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NEG – Methane hydrates – HSS
2014
CX questions – this edit is for alex
kong
CX questions/explanation?
You don’t have to be a scientist to see how difficult the problem is:
 Somehow you’ve got to capture the energy in thousands of square miles of
exploding grains of sugar that erupt into a gas 164 times their size.

There are huge deposits of natural gas that are easier to get at and far more
valuable that aren’t being exploited because they’re stranded (not near pipeline
infrastructure), so who’s going to invest in a resource of much lower quality at the
bottom of the pyramid with such dismal prospects?

We can’t even drill for oil in most of the Arctic (Patzek) which is where a lot of the
methane hydrates are, and that infrastructure has to be there to even think of
trying to get at the methane hydrates.

Most of the hydrates are in a thin film on the deep ocean floor. Are you going to
build a thousand square mile blanket to trap the bubbles like a school of fish? Or use
expensive fracking & coalbed methane techniques?

Permafrost gas hydrate is so shallow there’s not enough pressure to get it to flow
fast enough to be worth mining
Case
Oil dependence
1NC – frontline
Methane drilling can’t solve energy security- extraction too expensive
and results too small, and squo solves now, renewables
Nelder, 13- Energy analyst and consultant been writing on energy and investment for over a
decade (Chris,“Are Methane Hydrates Really Going to Change Geopolitics?”, The Atlantic,
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/are-methane-hydrates-really-goingto-change-geopolitics/275275/, 5/2/13)//KC
The right way to understand the potential of unconventional fuels like methane hydrates and
tight oil is to closely examine their production rates and their prices. If these fuels can be
produced at large scales and profitable prices, they very well might influence geopolitics and
economics in the ways that Charles C. Mann speculates in his recent Atlantic cover story. If they
cannot, then it truly doesn't matter how much of those resources may exist underground and in
the ocean floor. Unfortunately Mann offers precious little data on price or production rates. If
Mann's data on methane hydrates is correct, then Japan's experiment so far has taken 10 years
and $700 million to produce four million cubic feet of gas, which is worth about $16,000 at
today's U.S. gas prices, or about $50,000 at today's prices for imported LNG in Japan. At this
point, it is an enormously expensive experimental pilot project, and nothing more. We do not
yet know when it might be able to recover commercial volumes of gas, or at what rate, or at what
price. We have no reason to believe that if commercial quantities are recoverable by 2018 as
Japan hopes--which seems incredibly optimistic--that the price of that gas will be competitive
with imported LNG. At the same time, we have numerous forecasts projecting that renewables
like wind and solar will be competitive with fossil-fueled grid power in most of the developed
world by 2020, including much of Asia. For example, a recent report by Citigroup, and another
by researchers at Stanford University, among many others. A 2011 report by WWF and Ecofys
projects that by 2018, solar PV will be the cheapest way to generate power in much of Asia. If
these forecasts--based on more than a decade of real-world cost data for large-scale solar and
wind are correct, then there is no reason to believe that gas from Japan's methane hydrate
experiment will be able to compete with renewable grid power, which would constitute the
largest market for that gas (unless Japan rapidly deploys natural gas vehicles in the interim,
which it currently has no economic reason to do). Mann also offers no data on tight oil
production and price, but here are the key facts. In 2012, according to data from the U.S. Energy
Information Administration, the U.S. consumed about 18.5 million barrels a day (mb/d) of
liquid fuels and produced about 11 mb/d. Only about 7 mb/d of that 11 was actual crude oil, and
about 1 mb/d of that was from tight oil. The non-crude liquids the US produced have less energy
content than crude, and some of it cannot be made into vehicular fuel. One cannot easily make a
case for incipient U.S. "energy independence" on the basis of 1 mb/d of new tight oil production.
A host of dubious assumptions and data distortions underlie the recent energy independence
forecasts which I will not delve into here, but I have examined and debunked most of the reports
that Mann cites, including those from the IEA (here and here), Ed Morse at Citigroup (here and
here), and Leonardo Maugeri. The progressive substitution of expensive unconventional oil for
cheap conventional oil is a fundamental reason why the global price of oil has tripled over the
past decade, and will continue to rise. This essential concept--along with the correct definitions
of "conventional" and "unconventional"--is lost in Mann's treatment. It's absolutely true that we
will never "run out" of oil--there will always be oil resources that are too expensive to produce
that will stay in the ground--but since 2004 we have seen the undisputable evidence that
affordable oil is slipping away from us, and that the rising price of oil has contributed to the
stalling of the global economy. If the world could tolerate $300 a barrel, there might be no
reason for concern about future oil supply. But it cannot. As the IEA's executive director recently
noted, U.S. oil and gas prices need to go higher (through exports) to "avoid [the] shale boom
turning to bust." But prices for refined products like gasoline and diesel are already near the
upper limit for American consumers. The recent achievements from combining horizontal
drilling with hydraulic fracturing are indeed impressive and have brought much-needed new
volumes of liquid fuels to the thirsty U.S., which has long been the world's largest oil importer.
(Shale gas is likewise an impressive accomplishment, but the U.S. was still a net gas importer in
2012, according to EIA data.) But these are not new technologies. The first horizontal well was
drilled in the 1930s, and hydraulic fracturing was introduced in the 1940s. Both technologies
have been thoroughly applied and refined at scale in real-world circumstances for many
decades, with substantial federal support for research and development. Methane hydrate
extraction, which is still in the early stages of testing and requires techniques that have only
recently been attempted for the first time, is in no way comparable to tight oil and shale gas
extraction. Methane hydrates are not "being developed in much the same methodical way that
shale gas was developed before it," and skepticism on methane hydrates isn't comparable to
skepticism on shale gas. Skepticism isn't some fungible property of everything; facts about
prices and production rates are essential. Perhaps this is the real point of Mann's take on these
new technologies: He confesses that he does not want to "miss the boat" on methane hydrates as
he did on shale gas. That's a gambler's mentality, not a shrewd investor's. Perhaps that is also
why Mann chooses to perceive tight oil and methane hydrates through the lens of the peak oil
debate, which occupies much of Mann's 11,000-word exposition on the history of oil and gas
production. His he-said, she-said treatment of the subject, attempting to portray it as a simple
matter of differing opinions between "Hubbertians" and "McKelveyans," gave far more credence
to longtime and ardent peak oil critics like Verleger and Lynch, while characterizing the views of
Campbell, Laherrère, and the "anti-fossil-fuel think tank" Post Carbon Institute as "not widely
shared." If he had any real familiarity with their work, Mann would know that the latter group
recognize the importance of fossil fuels while being deeply concerned about their future. He
would also know that many other analysts and petroleum scientists have done serious and
highly transparent research on the subject of peak oil, including Jeremy Leggett, a petroleum
geologist and former faculty member of the Royal School of Mines in London; Olivier Rech, who
was responsible for IEA's petroleum forecasts from 2006 to 2009; dozens of independent
analysts, petroleum engineers and economists who publish at The Oil Drum; and petroleum
scientists like Kjell Aleklett of Uppsala University, and Chris Skrebowski, a former long-term
planner for BP and senior analyst for the Saudi Oil Ministry. Mann's caricature of the
"Hubbertians" may make entertaining reading, but it does not refute their data, and while the
assurances of people like Verleger and Lynch may be pacifying, they offer more vague assertions
and rhetoric than data on production rates. The "Drill, Baby, Drill" report by petroleum
geologist J. David Hughes that Mann derides (at shalebubble.org) is the most comprehensive
and transparent assessment of U.S. tight oil and shale gas to date, and it offers a starkly different
projection of the future of these fuels than their cheerleaders do. Resources in the ground are
one thing, but extraction is another matter entirely. And while production of fuels like methane
hydrates may be technically possible, that does not mean that they will be affordable, or that
their production will be scalable. Natural gas may be a "bridge" fuel, but only if we actually build
a renewably powered world at the other end of that bridge. We have ample evidence that
renewables are on their way to outpricing fossil fuels for grid power within a decade, while the
prospects for methane hydrates and tight oil remain shrouded in speculation and wishful
thinking. If there's a boat that Mann is missing, its name is Renewables.
