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I can just see it now... natural gas companies decide to frack the arctic, accidentally triggering hundreds of irreversible methane releases. Edit: okay I look

I can just see it now... natural gas companies decide to frack the arctic, accidentally triggering hundreds of irreversible methane releases. Edit: okay I looked this up and of course it's already a thing. http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-tech/energy-production/frozen-fuel4.htm http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-tech/en...

qeternity 10y ago
> Edit: okay I looked this up and of course it's already a thing. As in the concept exists? It's most certainly not a practical or economic thing. You should look at how deep sea drilling economics were rattled due to fracking. O&G prices need to rally a hell of a lot to make this profitable.
- macawfish 10y ago
  The interest exists. If it did become profitable, I wouldn't put it past them to go for it. I used to think that stuff like this was crazy, now I'm not so sure: http://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/pies-in-the-sky-a-solution-to-global-warming/ http://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/pies-in-the-sky-a-sol...
  - T-A 10y ago
    Once burned... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-10/big-oil-abandons-2-5-billion-in-u-s-arctic-drilling-rights https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-10/big-oil-a...
    - macawfish 10y ago
      May this be the beginning of the carbon bubble pop.
subpixel 10y ago
It's impossible to imagine a level of environmental degradation that would cause extraction companies to say "On second thought, let's leave that resource where it is." To wit: open-face mining the sea floor (http://www.seeker.com/worlds-first-deep-sea-mining-venture-set-to-launch-in-2019-2327856967.html http://www.seeker.com/worlds-first-deep-sea-mining-venture-s...) "The machines, each the size of a small house, are equipped with rock-crushing teeth resembling the large incisors of a dinosaur. The robots will lumber across the ocean floor on mammoth treads, grinding and chewing the encrusted seabed, sending plumes of sediment into the surrounding waters and killing marine life that gets in their way. The smallest of the robots weighs 200 tons. 'A lot of people don't realize that there are more mineral resources on the seafloor than on land," said Michael Johnston, CEO of Nautilus, by phone from the company's field office in Brisbane, Australia. "Technology has allowed us to go there.' ... Over two-dozen contracts have already been granted to explore hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean floor by a United Nations body called the International Seabed Authority (ISA), which regulates areas of the seafloor that lie outside of any national jurisdiction."

qeternity 10y ago

> Edit: okay I looked this up and of course it's already a thing. As in the concept exists? It's most certainly not a practical or economic thing. You should look at how deep sea drilling economics were rattled due to fracking. O&G prices need to rally a hell of a lot to make this profitable.

macawfish 10y ago
The interest exists. If it did become profitable, I wouldn't put it past them to go for it. I used to think that stuff like this was crazy, now I'm not so sure: http://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/pies-in-the-sky-a-solution-to-global-warming/ http://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/pies-in-the-sky-a-sol...
- T-A 10y ago
  Once burned... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-10/big-oil-abandons-2-5-billion-in-u-s-arctic-drilling-rights https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-10/big-oil-a...
  - macawfish 10y ago
    May this be the beginning of the carbon bubble pop.

subpixel 10y ago

It's impossible to imagine a level of environmental degradation that would cause extraction companies to say "On second thought, let's leave that resource where it is." To wit: open-face mining the sea floor (http://www.seeker.com/worlds-first-deep-sea-mining-venture-set-to-launch-in-2019-2327856967.html http://www.seeker.com/worlds-first-deep-sea-mining-venture-s...) "The machines, each the size of a small house, are equipped with rock-crushing teeth resembling the large incisors of a dinosaur. The robots will lumber across the ocean floor on mammoth treads, grinding and chewing the encrusted seabed, sending plumes of sediment into the surrounding waters and killing marine life that gets in their way. The smallest of the robots weighs 200 tons. 'A lot of people don't realize that there are more mineral resources on the seafloor than on land," said Michael Johnston, CEO of Nautilus, by phone from the company's field office in Brisbane, Australia. "Technology has allowed us to go there.' ... Over two-dozen contracts have already been granted to explore hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean floor by a United Nations body called the International Seabed Authority (ISA), which regulates areas of the seafloor that lie outside of any national jurisdiction."