use of hydrate for desalination of salt water. The desalination process is
based on the phase change of liquid to solid thereby removing the solids from the
liquid phase.We present a principle behind the use of hydrate technology for desalination of salt water, the
Abstract: The

science and engineering aspects of the process and future directions.

***ADV 3 is JAPAN
COOPERATION***

Subpoint 1 is US-Japan Cooperation

The US must increase its Methane Hydrate research to fulfill
cooperative agreements with Japan
Platts Oilgram News 2013 [Takeo Kumagai - Platts writer Oct 31,
http://www.platts.com/latest-news/natural-gas/tokyo/japan-urges-us-to-moveforward-methane-hydrate-27583047 Japan urges US to move forward methane
hydrate cooperation agreement Accessed June 27]
HL
Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Toshimitsu Motegi, Thursday asked visiting US
energy secretary Ernest Moniz to move forward the two countries' bilateral
agreement on methane hydrate cooperation, a METI source said. The request was made during a
ministerial-level meeting in Tokyo, where the ministers met for the first time since they last met in Washington in
July, the source said.

Tokyo's request was made to move forward a state of intent, which METI and the US
to work together to develop methane hydrate

Department of Energy signed in 2008,

production, the source said. The source, however, declined to disclose the response from Moniz on its request
during the bilateral meeting. During a lecture in Tokyo earlier Thursday, Moniz, however, pointed to METI's longrunning research into extracting gas from undersea methane hydrate deposits. (see story 0907 GMT) "Methane
hydrates represent research challenges but a very important resource potential," said Moniz, a physics professor at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before President Obama appointed him. "In my former life at MIT, when
we wrote on natural gas, we noted that methane hydrates could be the next big revolution following shale gas,

Under the 2008

agreement, the two countries said the proposed cooperation would enhance
understanding of gas hydrates and speed up research into their exploration and
development. In March, Japan produced a total of 120,000 cubic meters, or 20,000 cu m/day, of gas from
although it will take some time, certainly, to make this a commercially viable activity."

methane hydrate at a six-day offshore output test in central Japan, according to preliminary figures released by
state-owned Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation at the time. Production from the test compares with
13,000 cu m or 2,400 cu m/day of gas produced during a 5.5-day onshore output test carried out by Japan in
Canada in 2008. Methane hydrates are solid, ice-like deposits of water and natural gas, located deep underwater
where cold temperatures and extreme pressure causes the gas to condense and solidify. Although there are a
number of technical barriers to methane hydrate production, such as achieving sufficient flow rates to reduce
production costs, known resources could be large enough to meet Japan's demand for about 14 years, based on its
confirmation of 40 Tcf of methane hydrate resources in place in the southern Sea of Kumano in 2007.

US methane hydrate exploration would be done cooperatively

with Japan it speeds Japanese commercialization and
promotes US development
Shimizu 2013 - The Sasakawa Peace Foundation at the CSIS [Aiko student at
the University of Pennsylvania Law School March 2013, The future of US-Japan
alliance collaboration, Energy Security and Methane Hydrate Exploration in USJapan Relationshttp://csis.org/files/publication/issuesinsights_vol13no8.pdf, 6/29/14)
HL
Cooperation in the area of energy security is not new in US-Japan relations . For
example, the two governments established the US-Japan Clean Energy Technology
Cooperation in November 2009.56 Some of the initiatives that are outlined in this include bilateral
cooperation for research with national laboratories and strengthening interaction in the areas of basic science and
energy efficiency.57 This framework was created because American and Japanese policies in the development of

Similarly, with the United States and Japan sharing

goals and interests in the potential of methane hydrate gas as part of their energy
security, a more formal joint cooperation scheme in this area may be created and
integrated into the existing bilateral cooperation framework in energy security . As in
many areas, the United States and Japan cooperate on the development of methane
hydrate technology. Most notably, in 2012 JOGMEC, US Department of Energy (DOE) and
ConocoPhillips joined forces to conduct a methane hydrate production test that
injected a mixture of nitrogen and carbon dioxide into methane hydrate to release natural
clean energy technologies were aligned.

gas in Alaskas North Slope. The group released its results in May of that year and the test was deemed to
be a success. Building on this test, the DOE is launching a new research initiative to conduct a long-term production
test in the Arctic, as well as research to test additional technologies that could be used to locate, characterize, and
safely extract methane hydrates on a larger scale in the coast off the Gulf of Mexico.58 Japan, for its part, will
accelerate its efforts to develop methane hydrate technology that would be necessary for commercial production so
that they can launch commercial production of methane hydrates as early as fiscal year 2018.59 Prime Minister Abe
announced that this commercialization target would be included in the governments new Basic Plan on Ocean