Aff can’t solve dependence – vehicles won’t switch to natural gas
Cusick 13 (Marie, Pennsylvania State Impact via National Public Radio, October 9, 2013,
“Despite abundant supply, natural gas slow to catch on as transportation fuel,”
https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2013/10/09/despite-abundant-supply-natural-gasslow-to-catch-on-as-transportation-fuel/, alp)
The most recent Marcellus shale production numbers were record-breaking. If
Pennsylvania keeps up this pace, it will be producing enough gas to supply more
than 10 percent of what the entire country uses in a year. And with this glut, there are
efforts to find new markets for the gas— especially in transportation. Compressed natural gas
(CNG) can be used as an alternative fuel to power cars and trucks, but it isn’t catching on
everywhere. In Pennsylvania, we have more natural gas than we know what to do with. Alan
Walker, who heads the state’s Department of Community and Economic Development, puts it
this way: “It’s an industry that responds to supply and demand. Right now we have way too
much supply,” he says. “It’ll balance out, because people aren’t going to drill wells if they can’t
make money at it. There was this rush—like the gold rush—and we are producing a lot more
than we can absorb.” Unlike the rush to get the gas out of the ground, there hasn’t been a rush to
convert vehicles to natural gas. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation just started
tracking CNG vehicles and doesn’t have state figures yet, but globally, there are nearly 15 million
natural gas vehicles on the road. Across the United States, it’s a fraction of that–about 112,000
vehicles, according to the Department of Energy. James O’Donnell heads Alternative Fuel
Solutions, a Clearfield County-based company that specializes in natural gas vehicle
conversions. “[CNG has] caught on everywhere, but here,” he says, “I have customers from
outside the country—Trinidad, Vietnam, Thailand—and they come to the United States. I win
bets with them all the time because when I pick them up, I tell them, ‘Let’s go talk to 10 people. I
guarantee 10 out of 10 don’t know what compressed natural gas is.’ It blows their mind.” It
might seem surprising because right now CNG is much cheaper and cleaner-burning compared
to conventional fuels like gasoline and diesel. But even in a place like Pennsylvania with an
abundant supply of gas, the technology hasn’t caught on among everyday drivers. The vehicles
can be prohibitively expensive, costing thousands of dollars more than conventional cars, and
the fueling infrastructure just isn’t here.
Pentagon resource modernization solves dependence now
Burke 14 (Sharon E., assistant secretary of defense for operation energy plans and programs,
Foreign Affairs, May/June 2014, “Powering the Pentagon: Creating a Lean, Clean Fighting
Machine,” http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141207/sharon-e-burke/powering-thepentagon, alp)
The U.S. military’s fuel demands may not seem problematic today. But they will be in a future in
which a range of potential adversaries could target supply lines with precision, thanks to
advanced weapons. To confront that risk, the Pentagon hopes to transform the U.S. military
from an organization that uses as much fuel as it can get to one that uses only as much as it
needs. It plans to build a force that requires less energy to operate and can adapt its use of
various energy supplies and technologies to fit the needs of different contingencies and
campaigns. The Pentagon still has a long way to go before it can realize these goals. But from
bases in Afghanistan that have cut their energy use by a quarter to the development of more
efficient engines, the U.S. military has already begun improving its energy security in ways that
make economic, environmental, and strategic sense. The stakes are also high for the civilian
economy. The International Energy Agency has estimated that the world will need to invest
some $37 trillion in new energy technologies by 2030 in order to meet rising global demand.
Therefore, a more energy-efficient U.S. military may well help drive the innovation so urgently
needed in the civilian economy, too.
Self sufficiency can’t solve oil wars
Colgan 13 (Jeff D., professor at American University’s School of International Science, Belfer
Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, October 2013, “"Oil, Conflict,
and U.S. National Interests",”
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/23517/oil_conflict_and_us_national_interest
s.html, alp)
Understanding the eight mechanisms linking oil to international security can help policymakers
think beyond the much-discussed goal of energy security, defined as reliable access to affordable
fuel supplies. Achieving such an understanding is important in light of recent changes in the
United States. As hydraulic fracturing—"fracking"—of shale oil and gas accelerates, energy
imports are projected to decline, and North America could even achieve energy independence,
in the sense of low or zero net overall energy imports, in the next decade. Yet the United States
will continue to import large volumes of oil, and the world price of oil will continue to affect it.
Moreover, so long as the rest of the world remains dependent on global oil markets, the fracking
revolution will do little to reduce many oil-related threats to international security. The
emergence of aggressive, revolutionary leaders in petrostates would likely continue to pose
threats to regional security. Petrostates will continue to be weakly institutionalized and thus
subject to civil wars, creating the kind of security problems that demand responses by the
international community, as occurred in Libya in 2011. Petro-financed insurgent groups such as
Hezbollah will persist, as will threats to the shipping lanes and oil transit routes that supply
important U.S. allies, such as Japan. In sum, energy autarky is not the answer. Self-sufficiency
will bring economic benefits to the United States, but few gains for national security. So long as
the oil market remains globally integrated, national oil imports matter far less than total
consumption. Rather than viewing energy self-sufficiency as a panacea, the United States should
contribute to international security by making long-term investments in research and
development to reduce oil consumption and provide alternative fuel sources in the
transportation sector. In addition to the economic and environmental benefits of reducing oil
consumption, substantial evidence exists that military and security benefits will accrue from
such investments.
1NC – energy independence bad
Methane drilling causes global instability, collapses petroleum based economies
and decreases cooperation of treaties, global organizations, and human rights
Mann, 13- winner of U.S. National Academy of Sciences’ Keck award for the best book,
Correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, Science, and Wired, 3 time National Magazine Award
finalist, receiver of writing wards from American Bar Association, American Institute of Physics,
the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Margaret sanger Foundation, the Lannan
Foundation(Charles C.“What If We Never Run Out of Oil?”, The Atlantic,
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/05/what-if-we-never-run-out-ofoil/309294/?single_page=true, 4/24/13)//KC
If one nation succeeds in producing commercial quantities of undersea methane, others will
follow. U.S.-style energy independence, or something like it, may become a reality in much of Asia and
West Africa, parts of Europe, most of the Americas. To achieve this dream, history suggests, subsidies to domestic
producers will be generous and governments will slap fees on petroleum imports—especially in Asia, where dependence on foreign
energy is even more irksome than it is here. In addition to North America, the
main sources of conventionally
extracted natural gas are Russia, Iran, and Qatar (Saudi Arabia is also an important producer).
All will feel the pinch in a methane-hydrate world. If natural gas from methane hydrate becomes
plentiful and cheap enough to encourage nations to switch from oil, as the Japanese hope, the risk pool
will expand to include Brunei, Iraq, Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and other
petro-states. The results in those nations would be turbulent. Petroleum revenues, if they are large,
exercise curious and malign effects on their recipients. In 1959, the Netherlands found petroleum on
the shores of the North Sea. Money gurgled into the country. To general surprise, the flood of cash led to an
economic freeze. Afterward, economists realized that salaries in the new petroleum industry were so high
that nobody wanted to work anywhere else. To keep employees, companies in other parts of the economy had to
jack up wages, in turn driving up costs. Meanwhile, the surge of foreign money into the Netherlands
raised the exchange rate. Soaring costs and currency made it harder for Dutch firms to compete; manufacturing and
agriculture faltered; unemployment climbed, except in the oil industry. The windfall led to stagnation—a phenomenon that
petroleum cognoscenti now call “Dutch disease.” Some scholars today doubt how much the Netherlands was actually affected by
Dutch disease. Still, the general point is widely accepted. A good modern economy is like a roof with many robust supporting pillars,
each a different economic sector. In Dutch-disease scenarios, oil weakens all the pillars but one—the petroleum industry, which
bloats steroidally. Worse,
that remaining pillar becomes so big and important that in almost every
nation, the government takes it over. (“Almost,” because there is an exception: the United
States, the only one of the 62 petroleum-producing nations that allows private entities to control
large amounts of oil and gas reserves.) Because the national petroleum company, with its gush
of oil revenues, is the center of national economic power, “the ruler typically puts a loyalist in
charge,” says Michael Ross, a UCLA political scientist and the author of The Oil Curse (2012).
