May 29th, 2009
Forget local fracking, let's drill, baby, drill
There’s a sandpile full of natural gas under the Gulf of Mexico. Does that signal the next energy bubble or what? This would get around any complaints of fracking on land, no humans live out there.
Today the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed findings that there is considerable “gas hydrate” under the Gulf of Mexico. That’s natural gas already mixed with water, sorta pre-fracked. The USGS goes on to say that the stuff is recoverable using current tech. No waiting for research breakthrough or new infrastructure.
The research beneath the sea was done by the fossil fuel powers and their government enablers. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) and a group of U.S. and international energy industry companies under the management of Chevron conducted this first ever drilling project with the goal to collect geologic data on gas-hydrate-bearing sand reservoirs in the Gulf of Mexico.
Natural gas has a number of powerful positives: it’s already handled by big, rich multi-national companies. It lacks many of the air polluting characteristics of coal or even petroleum products. It can be shipped as liquid or piped, unlike coal. This territory is controlled by the U.S. not an OPEC nation. It’s a long-exploited resource with a large installed user base already. Natural gas exploiters like to brag about its “cleanliness” when burned. Its CO2 emissions can be easily captured.
Here’s some tech background on the drilling rig used in this research. The areas explored are more than 100 miles southwest of New Orleans. This is crucial for U.S. investors as the Arctic natural gas resources seem to be heavily weighted in favor of Russia, not the U.S. or Canada.
A newsman since 1969, Harry Fuller has worked for CBS, ABC, CNBC Europe, CNET and was founding news director at TechTV. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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