The two countries should formalize a process to

cooperate in the area of methane hydrate extraction while enthusiasm is relatively
high at least in one of the partners (Japan). TheUnited States may initially see this joint effort as simply a
means to support Japan in its enthusiasm for methane hydrate exploration, but it will benefit in the longrun once the two countries have made progress on the development of this
technologyand Japan is able to gain experience in utilizing it. With this experience,
Japan may be able tohelp the United States in methane hydrate extractiononce the
shale gas revolution ends. In addition to joint public-private partnerships in methane
hydrate research, the two countries should engage in research and discussions on
the impact of extraction on the environment and climate change.
Policy, which is currently being created.60

US Japan cooperation is key to Asian security and avoiding a

Senkaku conflict
Chanlett-Avery et al. 13. Specialist in Asian Affairs. [Emma, Mark E.
Manyin Specialist in Asian Affairs, William H. Cooper Specialist in International Trade
and Finance, Ian E. Rinehart Analyst in Asian Affairs. February 15,
2013http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?
verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA577937] SALH
Japan is a significant partner for the United States in a number of foreign policy
areas, particularly in terms of security priorities, from responding to Chinas rise in
the region to countering threats from North Korea. The post-World War II U.S.-Japan alliance has
long been an anchor of the U.S. security role in East Asia. The alliance facilitates the forward deployment of about
49,000 U.S. troops and other U.S. military assets based in Japan in the Asia-Pacific. If Japan decides to join the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement, it will become an even more critical element in the Obama

Japan has struggled to find political stability in the

past seven years. Since 2007, six men have been Prime Minister, including the current premier Shinzo Abe,
Administrations rebalancing to Asia strategy.

who also held the post in 2006- 2007. His Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) returned to power in a landslide election in
December 2012. The current opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) had ruled for three tumultuous years since
their own watershed election victory in 2009.

Japans leaders face daunting tasks: an

increasingly assertive China, a weak economy, and rebuilding from the devastating
March 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster. In recent years, opposition control of
one chamber of parliament has paralyzed policymaking in Tokyo and made U.S.-Japan relations difficult to manage
despite overall shared national interests. Abe is unlikely to pursue controversial initiatives before the next national

Perhaps most significantly,

the United States could become directly involved in a military conflict between
Japan and China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islets in the East China Sea.
elections, for the Upper House of parliament (called the Diet) in July 2013.

Senkaku conflict would escalate to global war it would engulf

the Asian region
Jade 2014 - JD Candidate at Cornell [Harry, Cornell International Law
Journal, A Solution Acceptable to All? A Legal Analysis of the Senkaku-Diaoyu Island
Dispute., Ebsco, Accessed Jun24 2014], LS

B. Alternatives to Pursuing International Litigation or Arbitration Rather than risk losing potentially valuable and
nationally significant territory in an exceedingly uncertain trial, Japan and China face a few additional alternatives to
litigating their claims in court. First, both

countriescanallow the acts of aggression to become

gradually more and more pronounced to the point that war will inevitably grip the
region. On the one hand, this alternative would allow both countries to pursue their

immediate personal interests and permit each to entirely forgo negotiated

compromise. However, the Sino-Japanese War cast a long shadow across Fast Asia, and a major conflict
would almost certainly undo much of the economic development and political
cooperation in the region following World War II . Accordingly, neither Japan nor China should be
eager to pursue armed conflict with each other. Additionally, damaging would be the
inevitablespillover of this particular regional conflict into the international sphere . As
the United States has agreed to support Japan in an armed invasion of the SenkakuDiaoyu Islands, a spiral of Japanese-Chinese military hostilities could force the
United States to confront an increasingly powerful China.Moreover, Chinese-initiated
armed conflict would be a blatant violation of the UN Charter's prohibition on the
use of force,- an action that would likely further mobilize the international
community and international organizations such a s NATO.^^ Thus, not surprisingly, war
would be even less desirable than bringing a legal claim invoking current customary law.