“The possibilities for corruption are endless.” Governments dip into the oil kitty to reward
friends and buy off enemies. Sometimes the money goes to simple bribes; in the early 1990s,
hundreds of millions of euros from France’s state oil company, Elf Aquitaine, lined the pockets
of businessmen and politicians at home and abroad. Often, oil money is funneled into pharaonic
development projects: highways and hotels, designer malls and desalination plants. Frequently,
it is simply unaccounted for. How much of Venezuela’s oil wealth Hugo Chávez hijacked for his
own political purposes is unknown, because his government stopped publishing the relevant
income and expenditure figures. Similarly, Ross points out, Saddam Hussein allocated more
than half the government’s funds to the Iraq National Oil Company; nobody has any idea what
happened to the stash, though, because INOC never released a budget. (Saddam personally
directed the nationalization of Iraqi oil in 1972, then leveraged his control of petroleum revenues
to seize power from his rivals.) Shortfalls in oil revenues thus kick away the sole, unsteady
support of the state—a cataclysmic event, especially if it happens suddenly. “Think of Saudi Arabia,” says
Daron Acemoglu, the MIT economist and a co-author of Why Nations Fail. “How will the royal family contain both the mullahs and
the unemployed youth without a slush fund?” And
there is nowhere else to turn, because oil has withered all
other industry, Dutch-disease-style. Similar questions could be asked of other petro-states in Africa, the Arab world,
and central Asia. A methane-hydrate boom could lead to a southwest-to-northeast arc of instability
stretching from Venezuela to Nigeria to Saudi Arabia to Kazakhstan to Siberia. It seems fair to say that
if autocrats in these places were toppled, most Americans would not mourn. But it seems equally fair to say that they would not
necessarily be enthusiastic about their replacements. Augmenting the instability would be methane
hydrate itself, much of
inconveniently located in areas of disputed sovereignty. “Whenever you find something under the
water, you get into struggles over who it belongs to,” says Terry Karl, a Stanford political scientis t
which is
and the author of the classic The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States. Think of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic,
she says, over which Britain and Argentina went to war 30 years ago and over which they are threatening to fight again. “One of the
real reasons that they are such an issue is the belief that either oil or natural gas is offshore.” Methane-hydrate
deposits
run like crystalline bands through maritime flash points: the Arctic, and waters off West Africa
and Southeast Asia. In a working paper, Michael Ross and a colleague, Erik Voeten of Georgetown University, argue that
the regular global flow of petroleum, the biggest commodity in world trade, is also a powerful stabilizing
force. Nations dislike depending on international oil, but they play nice and obey the rules because
they don’t want to be cut off. By contrast, countries with plenty of energy reserves feel free to throw their
weight around. They are “less likely than other states to sign major treaties or join
intergovernmental organizations; and they often defy global norms—on human rights, the
expropriation of foreign companies, and the financing of foreign terrorism or rebellions. ” The
implication is sobering: an energy-independent planet would be a world of fractious, autonomous actors, none beholden to the
others, with even less cooperation than exists today.
2NC – at: military dependence bad
R&D solves – ensures greater fuel efficiency
Burke 14 (Sharon E., assistant secretary of defense for operation energy plans and programs,
Foreign Affairs, May/June 2014, “Powering the Pentagon: Creating a Lean, Clean Fighting
Machine,” http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141207/sharon-e-burke/powering-thepentagon, alp)
The U.S. military will always need energy, and supply lines are always attractive targets during
times of war. One way to limit the military’s vulnerability would be simply to use less fuel -- to
reduce risk by reducing reliance. To that end, the Pentagon plans to invest $9 billion over the
next five years to boost the efficiency and protect the energy supplies of U.S. military equipment.
Almost 90 percent of these funds will go toward reducing the demand for fuel in combat, mostly
by improving the efficiency of everything from battleships to fighter jets. The remaining ten
percent of the Pentagon’s energy investment will be aimed at diversifying its fuel supplies and
making them more reliable. That includes testing and evaluating advanced fuels for use in
military equipment. The Pentagon has already certified for use blends of fuel made from
petroleum mixed with coal, natural gas, or renewable biomass, which means that U.S. forces will
be able to buy such fuel on the commercial market in the future. These investments will also
support a larger national goal to develop domestic low-carbon liquid fuels. The Pentagon is
already applying energy innovations in the field. Since 2012, a U.S. Army program known as
Operation Dynamo has supplied about 70 U.S. bases and outposts in Afghanistan, including
Jaghato, with more energy-efficient generators, shelters, and lighting, as well as improved
energy-storage and electricity-distribution equipment. At Jaghato, the upgrades cut the
outpost’s total fuel demand by a quarter, allowing the military to make an estimated 45 fewer air
deliveries of fuel over the course of a year.
Multiple ongoing projects prove the status quo solves the internal link
Burke 14 (Sharon E., assistant secretary of defense for operation energy plans and programs,
Foreign Affairs, May/June 2014, “Powering the Pentagon: Creating a Lean, Clean Fighting
Machine,” http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141207/sharon-e-burke/powering-thepentagon, alp)
These changes may not bode well for the Pentagon’s energy use in the short term, but some
encouraging signs are emerging. One project, the Adaptive Engine Technology Development
program, promises to make a fighter jet engine that uses 25 percent less fuel, which could mean
an increased strike radius, fewer refueling missions, and lower operating costs. The Department
of Defense is developing a flexible, wearable battery that would conform to soldiers’ body armor.
Along with the Department of Energy, it is also working on developing “hybrid energy storage
modules,” which include a variety of improved energy-storage devices for military use. A
number of research projects are under way on “tactical microgrids,” which control and optimize
the distribution of electricity on the battlefield to improve the reliability of generators and
reduce their wear and tear. Meanwhile, lighter-weight, lower-drag materials have the potential
to improve the energy performance of everything from bullets to vehicles to airplanes.
Investments in other technologies could tap localized or renewable energy supplies, such as
waste products, portable solar cells, and even the kinetic energy troops generate when they walk.
Warming
1NC – no venting now
No internal link – 1AC studies use stupidly short timeframes when
discussing warming – methane will be released over centuries, not
years
Mooney 13 (Chris, internally cites experts including Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist from
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Mother Jones, August 8, 2013, “How Much Should
You Worry About an Arctic Methane Bomb?,”
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/08/arctic-methane-hydrate-catastrophe, alp)
According to the Nature commentary, that methane "is likely to be emitted as the seabed warms,
either steadily over 50 years or suddenly." Such are the scientific assumptions behind the
paper's economic analysis. But are those assumptions realistic—and could that much methane
really be released suddenly from the Arctic? A number of prominent scientists and methane
experts interviewed for this article voiced strong skepticism about the Nature paper. "The
scenario they used is so unlikely as to be completely pointless talking about," says Gavin
Schmidt, a noted climate researcher at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New
York. Schmidt is hardly the only skeptic. "I don't have any problem with 50 gigatons, but they've
got the time scale all wrong," adds David Archer, a geoscientist and expert on methane at the
University of Chicago. "I would envision something like that coming out, you know, over the
centuries."
1NC – too deep
Hydrates are too deep to be affected by warming – land hydrates are an alt cause
Mooney 13 (Chris, internally cites experts including Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist from
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Mother Jones, August 8, 2013, “How Much Should
You Worry About an Arctic Methane Bomb?,”
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/08/arctic-methane-hydrate-catastrophe, alp)
And that's just the first reason that many scientists are skeptical. According to Carolyn Ruppel,
who heads the Gas Hydrates Project at the US Geological Survey, there just isn't that much
vulnerable methane in submerged permafrost to begin with. "We think very little hydrate on this
planet is associated with permafrost, either subsea or terrestrial," she says. Inspired in part by
the Shakhova research, the USGS undertook to study the continental shelves of the Beaufort
Sea, off Alaska and Canada. "We set out to test this idea that all of the Arctic shelves were going
to have high methane emissions," she says. "And at least for the US Beaufort shelf, we're not
seeing them." Ruppel acknowledges that due to Arctic warming, more methane is going to be
released, much of it from permafrost on land. But, she continues, "I would say one of the least
likely sources is methane gas hydrates. You are limited by the laws of physics," she adds—noting
that the beginning of the zone of stability for these hydrates is some 220 meters deep. That's a
recurrent refrain among skeptics—they say hydrates just can't form above a certain depth, and
warming can't penetrate such a depth very quickly. "You've got to go from the sea floor of 50
meters depth, down to 200 meters where the hydrate is," explains the University of Chicago's
David Archer. "So that just takes a long time."
