Natural Gas Leak in Southern California Emitting TONS of Methane.

In the first month, 80,000 tons, which make 960,000 tons a year. And the company responsible for the leak is flummoxed as how its crews and contractors are going to fix it.

From Zero Hedge:

California's Worst Gas Leak in 40 Years (and Crews Can't Stop It)

While world leaders signed the ‘historic’ agreement signed in Paris to fix the world’s “greatest threat,” a natural gas storage site in southern California is belching 145,000 pounds per hour of Methane – a greenhouse gas 70 times more potent than carbon dioxide. What is worse, while official proclaim this a “top priority” a fix won’t arrive until spring as emergency crews recognize “the leak was far from routine, and the problem was deeper underground.”

 

As Wired reports, in just the first month, that’s added up to 80,000 tons, or about a quarter of the state’s ordinary methane emissions over the same period !!!

 

The Federal Aviation Administration recently banned low-flying planes from flying over the site, since engines plus combustible gas equals kaboom.

 

And crews can’t set a deliberate fire, also known as flaring, which they often do at other remote areas with excess gas. The leak is so big and the flare would be so hot that it could make the mess even harder to contain.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-20/californias-worst-gas-leak-40-years-and-crews-cant-stop-it

And from the Wall Street Journal:

Gas Leak Fuels Frustration

Southern California residents go to hotels and students relocate in ninth week of ordeal.

“It’s like we’ve been hit by a Mack truck,” said Paula Cracium, president of the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council. “Most people didn’t even realize the gas storage field was up there.” The nearest houses are more than a mile from the underground gas-storage field and at approximately 1,200 feet lower elevation.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/gas-leak-fuels-frustration-1450653059

Of course, 1 MT a year is nothing compared to a 50 GT outburst of Methane from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf clathrates, which according to Russian Arctic field research scientists Natalia Shakharov and Igor Semilitev back in 2012, "could go at any time."

1500 Percent Methane Gas Flare Increase in Two Years off of New Zealand.

Hat tip to howardtra and Egor at Robertscribbler.

The year before, there were only fifty.

Hundreds of methane gas flares found off coast of Gisborne.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11441247

A team of scientists have found around 766 individual methane gas flares within an area of seabed off the coast of Gisborne, in what has been described as a "major advance" for science and a first for New Zealand. The finding comes as the 11-member expedition ends tomorrow morning with the NIWA deepwater research vessel Tangaroa arriving back in Wellington.

The team, led by marine geologist Dr Joshu Mountjoy, had been investigating the area after German and Kiwi researchers last year revealed 99 seabed gas flares there using state-of-the-art 3D and 2D seismic and echosounder technology. Following this discovery, Dr Mountjoy and his team sought to find out whether methane was getting through the water column to the ocean's surface and into the atmosphere, and determine what contribution it was making to global greenhouse gas.  The first objective of the voyage was to remap gas flares in the area in fine detail, using a range of acoustic techniques.  Surprisingly, the team discovered that every area of carbonate rock and every fault seen on the seafloor was expelling gas, and in total, they calculated there were near to 766 individual gas flares within the area.

Methane Warning from the Arctic!

The Royal Society has commissioned a study performed by the now well-known husband and wife team from Russia, Natasha Shakhova and Igor Semiletov, concerning the outgassing of methane (CH₄) from the East Siberian Sea Continental Shelf (ESS), which is essentially frozen tundra that drowned when the glaciers receded about 10,000 years ago and since then. There are about 1,600 billion (that's a b) tons (GT) of CH₄ frozen in hydrates.

Now that the Arctic is getting warmer, the marine ice cap is suffering a catastrophic collapse to the fifth or sixth smallest sea ice area on record, warm waters from the Atlantic and Pacific are sneaking in and storms are churning the near-shore Arctic seas from surface to bottom, methane is escaping from the Arctic Seafloor at an increasing rate, particularly at the ESS area. Previously Shakhova and Semiletov stated that 50 GT of CH₄ could escape at any time.

Natasha Shakhova on Methane Hydrates.

And what the Royal Society study has to say is that the Risk of Significant Methane Release from [the] East Siberian Arctic Shelf [is] Still Growing.

From Robertscribbler:

Large plumes of methane bubbling up from the Arctic Ocean sea-bed, saturating the water column, venting into the air, adding significantly more heat forcing to an already dangerous, fossil fuel-based, accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s a nightmare scenario. One in which human-forced warming, already at 1 C above 1880s levels, is further amplified through the feedback release of ancient carbon stored over the past 8 million years of Northern Hemisphere glaciation. And a recent study by the now famous Semiletov and Shakhova team provides still more reason for appropriate concern that such an event may be in the works.

Shakhova and Semiletov’s new study produces an increasingly clear picture of a destabilizing organic carbon store beneath thawing permafrost in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf region. The above images show organic carbon concentration [left frame] and rate of release of methane in grams per square meter per day over observed regions.