***SOLVENCY***

USFG key-3 reasons

Demonstration projects are key to incentivizing private
investment uniquely true for marine CCS
Holloway, 13 B.Sc. in Technology and a Diploma in Design and Innovation from
Open University, Associate writer, (James, New lab could unlock vast potential of
seabed methane ice, Ars Technica, http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/01/newlab-could-unlock-vast-potential-of-seabed-methane-ice/)//KC
Such environments are plentiful, of course, and so it's unsurprising that methane
hydrate is thought to be abundant on planet Earth. However, as our understanding
of methane hydrate formation has grown, our best guess as to the extent of the
reserves has become smaller. Currently, the most conservative estimate is that
there are between 500 and 2,500 gigatonnes of carbon in submarine gas hydrate
deposits, the majority of which are in the form of methane. Even at the low end,
however, this is more than double the Earth's 230 gigatonnes of natural gas from
other sources. According to the Department of Energy, methane hydrates are
Earth's largest untapped fossil fuel resource. But quantity isn't everything; it's the
size of the deposits that may one day prove commercially viable to tap that are key.
This category of methane hydrates may prove to be a small proportion of the total.
Extracting methane hydrate poses certain logistical headaches, including the
prevention of methane gas escape. Though shorter-lived in the atmosphere, as a
greenhouse gas, methane is many times as effective as carbon dioxide (and
typically ends up being oxidized to CO2 anyway). When it's used as fuel, carbon
dioxide is the primary output. The researchers at UC Irvine, led by Derek DunnRankin and Peter Taborek, want to see if we could sidestep both issues. They plan
on examining whether it might be possible to use the methane and sequester the
resulting carbon dioxide, all at its undersea source. "There are, of course,
tremendous challenges and uncertainty regarding the in situ utilization of methane
hydrates, but the ultra high pressure environment of the deep ocean offers some
new ways to think about clean power production," Dunn-Rankin told Ars. To that
end, the new laboratory will contain a combustion reactor vessel and a multiphase
emission evolution vessel that will allow the combustion of methane from methane
hydrate in simulated deep-sea conditions. "The point of the multiphase emission
evolution vessel is to see how the presence of other combustion emission gases
affects the CO2 capture and stability," Dunn-Rankin explained. "It is to look for the
kinetics of hydrates and mechanisms that might enhance their stability." The
methane hydrate used will itself be made in the lab. So is there a plan to trap the
carbon dioxide in a similar icy prison? "It is not necessarily a new hydrate form,"
Dunn-Rankin told Ars. "The real issue is that if you put CO2 hydrate into
surroundings that have no CO2 dissolved into them, the thermodynamics would
force the CO2 to gradually try to equilibrate the surroundingswhich means the
hydrate would dissolve. This is shown to be the case in most laboratory tests and
theory. The thing is, the methane hydrates should do the same thing and yet they
are stable on very long timescales. The understanding of why this might occur, the
kinetics of the processes, and the effects of small amounts of natural surfactants
and other species is unknown." The goal so far as methane hydrate is concerned,
Dunn-Rankin explained, is to see if it makes any sense to use methane hydrate at
the source. However, it's thought that the lab could also see use for broader energyrelated research into fuel cells, obtaining hydrogen from methane, and water

purification. Given the focus of the research, we shouldn't expect that this new
facility will handle all the unanswered questions surrounding the potential for
methane hydrate exploitation. The role of methane hydrate in the stability of the
ocean floor is not fully understood, and its extraction, by drilling or other means,
may contribute to landslides on sloping sea floor. But the research does at least hint
at the possibility of a more sophisticated approach to fossil fuel extraction and use.
Asked if he saw an inevitability to the use of methane hydrate as a source of
energy, Dunn-Rankin's response is nuanced. "For me, the use of methane hydrate
as a source of energy in the future depends more on what alternative sources of
energy are available," he said. "The advances in the extraction of natural gas from
shale seem to me also likely to dampen enthusiasm for more expensive and
potentially riskier energy source utilization. This said, our efforts to understand
hydrate dissolution and formation will always have value for the sequestration side
of the problem and will allow rational considerations of methane hydrate utilization
as well (we hope)."