1NC – bacteria check
Bacteria check massive methane release
Mooney 13 (Chris, internally cites experts including Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist from
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Mother Jones, August 8, 2013, “How Much Should
You Worry About an Arctic Methane Bomb?,”
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/08/arctic-methane-hydrate-catastrophe, alp)
Nonetheless, imagine that methane gas from melted hydrate makes it to the sea floor. It now
exists as bubbles with, say, 50 meters to go before they reach the sea surface. Most of the
bubbles won't make it, say scientists: They'll be dissolved in seawater, and then the methane will
be broken down by microorganisms over a period of months. "If methane is in the ocean water
column, most of it doesn't get out," explains Bill Reeburgh, a professor of earth system science at
the University of California-Irvine who has spent his career studying methane. "Most of it is
oxidized" by bacteria, which turn it into carbon dioxide and water, Reeburgh continues. "So all
these stories about seeps, people seem to think the bubbles go straight to the atmosphere, and
they don't." In other words, while the waters of the East Siberian Sea may be full of dissolved
methane, for many scientists that doesn't prove that hydrates have been disturbed, or that the
Arctic is starting to vent large amounts of methane from below the sea floor into the
atmosphere. Not yet, anyway.
1NC – not enough hydrates
Arctic hydrates drilling can’t solve the advantages – too little
methane; status quo efforts solve otherwise
Ruppel 11 (Carolyn, PhD in solid earth geophysics and geology from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, chief of the US Geological Survey’s Gas Hydrates Project, member of the
US Geological Survey at Woods Hole, MIT Energy Initiative, 2011, “Methane Hydrates and the
Future of Natural Gas,”
https://mitei.mit.edu/system/files/Supplementary_Paper_SP_2_4_Hydrates.pdf, alp)
At the top of the pyramid lie high permeability sediments in permafrost areas. Despite the
relatively small amount of gas hydrate in these settings globally, permafrost-associated gas
hydrates will probably be the first to be commercialized, particularly in areas with welldeveloped infrastructure for conventional hydrocarbon extraction (e.g., Alaskan North Slope).
The gas produced in these settings would most likely be used to meet on-site power needs
(Howe, 2004; Hancock et al., 2004). To date, these permafrost-associated deposits are the only
places where production of gas from verifiable dissociation of gas hydrates has ever been
documented. Short-term (i.e., several days) production tests were carried out at the Mallik well
in the Mackenzie Delta area of Canada in 2002 and 2007 (Dallimore and Collett, 2005; Hancock
et al., 2005; Takahisa, 2005; Kurihara et al., 2008) and at the Mt. Elbert (Milne Point) site on
the Alaskan North Slope in 2008 (e.g., Hunter et al., 2011). Within the next few years, DOE and
its partners plan a longer-term (i.e., probably longer than a year) research test to determine
appropriate conditions for gas production from methane hydrates in permafrost-associated
sediments in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.
1NC – at: CCS internal link
Sequestering CO2 doesn’t solve warming
Moeller 12 (Holly, graduate student in ecology and evolution at Stanford University, author
for the MIT Newspaper The Tech, MA in Biological Oceanography from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Science 2.0, May 10, 2012, “Blowing Hot Air: The Methane Hydrate
Delusion,”
http://www.science20.com/seeing_green/blowing_hot_air_methane_hydrate_delusion89822, alp)
Burning fossil fuels – oil, coal, and natural gas – put us into our tenuous climatic position in the
first place. Any CO2 we sequester during methane hydrate extraction will quickly be replaced
through burning of the extracted methane. And the CO2 trap is only temporary: warmer polar
temperatures will free it as surely as the presently trapped methane scientists are so concerned
about.
1NC – at: runaway warming
No runaway warming, methane becomes CO2 in the atmosphere
Ruppel and Noserale, 12- Dr. Ruppel is a Marine Geophysicist, has a Ph.D.. from
Massachusets Institute of Technology, associate professor in earth and atmospheric sciences at
Georgia Teach and Diane Noserale is a geologist and information specialist fro the US Geological
Survey (Carolyn and Diane, “Gas Hydrates and Climate Warming Why a Methane Catastrophe is
Unlikely”, US Geological Survey, http://www.usgs.gov/blogs/features/usgs_science_pick/gashydrates-and-climate-warming/)//KC
Gas hydrate researchers are examining the link between climate change and the stability of
methane hydrate deposits. A warming climate could cause gas hydrates to break down
(dissociate), releasing the methane that they now trap. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas. A
given volume of methane causes 15 to 20 times more greenhouse gas warming than carbon
dioxide, so the release of large quantities of methane to the atmosphere could exacerbate
atmospheric warming and cause more gas hydrates to destabilize (fig. 4). A Chart showing how
as climate warms, more hydrates melt, releasing more methane gas, which acts as a greenhouse
gas, causing climatic warming, thus perpetuating the cycle. Some research suggests that this has
happened in the past. Extreme warming during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum about
55 million years ago may have been related to a large-scale release of global methane hydrates.
Some scientists have also advanced the Clathrate Gun Hypothesis to explain observations that
may be consistent with repeated, catastrophic dissociation of gas hydrates and triggering of
submarine landslides during the Late Quaternary (400,000 to 10,000 years ago). Methane in
the Atmosphere: Current Observations The atmospheric concentration of methane, like that of
carbon dioxide, has increased since the onset of the Industrial Revolution (fig. 5). Methane in
the atmosphere comes from many sources, including wetlands, rice cultivation, termites, cows
and other ruminants, forest fires, and fossil fuel production (fig. 6). Some researchers have
estimated that up to 2 percent of atmospheric methane may originate with dissociation of global
gas hydrates. Currently, scientists do not have a tool to say with certainty how much, or if any,
atmospheric methane comes from hydrates. Although methane is a potent greenhouse gas, it
does not remain in the atmosphere for long. Within about 10 years, it is transformed to carbon
dioxide. Thus, methane that is released to the atmosphere ultimately adds to the amount of
carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. Expected Impact of Warming Climate on Methane
Hydrate Deposits For the most part, warming at rates documented by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change for the 20th century should not lead to catastrophic breakdown of
methane hydrates or major leakage of methane to the ocean-atmosphere system from gas
hydrates that dissociate. While the vast majority of methane hydrates would require a sustained
warming over thousands of years to trigger dissociation, gas hydrates in some locations are
dissociating now in response to short-term and long-term climate processes.
1NC – accidents turn
Turn – aff triggers the methane gun – drilling causes landslides and
earthquakes that disturb fragile methane crystals – only scenario for
massive methane pulse
Koronowski 13 (Ryan, Think Progress, July 29, 2013, “‘Fire Ice’: Buried Under The Sea
Floor, This New Fossil Fuel Source Could Be Disastrous For The Planet,”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/07/29/2370661/methane-hydrates-potentiallymassive-greenhouse-gas-on-the-sea-floor-faces-earthquakes-and-drilling/, alp)
Earlier this year, Japanese researchers successfully tested a new process that extracted methane
hydrate from the ocean floor for the first time. The director of Japan’s Agency for Natural
Resources compared this to the way shale gas was viewed a decade ago — too expensive for
commercialization — but concluded “now it’s commercialized.” This process does have
similarities to fracking, but instead of pumping fracking fluid into the earth and exploding the
rock, it drills down to the seabed, relieves pressure on the hydrates, and dissolves the crystals
into gas and water for collection. However, harvesting methane hydrates poses the same risks
faced by offshore oil drillers — pressure, drilling at depth, and the catastrophic ramifications of
failure. If the drilling causes an underwater landslide, the methane could erupt to the surface all
at once, a scenario called the “methane gun hypothesis.” This could release massive amounts of
methane into the atmosphere, dealing a serious blow to cutting carbon emissions.