By now, many of us are familiar with the controversy over the potential risks of significant-to-catastrophic methane release due to human-forced warming of the Arctic.  An increasing number of observational specialists are pointing toward a risk that rapid human warming will set off the release of still more carbon in the Arctic. For some, this release is expected to be gradual. Others believe there’s enough risk of a rapid release to warrant an equally rapid emergency response.
But regardless of where you stand on the issue, new research coming to light from some of the Arctic’s top observational scientists more clearly describes what appears to be an increasingly dangerous situation.

Increasingly dangerous is right! The present CH₄ overburden is about 1846 ppb (1.85 ppm) which equates to about 5 GT of methane in the atmosphere. An addition of 50 GT of this stuff would add about 18.5 ppm for a grand total of 20.4 ppm of CH₄. At 25 times the heat-trapping efficacy of CO₂ over the lifetime of methane in the air would yield an equivalent of 510 ppm CO₂ E, increasing the global mean temperature by 3 degrees C quite quickly, to about 4 deg C above 1880s values.

Well at least a PB study is suggesting we are nearing peak oil demand. But it might not save us from Hell on Earth! This could be one of those situations where Peak Oil really is no object.

Fin des Voies Rapides, certainement!

Link: http://robertscribbler.com/2015/09/10/new-study-risk-of-significant-methane-release-from-east-siberian-arctic-shelf-still-growing/

Ta-Ra-Ra-BOOM-De-Ay! Part 3A

In Part 3, I included a graphic like this:

 



In the interim Sam Caranas, who does a heck of a lot of work on the Arctic Ice and Methane situation here on Blogger, has provided an updated graph, and it looks worse: note the sharp upturn between 2013 and 2014 the CH4 (Methane) content in our atmosphere has now taken off like a hockey-stick!

Source: Sam Caranas, Arctic News, "State of Extreme Emergency"

As I said before, hockey-stick graphs are VERY dangerous!

Ta-Ra-Ra-BOOM-De-Ay! Part 3

Well more methane is seeping out of the ocean floor not only in the Arctic but also in the Atlantic now, off the USA East Coast.

Methane Monster’s Grumbling Goes Global: 570 Methane Plumes Discovered on Atlantic Ocean Sea Floor - from Robertscribbler.

(snip)

Greenhouse gas concentrations spike — heating the atmosphere and the deep ocean after a period of glaciation during which vast stores of carbon accumulated. Massive volumes of this carbon lay dormant — trapped in frozen ground and in clathrates on the sea bed. As the ocean and airs warm, these carbon stores release causing a massive spike of additional greenhouse gasses to hit the atmosphere and setting off ever-more-rampant heating. The cycle continues until much of these carbon stores out-gas, pushing the Earth into a hothouse state.
Sound chillingly familiar?

What I’ve just described is the process that most scientists believe occurred during the worst mass extinction event in the geological past — the Permian Extinction. A hothouse event that killed 95% of life in the oceans and 70% of life on land. And what humans are now doing to the Earth’s airs and waters through CO2 and related greenhouse gas emissions may well be shockingly similar.

(snip)

Unfortunately, the vast carbon store in the Arctic is not the only potential source of heating feedback carbon release. For around the world, upon and beneath the ocean sea bed, billions of tons of methane lay stored in clathrate structures. These stores are separate from the large carbon deposits in the Arctic. But they are no less dangerous.

In 2012, Nature issued a study that found a store of clathrates composing billions of tons of methane was now destabilizing off the US East Coast. The study predicted large-scale releases in the multi-gigaton range from the southern region of the East Coast methane clathrate store due both to changes in the Gulf Stream circulation and to warming bottom waters — both impacts set off by human-caused climate change. The study was uncertain how fast such a release could occur, but noted that the eventual release was likely due to wide-scale clathrate degradation associated with ocean bottom warming.

And the amount of methane in our atmosphere is increasing faster now... last year it was about 1825 ppb; now it's around 1836 ppb. Note the rate of increase was lower prior to 2011.

Source - Sam Caranas (Arctic News)
Notation in blue is mine.

This means the amount of methane that is in the atmosphere is increasing and could take off like a rocket - creating a hockey stick graph! And everyone knows, or should know, that hockey stick graphs charting realtime phenomenon, like a real estate bubble, a population explosion, etc., are very, very dangerous! It indicates that things will soon go haywire. And we can't afford to let that happen to our global climate. Earth is the only home we have.

Ta Ra Ra BOOM Deeay! Part 2

From Robertscribbler's article "Large Methane Plumes Discovered on Laptev Continental Slope Boundary: Evidence of Possible Methane Hydrate Release":

Over the past few years, the Arctic has been experiencing an invasion.