Federal funding is key to incentivize private investment

Morel, 06 [Near Term Energy Potential Realization of Domestic
Methane Hydrate Deposits: The Need for Funding and Industry
Participation Liz Morel 2006 WISE Intern The University of
Kansas August 3, 2006, Sponsored by The American Institute
of Chemical Engineers, http://www.wiseintern.org/journal/2006/Morel-AIChE.pdf // AK]
Government should make targeted investments in demonstration projects
bridging development and commercialization particularly those involving highpotential, yet high-risk, technologies. The market place could not support these
projects without such a demonstration. Government should explore and
support new R&D consortia and public/private partnership models (with appropriate cost sharing, tax
benefits, and intellectual property protections) to foster R&D on targeted and market-relevant energy
technologies. - AIChE Policy Recommendations Science and Technology to Meet Our Energy Needs 5.0 Policy

Though infrastructure, guidance, and funding have been given to the Methane
more is needed and Congress must be the one
to provide the support. This section reviews the funding methods and legislation of past oil and gas
Options

Hydrate Research and Development program,

research programs that have seen success and that are policy options to address the barriers to methane hydrate
goal realization. Based on the findings from the research conducted for this policy paper, recommendations are
based on the past success of research program organization and the political feasibility of implementing the needed

the focus of Congressional legislation should be to increase

appropriate funding, encourage industry-government collaboration, and to promote
the goal of assessing the energy potential and production viability of methane
hydrate deposits. 5.1 Increased Funding: Increased Appropriations, and Tax Incentives Funding must be
increased so that the US may adopt a more aggressive R&D schedule and to entice
industry to participate in R&D. Funding, to accelerate the R&D schedule, may simply
be done by increasing the amount of funds that are appropriated annually to the
Methane Hydrate Research and Development Program. No new legislation would be required
legislation. As stated previously,

as the amount being appropriated is less than the value that was authorized through the Methane Hydrate
Research and Development Act.

DOE funding is key to position the US as a global leader

NRC 4 (National Research Council, Charting the Future of
Methane Hydrate Research in the United States // AK)

The following findings and recommendations are based on detailed consideration of

the issues discussed above and the statement of task. These findings and recommendations
are discussed in greater detail throughout the report and particularly in Chapter 6. The Methane Hydrate
Research and Development Act of 2000 will cease to be effective at the end of fiscal
year 2005. The findings and recommendations are therefore intended to be
considered with the reauthorization of the act. efficient and environmentally sound development
(research area B); developing technologies to reduce the risk of drilling (research area F); and conducting
exploratory drilling (research area G). No projects have been funded in the area of transportation and storage. None
of the projects emphasized education and training. Research projects only minimally addressed the area of
environmental impacts of degassing (decomposition as the solid-state hydrate transforms to gaseous methane and
liquid water), and its potential for affecting climate. Better estimates of the amount of hydrate in diffuse hydrate
reservoirs (as opposed to focused deposits) are now available and the estimates are lower than previously thought.
Ground-truthing of geophysics requires an analysis of geophysical data taken from sites where samples are
available for testing the geophysical models. The DOE Methane Hydrate R&D Program supported very little of this
type of analysis. For example, postcruise research from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 204 is supported by NSF
but not by DOE. However, the MMS is updating their assessment of hydrate and the ChevronTexaco joint industry
project (JIP), discussed in Chapter 3, will address the correlation of geophysical measurements with the occurrence

The DOE Methane Hydrate R&D Program should strengthen its

contribution to education and training through funding of postdoctoral fellowships
and should increase efforts in basic research to address the relationship between
gas hydrate and climate change. It is, however, appropriate that some research areas mentioned in the
of hydrate. Recommendation

act (e.g., transportation) receive no support since they are peripheral to the primary objectives of the act. Chapter 3
summarizes the process by which projects are selected for funding within the DOE Methane Hydrate R&D Program
and reviews projects falling into four major categories: (1) international collaborative projects, (2) industry-managed
targeted research projects, (3) USGS projects, and (4) smaller-scale projects. These projects were chosen based on
their potential to meet the goals of the DOE Methane Hydrate R&D Program and the proportion of program funds
they consume. The findings and recommendations below are based on a review of projects within these categories,
which comprise more than 90 percent of the funded work. Targeted Research Projects Targeted research projects
are designed to be specific to a research area (e.g., Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, transportation, modeling). Targeted
research projects account for over 60 percent of planned DOE Methane Hydrate R&D Program funding through
2005. Three industry-managed projects that fall into this category (reviewed in Chapter 3) were funded with
considerable cost shares from industry (Appendix G, Table G.1): BP Exploration (Alaska): Alaska North Slope Gas
Hydrate Reservoir Characterization; Maurer/Anadarko: Methane Hydrate Production from Alaskan Permafrost; and
ChevronTexaco Joint Industry Project (JIP): Characterizing Natural Gas Hydrates in the Deep Water Gulf of Mexico:
Applications for Safe Exploration. The BP Exploration (Alaska) project and the Maurer/Anadarko project are both
dedicated to energy-related research goals in the Arctic. The ChevronTexaco JIP is geared toward reducing the risk
that gas hydrate deposits pose to conventional oil and gas exploration and development in the Gulf of Mexico.
These projects provide opportunities to advance gas hydrate science and engineering techniques. However, in
some cases, they have had difficulty in meeting their respective objectives due to a project assessment and
evaluation process unsuited to recognize, evaluate, and select science-based investigations that would successfully
meet the objectives of the program. In addition, the results of these projects have not been made publicly available.
Finding Although the issues vary, the committees review of the industry-managed, targeted research projects
raises concerns about each that could limit the ability of these projects to contribute to the goals of the program.
International Collaborative Projects Gas hydrate research is international. Canada, Japan, and India, for example, are
investing significant financial resources in hydrate research. The Methane Hydrate R&D Program has made modest
investments in international projects such as the Mallik 2002 Production Research Well Program and ODP Leg 204.