2NC – no venting now
The arctic isn’t venting methane now – takes out uniqueness for the advantage
Mooney 13 (Chris, internally cites experts including Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist from
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Mother Jones, August 8, 2013, “How Much Should
You Worry About an Arctic Methane Bomb?,”
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/08/arctic-methane-hydrate-catastrophe, alp)
So how much should we worry that these particular methane hydrates might melt, releasing gas
that would then travel through both sediment and seawater to reach the atmosphere? That's
where the scientific debate begins—over both how much methane falls into this category, and
how vulnerable it is to the warming that is now gripping the Arctic region. The methane disaster
concerns gained major prominence with a 2010 paper in Science by University of AlaskaFairbanks researcher Natalia Shakhova and her colleagues, who examined methane emissions in
a very remote area of the Arctic, the East Siberian Sea north of Russia. The continental shelf
underlying this ocean is more than 2 million square kilometers in size, and its subsea permafrost
lies only about 50 meters below the sea surface. Traveling to the remote region in Russian icebreakers, Shakhova's team sampled water content and air content at the sea surface repeatedly,
over a series of years. They found high concentrations of methane in the water—"50% of surface
waters are supersaturated with methane," the paper reported—and some of the gas was also
venting from the water into the atmosphere. Although the Science paper did not contain the
figure, it seems clear that Shakhova is the source for the idea that a 50-gigaton release of
methane could occur in a short time frame. Or as she put it in a 2008 abstract, "[W]e consider
release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage as highly possible for abrupt
release at any time," adding that this could lead to "catastrophic greenhouse warming." The
Nature paper cited another 2010 paper by Shakhova and her colleagues in the journal Doklady
Earth Sciences, which uses the 50 gigaton figure in discussing possible methane emission
scenarios. Shakhova did not respond to several requests for comment for this article; her
automatic email response said she out doing fieldwork. But Peter Wadhams, the Cambridge
physicist who is a coauthor of the Nature paper, said that his work relied on that of Shakhova
and her team because "they’ve done the most work there, working there every year, doing field
observations…we would rather base it on the estimates of the people actually working there,
rather than the people who aren’t working there." Here is a video of Shakhova discussing her
research: The trouble is that at this point, many other scientists don't accept that work—or
rather, don't agree about its implications. None seem to dispute the actual measurements taken
by Shakhova and her team, but as soon as the Science paper came out, a group of researchers
questioned the idea that there was any cause for alarm. "A newly discovered [methane] source is
not necessarily a changing source, much less a source that is changing in response to Arctic
warming," they wrote. The implication is that perhaps methane has always been in the water at
such levels, without methane hydrates having been disturbed—rather, the methane may be from
another source. According to one 2011 study, for instance, the observed methane probably came
not from hydrates, but simply from "the permafrost's still adjusting to its new aquatic
conditions, even after 8,000 years." The hydrates, in contrast, are thought to be much deeper
below the sea surface, due to basic physical constraints on their formation and stability.
According to the US Geological Survey, "in permafrost areas, methane hydrate is not stable until
about 225 m depth." Indeed, according to Ed Dlugokencky, who monitors global atmospheric
methane levels at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), "so far, there
has not been a significant increase in methane emissions in the Arctic." In other words, if
methane is really starting to vent into the air in large quantities, Dlugokencky says he isn't
seeing it.
Hydrates are too deep – their ev is speculation
Archer 7 (D, University of Chicago, Department of the Geophysical Sciences,
“Methane hydrate stability and anthropogenic climate change” // AK)
Hydrates are releasing methane to the atmosphere today in response to anthropogenic warming,
for example along the Arctic coastline of Siberia. However most of the hydrates are located at depths in soils
and ocean sediments where an- thropogenic warming and any possible methane release will
take place over time scales of millennia. Individual catas- trophic releases like landslides and
pockmark explosions are too small to reach a sizable fraction of the hydrates. The carbon isotopic
excursion at the end of the Paleocene has been interpreted as the release of thousands of Gton C, pos- sibly from hydrates, but the
time scale of the release appears to have been thousands of years, chronic rather than catastrophic. The potential climate impact in the coming century from hydrate methane release is
speculative but could be com- parable to climate feedbacks from the terrestrial biosphere and
from peat, significant but not catastrophic. On geologic timescales, it is conceivable that hydrates could release as
much carbon to the atmosphere/ocean system as we do by fossil fuel combustion.
2NC – prefer our studies
Nature agreed that the study the aff cites was BS
Samenow 13 (Jason, internally cites experts including the US government’s Climate Change
Science Program and Dr. Carolyn Ruppel from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute’s US
Geological Survey, Washington Post, July 25, 2013, “Methane mischief: misleading commentary
published in Nature,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weathergang/wp/2013/07/25/methane-mischief-misleading-commentary-published-in-nature/, alp)
On the climate science blog Real Climate, in 2010, climate scientist David Archer
writes: “For methane to be a game-changer in the future of Earth’s climate, it would have to
degas to the atmosphere catastrophically, on a time scale that is faster than the decadal lifetime
of methane in the air. So far no one has seen or proposed a mechanism to make that
happen.” And, here’s the kicker: Nature, the same organization which published
Wednesday’s commentary, published a scientific review of methane hydrates and climate
change by Carolyn Ruppel in 2011 which suggests the scenario in said commentary is
virtually impossible. The review states: Catastrophic, widespread dissociation of methane gas
hydrates will not be triggered by continued climate warming at contemporary rates (0.2ºC per
decade; IPCC 2007) over timescales of a few hundred years. Most of Earth’s gas
hydrates occur at low saturations and in sediments at such great depths below the seafloor or
onshore permafrost that they will barely be affected by warming over even [1,000] yr. I
emailed NOAA methane expert Ed Dlugokencky and asked him if he could reconcile
what the climate science literature says about methane versus the assumptions
guiding Wednesday’s Nature commentary. His response: “…our lab measures
CH4 [methane] in air samples collected from sites around the world, including
the Arctic. So far, we do not detect a permanent increase in CH4 emissions from natural
Arctic CH4 sources (wetlands in permafrost regions and ocean hydrates) from our
data, despite Arctic warming over the past couple decades. I tend to agree with the
conclusions of Carolyn Ruppel [see above] and USCCSP SAP 3.4 Chapter 5 [the
abrupt climate change report mentioned above] that increases in emissions as large as
those suggested in the Nature article are unlikely.”
The woman whose work your study cites errs neg
Samenow 13 (Jason, internally cites experts including the US government’s Climate Change
Science Program and Dr. Carolyn Ruppel from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute’s US
Geological Survey, Washington Post, July 25, 2013, “Methane mischief: misleading commentary
published in Nature,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weathergang/wp/2013/07/25/methane-mischief-misleading-commentary-published-in-nature/, alp)
Wadhams is likely referring to work done by Natalia Shakhova, whose studies published in 2010
(one of which his commentary cites) proposed the possibility of a sudden release of methane
with “catastrophic consequences for the climate system.” But even Shakhova’s work was heavily
qualified. “There remains substantial uncertainty regarding several aspects of the CH4
[methane] release from the ESAS [East Siberian Arctic Shelf],” she writes in an article published
in Science.
2NC – accidents turn
Drilling melts hydrates underwater – accelerates methane release
Friedemann 4/28 (Alice, author of energyskeptic.com, in this article, she internally cites
qualified sources, April 28, 2014, “Why we aren’t mining methane hydrates now. Or ever.,”
http://energyskeptic.com/2014/methane-hydrate-not-gonna-happen/ , alp)
Eastman states that normally, the pressure of hundreds of meters of water above keeps the
frozen methane stable. But heat flowing from oil drilling and pipelines has the potential to
slowly destabilize it, with possibly disastrous results: melting hydrate might trigger underwater
landslides as it decomposes and the substrate becomes lubricated… 5) Which can Trigger
Tsunamis Landslides can create tsunamis that might result in fatalities, long term health effects,
and destruction of property and infrastructure.
Drilling accidents turn the advantage
Lefebvre 13 (Ben, Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2013, “Scientists Envision Fracking in Arctic
and on Ocean Floor,”
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324694904578600073042194096,
alp)
Commercial production of methane hydrate is expected to take at least a decade—if it comes at
all. Different technologies to harvest the gas are being tested, but so far no single approach has
been perfected, and it remains prohibitively expensive. But booming energy demand in Asia,
which is spurring gigantic projects to liquefy natural gas in Australia, Canada and Africa, is also
giving momentum to efforts to mine the frozen clumps of methane hydrate mixed deep in
seafloor sediment. The biggest concern is that the sediment that contains methane hydrate is
inherently unstable, meaning a drilling accident could set off a landslide that sends massive
amounts of methane—a potent greenhouse gas—bubbling up through the ocean and into the
atmosphere. Oil and gas companies establishing deep-water drilling rigs normally look at
avoiding methane-hydrate clusters, said Richard Charter, senior member of environmental
group the Ocean Foundation, who has long studied methane hydrates.