Emerging from the Gulf Stream, a pulse of warmer than normal water propagated north past Iceland and into the Barents Sea. There, it dove beneath the surface fresh water and retreating sea ice, plunging to a depth of around 200-500 meters where it concentrated, lending heat to the entire water column. Taking a right hand turn along the Siberian Continental Shelf, it crossed through the mid water zones of the Kara. Finally, it entered the Laptev and there it abutted against the downward facing slopes of the submarine continental region.

As the water temperatures at these depths warmed, researchers began to wonder if they would trigger the destabilization of methane hydrate stores locked  in deeper waters along the shelf boundary. And, now, a new expedition may have uncovered evidence that just such an event is ongoing.

And here's a photo of methane bubbles bubbling up from the slope itself!

Source: Stockholm University via Robertscribbler.

Ta Ra Ra BOOM Deeay!

The methanc clathrates under the East Siberian Arctic Continental Shelf (ESAS), its slope into the deep and even under the Permafrost in Siberia are destabilizing. On land, four "sinkholes" with "levees" have formed, explosively like a the champagne under a popped cork, or even with a fiery explosion.

And the Global Warming demons will be singing "Ta Ra Ra BOOM Deeay!" as they ride up the rising gas bubbles once the clathrates really belch. Probably past 2100, but who knows?

As Robertscribbler reports in his blog article, "Is This the Compost Bomb’s Smoking Gun? Second Mysterious Hole Found in Yamal Russia."

Yamal, Russia — a stretch of tundra flats and peat bogs stretching as far as the eye can see before terminating into the chill waters of the Kara. A rather stark and desolate place, one that was mostly unknown until a massive and strange hole appeared in the earth there last week. Since that time, the strange hole has been the butt of every kind of wild speculation and controversy.

The hole itself was an alien feature. “We haven’t seen anything like this before,” would be an entirely accurate statement. All about the hole was a large pile of debris — overturned earth, huge chunks of soil piled up in a signature very familiar to the ejecta of a meteor impact crater.
Approaching the hole edge, we came to a gradual slope that proceeded downward for about 40 feet at about a 35 degree incline. Along the surface of this incline, both the unfrozen soil cap and the frozen permafrost were visible.

But it wasn’t until we hit the bottom edge of this incline that we encountered the strangest feature of all — a sheer cliff, rounded in a shape like the smooth bore of a gun, and plunging straight down through icy permafrost for about another hundred and twenty feet before revealing a basement cavern slowly filling with melt.

It’s a combination of features that appears to be one half impact crater and one half sink hole.

A poster by the name of Bernard says two more holes have opened up in Siberia: Antipayuta, Taz district, and Nosok, Krasnoyarsk region. For more info, click here, scroll down and click here.

Second Yamal crater.

A "sinkhole" with levees! 

(Source: The Siberian Times via Robertscribbler)

Casting Fellow Americans as “The Enemy” to Justify Vote Theft

Reposted from here.

Election day is only half over, and my desk is already flooded with stories and first-hand reports of voting irregularities. Voters in Pennsylvania are being harangued by GOP “poll watchers” to show ID, even though they absolutely do not have to, and a judge finally had to intervene. An election worker in Oregon was caught altering ballots so that they would show a straight-Republican ticket. Voters in South Florida are enduring historically long lines to vote. A lawsuit has been filed in Ohio to protest the “experimental” patch added to software in voting machines in dozens of counties.

In instance after instance, these actions are being taken by Republicans, from Secretaries of State and state legislatures at the top all the way down to “True the Vote” Tea Party footsoldiers looking to frighten people away from their polling places.

A part of me looks at all this and wonders, “What kind of fascist scumbag summons the gall to steal the right to vote from a fellow American?” But then it hits me: the root cause of all this is the fact that the GOP has, for many years now and especially since 9/11, pushed the idea that people who don’t agree with them are un-American and dangerous. For those who have swallowed this line of crap, the idea of actually stealing someone else’s right to vote becomes understandable. It’s a matter of National Security! These terrible un-Christian terrorists have to be stopped!

It’s fairly self-evident that if you have to cheat and scare people to win, your ideas lack merit…but the larger issue here is the kind of America that is being created. The Republican Party has made it a matter of survival to convince people, who are in every other way probably very good and decent types, that half the country, indeed their own neighbors, are swarming with The Enemy, and that Enemy does not deserve basic American rights like voting.

One hell of a whirlwind will be reaped if matters continue like this.

Exactly. If this keeps up, nothing will be done about climate change which threatens to destroy the Arctic Ocean ice cap by 2016, and release methane that will cause out-of-control global warming. Result may eventually be another Permian Extinction and the planet becoming like Venus.

On the other hand the peak oil situation will be exacerbated as the neocons from Bush's Administration decides to take out Iran, driving the price of oil into the ionosphere and crashing the global economy. In this case, the rest of the planet, even NATO in Europe, may decide that WE are the rogue nation that must be defeated in our time, lest the dark ages will descend upon humanity. And I don't even have to tell you what disasters that may ensue from THAT. You can use your reasoned imagination.