These projects represent significant achievements with relatively small investment.

Together with the United States, the international community can make substantial
progress toward developing the potential of gas hydrate as an energy resource.
However, the DOE Methane Hydrate R&D Program is currently not funded at a level
sufficient to allow a major role in large-scale international research efforts, such as
proposed for continuing studies at Mallik. Findings By effectively leveraging funding,
the DOE Methane Hydrate R&D Program made wise investments of relatively small
resources in support of major international research efforts. Relative to the United States,
other countries (e.g., Japan) are spending significantly more money on hydrate research. Recommendations It will
be to the benefit of all nations, including the United States, to foster further
collaboration with groups conducting methane hydrate research. Where appropriate, the
DOE Methane Hydrate R&D Program should be encouraged to lead such
endeavors.Unless substantially greater resources are devoted to the DOE Methane
Hydrate R&D Program, the United States may fall behind other nations in leading

hydrate development technology.Recommendation To ensure the future success of large,

industry-managed targeted research projects, the DOE Methane Hydrate R&D
Program should implement the following: science-based proposal review; sciencebased assessments of project progress and milestones; expert consultation with a
diverse project team; data made publicly available; and peer-reviewed publication
of results.

Tech Exists-2 reasons

Tech exists but no investment now
Jones 12- award-winning science journalist, BSc and in chemistry and

oceanography at UBC and masters with a focus on science and Hal Straight gold
medal, former New Scientist magazine reporter, invited speaker at Brighton Science
Festival (Nicola, Gas-hydrate tests to begin in Alaska US team will pump waste
carbon dioxide into natural-gas well to extract methane, Nature,
http://www.nature.com/news/gas-hydrate-tests-to-begin-in-alaska-1.9758)//KC
This month, scientists will test a new way to extract methane from beneath the frozen
soil of Alaska: they will use waste carbon dioxide from conventional wells to force out the desired natural gas.
The pilot experiment will explore the possibility of mining from gas hydrates : cages of
water ice that hold molecules of methane. Such hydrates exist under the sea floor and in sandstone deep beneath
the Arctic tundra, holding potentially vast reserves of natural gas. But getting the gas out is tricky and expensive.
The test is to be run by the US Department of Energy (DOE), in conjunction with ConocoPhillips, an oil company

The researchers will

pump CO2 down a well in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, into a hydrate deposit . If all goes as
planned, the CO2 molecules will exchange with the methane in the hydrates, leaving
the water crystals intact and freeing the methane to flow up the well . Conventional wells
based in Houston, Texas, and the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation.

in the Prudhoe Bay gas fields contain a very high concentration of carbon dioxide about 12% of the gas. You
have to find something to do with it, says Ray Boswell, technology manager for methane hydrates at the DOEs
National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown, West Virginia. One way to dispose of it is to bury the gas
underground. Excess carbon dioxide is already pumped down some conventional wells to encourage extraction of
the last bits of natural gas; using it to extract methane from hydrates might be a good idea too. Fuel test The test
will use the Ignik Sikumi well, which was drilled on an ice platform in Prudhoe Bay last winter. Specialized
equipment has been installed, including fibre-optic cables to measure the temperature down the well, and injection
pipes for the CO2. None of this is standard equipment; it had to be built to design, says Boswell. ConocoPhillips
helped the team to get access to the site. Thats one of the biggest hurdles getting industry to let you do an
experiment in their field, says Boswell, who has been working to arrange such tests in Alaska since 2001. Theres
a lot of inertia to overcome. Prudhoe is where they make their money, he adds. During the test, the researchers
will inject nitrogen gas into the hydrate deposit to try to push away any free water in the system, which would
otherwise freeze into hydrates on exposure to CO2 and block up the well. The next phase is to pump in isotopically
labelled CO2, and let it soak for a week before seeing what comes back up. This will help to test whether the
injected carbon is really swapping places with the carbon in the hydrates . Finally, the team will depressurize the
well and attempt to suck up all the methane and carbon dioxide. This will also give them a chance to test extraction
using depressurization sucking liquids out of the hydrate deposits to reduce pressure in the well and coax the
methane out of the water crystals. Well continue to depressurize until we run out of time or money, and see how