2NC – at: Mann article
Reject Mann’s solvency claims – grounded in speculation and fear of
academic criticism, not hard data
Nelder 13 (Christ, energy analyst and consultant, The Atlantic, May 2, 2013, “Are Methane
Hydrates Really Going to Change Geopolitics?,”
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/are-methane-hydrates-really-goingto-change-geopolitics/275275/, alp)
The recent achievements from combining horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing are
indeed impressive and have brought much-needed new volumes of liquid fuels to the thirsty
U.S., which has long been the world's largest oil importer. (Shale gas is likewise an impressive
accomplishment, but the U.S. was still a net gas importer in 2012, according to EIA data.) But
these are not new technologies. The first horizontal well was drilled in the 1930s, and hydraulic
fracturing was introduced in the 1940s. Both technologies have been thoroughly applied and
refined at scale in real-world circumstances for many decades, with substantial federal support
for research and development. Methane hydrate extraction, which is still in the early stages of
testing and requires techniques that have only recently been attempted for the first time, is in no
way comparable to tight oil and shale gas extraction. Methane hydrates are not "being developed
in much the same methodical way that shale gas was developed before it," and skepticism on
methane hydrates isn't comparable to skepticism on shale gas. Skepticism isn't some fungible
property of everything; facts about prices and production rates are essential. Perhaps this is the
real point of Mann's take on these new technologies: He confesses that he does not want to
"miss the boat" on methane hydrates as he did on shale gas. That's a gambler's mentality, not a
shrewd investor's.
Natural gas
1NC – frontline
Status quo solves the advantage –
a) New house bill – speaks to your Russia-specific internal link
RT 6/26 (RT, June 26, 2014, “House votes to expedite US natural gas exports,”
http://rt.com/usa/168496-house-expedite-natural-gas-exports/, alp)
The US House voted on Wednesday to speed up applications for the export of US liquified
natural gas. Supporters of the bill cited positive economic impact for the country, as well as
potential benefits for its allies. Thanks to horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing
(or fracking), the US is currently faced with a significant excess of gas supply. The most
recent figures provided by the US Energy Information Agency indicate that natural
gas supply in North America could exceed demand by 2016. Accordingly, energy producers
are eager to liquefy that surplus North American gas for export and invest in what
would be capital-intensive projects. The bill, which passed on Wednesday by a
comfortable margin of 266-150, would allow for liquified natural gas (LNG) exports to
non-Free Trade Agreement countries – including Ukraine – to be expedited. The legislation
requires the US Department of Energy to clear applications within 30 days, following an
environmental review of LNG infrastructure. Though the political appetite to ease
limits on LNG has been building in the past few years, proposed legislation has gained
impetus in the last few months, in large part due to the situation in Ukraine. Citing a willingness
to help Western European allies ease their dependency on Russian-supplied energy, several
prominent US politicians have tied LNG export to helping its allies. Speaking from the
House floor, the latest bill’s sponsor, Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), urged
colleagues to support the reduced time frame for export approvals. "The
economic impacts alone make natural gas exports a winning policy, but the
geopolitical impacts are an incredible benefit as well and have been ignored for far too
long. Allies around the world have told us that they would greatly benefit from American LNG,"
Gardner said.
b) New senate bill
Cox 7/10 (Ramsey, writer for The Hill, July 10, 2014, “Senate bill increases natural gas
exports to US allies,” http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/211896-senate-billincreases-natural-gas-exports-to-us-allies, alp)
Republican senators introduced legislation Thursday that would allow the U.S. export of natural
gas to European allies. Sens. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and John Barrasso
(R-Wyo.) introduced the North Atlantic Energy Security Act. They said their bill would cut
“bureaucratic red tape” to allow U.S. companies to export natural gas to U.S. allies and approve
pending permits of those that want to liquefy the natural gas so that it is more easily transported
abroad. “We need to deploy a long-term strategy when it comes to helping our allies,” Hoeven
said on the Senate floor Thursday. “We produce 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas a year, but
we only consume 26 trillion. ... We need markets.” Hoeven said some companies have been
waiting for more than a year for approval to process the natural gas and export it, but that the
administration has delayed their applications. McCain said European reliance on Russia for
natural gas has created global problems that the United States can help solve. “Americans
understand that we need to do what we can to help our European friends to become
independent of Vladimir Putin’s energy,” McCain said. “If we could export energy to these
countries it could literally change the world.” Europe is heavily reliant on Russia for natural gas,
but Hoeven said that within just three years, the United States could start supplying its allies. He
said his state alone burns off more than $1 million worth of natural gas because it cannot be
captured and exported due to government regulations.
Aff can’t solve in time
RT 6/26 (RT, June 26, 2014, “House votes to expedite US natural gas exports,”
http://rt.com/usa/168496-house-expedite-natural-gas-exports/, alp)
Ukraine currently holds “a few months” worth of natural gas reserves, according to Bank of
America Corp estimates cited by Bloomberg. The country depends on Russia for over half of its
energy needs, while it currently transits some 15 percent of Europe’s Russian gas supply through
its pipelines. Still, expedited LNG export applications do not mean that energy would be
immediately available for shipment. Several years would be required to prepare the installations
necessary for export. Legislation to fast-track energy exports may not amount to much more
than window dressing in the end, as the Obama administration has defended the standing
process for the approval of LNG export, noting that facilities would not be prepared to ship
before 2018, reports The Hill. Accordingly, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) has questioned the
real impact of legislation to expedite approvals. "Rushing the DOE review is not going to speed
up the construction of these projects. We need the construction of the infrastructure for the
export of natural gas," Waxman said.
Shale boom sustainable – experts
Blackmon 4/24 (David, Energy In Depth, April 24, 2014, “Texas Oil Boom More
Sustainable than Prior Cycles,” http://energyindepth.org/texas/texas-oil-boom-sustainable/,
alp)
People often ask how long we should expect the current boom in shale oil and natural gas
that is happening in Texas and throughout much of the United States to last. The
correct answer today will be some variation on the theme: “a very long time.” One
presenter at this week’s Eagle Ford Consortium Conference in San Antonio, Greg
Leveille of ConocoPhillips, told his audience that the 25 county region that makes up the
Eagle Ford Shale play should expect to see “decades and decades” of production. Local citizens
in the Eagle Ford region, the Permian Basin of West Texas, and other significant
shale plays around the country naturally worry about when the next “bust” will come,
which is not an unreasonable concern to have. After all, conventional oil and gas
booms in previous decades have almost always eventually wound down into a bust at some
level. But there are many reasons to believe that the shale boom will be different, and the
Eagle Ford play provides a very good example why. As Leodoro Martinez, who chairs the
Eagle Ford Consortium, told a reporter, “Everybody talks about boom and bust.
We want to talk about the boom without having a bust.” The differences between
today’s situation and that of prior booms are many. Start with the fact that
previous booms, like the oil boom of the early 1980s, came about due to high oil prices driven
by restrictions in supply. The restrictions in the 1980s were artificially driven by OPEC, and
prior booms came about simply due to a failure by the global industry to identify adequate new
resources. In every case, you had rising demand and limited supplies to meet it. Today’s
boom in the United States is different in that we now have rapidly rising domestic
supplies meeting rising demand (although domestic demand for some fuels, like
gasoline, has actually leveled out in recent years). Where in the past the United
States was forced to rely more and more heavily on imports from OPEC
countries, today’s shale boom is enabling our country to actually lower its imports on a daily
basis, with our imports having been cut almost in half since 2007. In the
meantime, rapidly rising demand in China, Japan, India and the rest of the Pacific Rim is
filling the void in U.S. imports, consuming all the oil the OPEC countries and
Russia can produce. This all ensures the price of oil will remain healthy enough for the U.S.
drilling boom to continue, even as the United States continues its path toward energy security,
rather than away from it. And it is continuing in a huge way in Texas. Mr. Leveille
projected that by the end of 2014, the state of Texas will most likely produce more
oil on a daily basis than all the OPEC countries except for Saudi Arabia. Today,
Texas would rank ninth in the world in daily oil production if it were a separate country. If Mr.
Leveille’s projections hold, Texas would finish this year having moved up to
number five on that list, behind only Russia, Saudia Arabia, the remainder of the
United States, and China. The 3.4 million barrels of oil per day he estimates
Texas’s oil production to reach by year’s end would represent a more than 150
percent increase over the state’s 2008 levels. Of course, any boom in any
extractive industry comes with a set of local impacts, and traffic congestion has
been one of the most significant impacts in the Eagle Ford region the last few
years. However, Mr. Leveille told his audience that ConocoPhillips is doing its
share to address that issue, having made a 40 percent reduction in the amount of
oil it transports via truck in a single year. The company has also virtually
eliminated the need to truck fresh water to hydraulic fracturing sites using a
variety of alternative methods. Mr. Leveille summed up the magnitude of the
Eagle Ford Shale by saying, “What you’re seeing unfold in the Eagle Ford is
probably the greatest energy success story we will see in the 21st century.”
Indeed, this oil and natural gas resource play has transformed a sleepy, rural,
relatively poor region of South Texas into what has now been one of a handful of
most significant economic development areas on Earth for the last half decade.
With a regional Eagle Ford rig count that has now held stable for three solid years, a steadily
growing level of activity in several different oil plays in the vast Permian Basin, and a global
supply and demand picture that shows no signs of shifting significantly anytime soon, we
have every reason to expect the oil boom in Texas and the rest of the United States to
continue for quite some time.
Alt cause – lack of pipeline infrastructure – supply is adequate
Helman 2/8 (Christopher, Forbes staff, Forbes, February 8, 2014, “How Can A Nation
Awash In Natural Gas Have Shortages? And What To Do About It.,”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2014/02/08/how-can-a-nation-awash-innatural-gas-have-shortages-and-what-to-do-about-it/, alp)
So much for the wishful thinking that bountiful shale gas would moderate gas prices for the
foreseeable future. The truth is that natgas is more expensive now (at $5.40 per mmbtu for the
front month NYMEX contracts) than it’s been in four years. Going into this winter the amount of
natural gas in storage was near record highs — more than 4 trillion cubic feet. Yet analysts at
Simmons & Company figure we’ll exit the winter season with just 1.1 trillion cubic feet left in
storage; that’s 40% below the five year average. Indeed, if you had bought the United States
Natural Gas exchange-traded fund three months ago you’d be up 35% now. In light of our gas
shortage in the face of record glut, Ernie Moniz, the Secretary of Energy, has ensured senators
and governors of that a review of the problem and potential solutions is underway. What’s to
review? We know where the gas is. The giant fields in Texas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and
elsewhere. And there’s plenty of it. The problem is that despite the thousands of miles of gas
pipelines crisscrossing the country, there just aren’t enough of them going to the places that
need it most. The trouble seems to be most acute in New England, where gas prices have shot up
the most and where the supply bottleneck has gotten so severe that even newspapers like the
Concord Monitor are editorializing in favor of more natural gas pipelines. State and federal
regulators need to encourage their construction. NIMBYists in New England need to get out of
their way.
Solvency
1NC – frontline
No solvency:
1) Can’t commercialize
Friedemann 4/28 (Alice, author of energyskeptic.com, in this article, she internally cites
qualified sources, April 28, 2014, “Why we aren’t mining methane hydrates now. Or ever.,”
http://energyskeptic.com/2014/methane-hydrate-not-gonna-happen/ , alp)
Methane hydrates are methane gas and water that exist where pressures are high or
temperatures low enough. The United States Geological Survey estimates the total energy
content of natural gas in methane hydrates is greater than all of the known oil, coal, and gas
deposits in the world. But that’s a wild ass guess since we can’t measure this resource, for
reasons such as coring equipment that can’t handle the expansion of the gas hydrate as it’s
brought to the surface. And if you do work around this problem, there’s tremendous variability
within the same area (Riedel). Since less than 1% of is potentially extractable, there’s no point in
throwing around large numbers and getting the energy illiterate excited. According to petroleum
engineer Jean Laherrère, no way do methane hydrates dwarf fossil fuels. “Most hydrates are
located in the first 600 meters of recent oceanic sediments at an average water depth of 500
meters or more, which represents just a few million years. Fossil fuel sediments were formed
over a billion years and are much thicker — typically over 6,000 meters (Laherrère). So here it is
2014, with no commercially produced gas hydrate, despite 30 years of research at hundreds of
universities, government agencies, and energy companies in the United States, Japan, Brazil,
Canada, Germany, India, Norway, South Korea, China, and Russia. Japan alone has spent about
$700 million on methane-hydrate R&D over the past decade (Mann) and gotten $16,000 worth
of natural gas out of it (Nelder). I think this reflects the likely EROI of methane hydrates —
.0000228 (16000/700,000,000, and yes, I know money and EROI aren’t the same). But EROI
doesn’t capture the insanity as understandably as money does. Basically, for every $43,750 you
spend, you get $1 back ($700,000,000 / $16,000). Of course, it’s all theoretical. Maybe you get
$500 or $5,000 back. Who knows? There is no commercial production now or in the foreseeable
future. And we’ve tried all kinds of thermal techniques to unleash it — hot brine injection, steam
injection, cyclic steam, fire flooding, and electromagnetic heating — all of them too inefficient
and expensive to scale up to a commercial project (DOE 2009).
2) No infrastructure and gas isn’t concentrated enough
Friedemann 4/28 (Alice, author of energyskeptic.com, in this article, she internally cites
qualified sources, April 28, 2014, “Why we aren’t mining methane hydrates now. Or ever.,”
http://energyskeptic.com/2014/methane-hydrate-not-gonna-happen/ , alp)
In Figure 2 below, methane hydrates (yellow) in porous sands are the only resource with any
chance of being exploited — a very small fraction of the overall methane hydrate resource. Most
methane hydrates are locked up in marine shales (gray) where they’ll probably remain forever
because: The average concentrations are extremely low, about .9 to 1.5% by volume, even in the
less than 1% of highly porous sediments where there’s any chance of extracting them. Marine
shales are impermeable, very deep, widely dispersed, with very low concentrations of methane
hydrate (Moridis et al., 2008). Clathrates are far from oil and gas infrastructure, which you must
use to get the methane hydrates stored and delivered The infrastructure, technology, and
equipment to extract gas hydrates hasn’t been invented yet The energy required to get the
methane hydrate out has negative Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI). It takes too
much energy to heat them in order to release them plus break the bonds between the hydrates’
water molecules. Inhibitor injection requires significant quantities of fairly expensive chemicals.
Source: Boswell, Ray, et al. 14 Sep 2010. Current perspectives on gas hydrate resources. Energy
Environ. Sci., 2011,4, 1206-1215
3) Hydrates damage drilling equipment
Friedemann 4/28 (Alice, author of energyskeptic.com, in this article, she internally cites
qualified sources, April 28, 2014, “Why we aren’t mining methane hydrates now. Or ever.,”
http://energyskeptic.com/2014/methane-hydrate-not-gonna-happen/ , alp)
And imagine how Exxon will feel about that! Their oil rigs are already dodging icebergs. Oil
companies avoid drilling through methane hydrates because they can fracture and disrupt
bottom sediments, wrecking the wellbore, pipelines, rig supports, and potentially take out a
billion dollar offshore platform as well as other oil and gas production equipment and undersea
communication cables.
1NC – status quo solves
Status quo demonstrations solve modeling – our ev’s specific to CCS
Trager 11 (Rebecca, research correspondent for the Royal Society of Chemistry, November 1,
2011, “Pilot seeks to thaw methane hydrate promise,”
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2011/November/01111102.asp, alp)
The question of whether natural gas locked in ice, known as methane hydrates, can
help the world keep pace with its growing demand for energy will soon become clearer. Pilot
studies on gas extraction are being carried out by a joint venture that will use a fully
instrumented borehole which was installed in the Prudhoe Bay region of Alaska
earlier this year. The tests will run from January to March 2012. The project, which is being
run by the US Department of Energy (DOE), the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National
Corporation (JOGMEC) and the US oil major ConocoPhillips, will trial two processes. The
first involves injecting carbon dioxide into a methane hydrate bearing sandstone on the
Alaska North Slope region, exchanging carbon dioxide with methane. It is also hoped that
the process will result in the permanent storage of carbon dioxide within the formation.
After these exchange tests, the researchers will conduct a one month evaluation
of a second alternative methane production method called depressurisation. This
involves pumping fluids out of the borehole to reduce the pressure in the well; the
depressurisation 'melts' the methane hydrate, also known as clathrates, releasing
methane and liquid water. Ray Boswell, manager of the methane gas hydrate R&D
programme at the DOE's National Energy Technology Laboratory, describes the work as 'a
small-scale scientific experiment' designed to understand the physical processes - not to
demonstrate specific production rates. 'Many experts believe that methane
hydrates hold significant potential to supply this clean fossil fuel,' says
ConocoPhillips spokesperson Amy Burnett. 'At present, the technology does not
exist to produce methane economically from hydrates. This trial is an important first
step in analysing a production technology with potential both to produce this resource
and to sequester carbon dioxide in the process.' Fire from ice The DOE says, if these
initial tests are successful, it plans larger field programmes to demonstrate the potential
production rates.