This is not the first attempt to

extract methane from hydrates. In 2002, experiments at the Mallik Field site in northern Canada
pumped hot water underground to 'melt' hydrates and release the methane. In 2008, further tests at
the same site tried depressurization. That scheme seems most likely to be commercially viable,
says Boswell. The tests were very short and the modelling has so many moving parts, no one knows
exactly what the production rate will be, he says. But the test well produced more than the models
said it would. Theres a perception out there thats this is a wild fantasy. Thats not true. The CO2
methane exchange method to be tested at Prudhoe Bay removes the need to either add water or
dispose of extracted fluids, and doesnt risk destabilizing the ground by melting the hydrate. It also has the
added bonus of getting rid of unwanted gas, which would offset the price of
commercial operations. It doesnt have to produce methane at a great rate, because youre also disposing
much methane we can get out that way, says Boswell. Field of dreams

of CO2, says Boswell. The concept is very alluring, says Scott Dallimore, a hydrate expert with the Geological
Survey of Canada in Sidney, British Columbia. Gas fields in this area have a relatively high CO2 concentration. If
this CO2 can be re-injected while at the same time producing methane, it will be a terrific
option.Commercialization

is still a long way off. The United States has no urgent need
to mine methane hydrates, says Boswell, because it will continue to have access to much
cheaper natural-gas resources for some time to come. Japan is much closer to commercialization: the
country plans to open a short-term production well in the offshore Nankai Trough in 2013, with the aim of running a
longer production test in 2015. The country is quite eager to explore the potential of hydrates, says Boswell,
because it has few other fossil-fuel resources. Theres

a perception

out there that

this is a wild

fantasy. Thats not true. I am convinced that the research community has already
demonstrated the technical viability of gas-hydrate production, says Dallimore.
When it comes to the question of commercial viability, things become more
complex.

Data proves that the technology is feasible and no leakage

White et al. 11 (M.D. Hydrology Group, Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory, Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, Colorado
State University, Numerical studies of methane production
from Class 1 gas hydrate accumulations enhanced with carbon
dioxide injection // AK)

gas hydrate accumulations are characterized by a permeable hydrate-bearing

interval overlying a permeable interval with mobile gas, sandwiched between two
impermeable intervals. Depressurization-induced dissociation is currently the
favored technology for producing gas from Class 1 gas hydrate accumulations. The depressurization
Class 1

production technology requires heat transfer from the surrounding environment to sustain dissociation as the
temperature drops toward the hydrate equilibrium point and leaves the reservoir void of gas hydrate. Production of
gas hydrate accumulations by exchanging carbon dioxide with methane in the clathrate structure has been

The carbon dioxide

exchange technology has the potential for yielding higher production rates and
mechanically stabilizing the reservoir by maintaining hydrate saturations. We
used numerical simulation to investigate theadvantages and disadvantages of using
carbon dioxide injection to enhance the production of methane from Class 1 gas
hydrate accumulations. Numerical simulations in this study were primarily
concerned with the mechanisms and approaches of carbon dioxide injection to
investigate whether methane production could be enhanced through this approach.
demonstrated in laboratory experiments and proposed as a field-scale technology.

To avoid excessive simulation execution times, a five-spot well pattern with a 500-m well spacing was approximated
using a two-dimensional domain having well boundaries on the vertical sides and impermeable boundaries on the
horizontal sides. Impermeable over- and under burden were included to account for heat transfer into the

Simulation results indicate that low injection pressures can be used to

reduce secondary hydrate formation and that direct contact of injected carbon dioxide with the
production interval.

methane hydrate present in the formation is limited due to bypass through the higher permeability gas zone.