2NC – fracking makes hydrates uneconomical
It’s not economical in the US
Lefebvre 13 (Ben, Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2013, “Scientists Envision Fracking in Arctic
and on Ocean Floor,”
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324694904578600073042194096,
alp)
The cost of developing this new source of energy remains high, with estimates ranging from $30
to $60 per million British thermal units. In the U.S., natural gas currently trades for less than $4
per million BTUs, as the rise of fracking produced a gas glut. But countries like Japan, Korea,
India, and Taiwan import gas "at a high price and thus may find it economical to produce their
own resources," said George Hirasaki, a professor at Rice University in Houston who has done
research on methane hydrates.
2NC – can’t solve fast enough
Plan can’t solve fast enough
Petersen 14 (Bo, The Post and Courier, internally cites experts including Richard Charter, a
senior fellow at the Ocean Foundation, January 5, 2014, “Methane hydrate offshore is tempting,
perilous natural gas,” http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20140105/PC16/140109725, alp)
But Charter insists "it's not paranoid at all" to think (oil companies) are interested. In the Gulf of
Mexico, companies for years avoided drilling deep ocean oil wells because of the methane
hydrate beds, the depth and distance from shore, and danger. Now they are drilling in areas like
Deepwater Horizon. "The bottom line is methane hydrates aren't ready for prime time," he said,
but the technology and need might be only 10, 12, 15 years away. In other words, the Blake beds
might be harvestable within the time span of the life of the lease.
2NC – underwater CCS fails
Underwater CCS fails – ocean too fractured
Monastersky 13 (Richard, nature.com, reporter and editor at the Chronicle for Higher
Education, December 17, 2013, “Seabed scars raise questions over carbon-storage plan,”
http://www.nature.com/news/seabed-scars-raise-questions-over-carbon-storage-plan-1.14386,
alp)
Like a porpoise on the prowl, the sleek submersible HUGIN tracks its prey with
sonar chirps. But the hunter set loose in the waters of the North Sea is not
pursuing fish — the robot is trawling for geological clues that could help to determine
whether billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide can be stored below the sea floor for centuries ,
keeping it from warming the planet. Now, the latest data from the autonomous
underwater vehicle and other tools deployed by the European Commission’s €10million (US$13.8-million) ECO2 research project suggest that the plan might not be so
simple. The seabed is fractured and scarred more than researchers had appreciated — providing
potential routes for CO2 to leak from sub-seabed reservoirs where it is currently being
stored. “We are saying it is very likely something will come out in the end,” says Klaus
Wallmann, ECO2 coordinator and a marine geochemist at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre
for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany.
2NC – status quo solves CCS modeling
Status quo solves CCS modeling – US is already a leader
Tulloch 14 (James, Open Knowledge portal via Allianz, January 23, 2014, “Carbon capture
and storage: dead and buried?,”
http://knowledge.allianz.com/environment/climate_change/?2552/Carbon-capture-andstorage-dead-and-buried, alp)
This helps explain why it is the United States which now leads the CCS market. New
projects in 2013 include the Coffeyville Gasification Plant, which recovers CO2 from a fertilizer
operation and then pipes it to an oil field, and the Lost Cabin Gas Plant, which also uses
the gas to recover oil. As things stand today, CCS applications seem closer to business-asusual than a Moon landing.
2NC – status quo solves demos
DOE investment now
Boman 13 (Karen, Rigzone, November 21, 2013, “DOE Expands Methane Hydrates
Research,”
http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/130249/DOE_Expands_Methane_Hydrates_Resear
ch, alp)
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded nearly $5 million to research projects at
seven universities that will seek to expand existing knowledge of methane hydrates and its
potential impact on the environment, U.S. economic competitiveness and energy security. Two
Texas universities are among the recipients of the DOE award, which was announced
Wednesday. The University of Texas at Austin will receive nearly $1.7 million to fund its
research with Ohio State University and Columbia University-Lamont Doherty Earth
Observatory into the primary influences on the development of persistent, massive hydrate
accumulations in deep sediments below the seabed. By extending a 3-D reservoir model to
accumulations, the role of free gas in their persistence, and locations where these massive
accumulations might be possible, DOE said in a statement. DOE awarded Texas A&M
University’s Engineering Experiment Substation approximately $390,000 to develop a
numerical model to address the numerous complexities associated with production from
hydrate-bearing sediments. The project, which TEES will conduct with the Georgia Institute of
Technology, will provide a powerful new modeling tool to optimize future hydrate productionrelated testing and a greater understanding of how hydrate systems react to induced or natural
changes in their environment. Other universities that are receiving research funds include the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, George Tech Research Corporation, Oregon State
University, the University of Washington and the University of Oregon.
Past demonstrations were successful
US DOE 12 (Rigzone, May 2, 2012, “Energy Secretary: Methane Hydrate Field Test a
Success,”
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=117534http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.
asp?a_id=117534, alp)
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced today the completion of a successful,
unprecedented test of technology in the North Slope of Alaska that was able to safely extract a
steady flow of natural gas from methane hydrates –- a vast, entirely untapped resource that
holds enormous potential for U.S. economic and energy security. Building upon this initial,
small-scale test, the Department is launching a new research effort 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 U.S. Gulf
Coast.
2NC – at: past pilot projects
Past successful projects don’t prove the tech exists – prefer industry
statements
Lefebvre 13 (Ben, Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2013, “Scientists Envision Fracking in Arctic
and on Ocean Floor,”
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324694904578600073042194096,
alp)
Last year, ConocoPhillips worked with the DOE on a test run producing natural gas from
methane hydrate in Alaska's North Slope, home to about 85 trillion cubic feet of
technically recoverable methane hydrate, according to DOE statistics. The company
spent 13 days injecting carbon dioxide and nitrogen into methane-hydrate clusters in the
permafrost. The chemical cocktail fractures the permafrost, allowing the gas to
escape through the newly made fractures for collection. ConocoPhillips was able "to
safely extract a steady flow of natural gas," a spokeswoman said. ConocoPhillips declined to say
how much it has invested in methane-hydrate production. The Houston-based
company said that "at present, the technology does not exist to produce natural gas
economically from hydrates."
Disadvantages
DA – renewables tradeoff
1NC
Renewables coming now – solve by 2020
Nelder 13 (Christ, energy analyst and consultant, The Atlantic, May 2, 2013, “Are Methane
Hydrates Really Going to Change Geopolitics?,”
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/are-methane-hydrates-really-goingto-change-geopolitics/275275/, alp)
If Mann's data on methane hydrates is correct, then Japan's experiment so far has taken 10
years and $700 million to produce four million cubic feet of gas, which is worth about $16,000
at today's U.S. gas prices, or about $50,000 at today's prices for imported LNG in Japan. At this
point, it is an enormously expensive experimental pilot project, and nothing more. We do not
yet know when it might be able to recover commercial volumes of gas, or at what rate, or at what
price. We have no reason to believe that if commercial quantities are recoverable by 2018 as
Japan hopes--which seems incredibly optimistic--that the price of that gas will be competitive
with imported LNG. At the same time, we have numerous forecasts projecting that renewables
like wind and solar will be competitive with fossil-fueled grid power in most of the developed
world by 2020, including much of Asia. For example, a recent report by Citigroup, and another
by researchers at Stanford University, among many others. A 2011 report by WWF and Ecofys
projects that by 2018, solar PV will be the cheapest way to generate power in much of Asia. If
these forecasts--based on more than a decade of real-world cost data for large-scale solar and
wind are correct, then there is no reason to believe that gas from Japan's methane hydrate
experiment will be able to compete with renewable grid power, which would constitute the
largest market for that gas (unless Japan rapidly deploys natural gas vehicles in the interim,
which it currently has no economic reason to do).
Plan trades off with renewables – makes warming inevitable – turns
case
Campana 13 (Stu, international environmental consultant, BA in political science and MSc
in Environment and Resource Management from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, April 2,
2013, “Methane Hydrates Make for a Volatile Energy Outlook,”
http://www.alternativesjournal.ca/community/blogs/renewable-energy/methane-hydratesmake-volatile-energy-outlook, alp)
We complain all the time about the global treatment of renewable energies as we move
from fossil fuels to renewables. It’s taking too long. We need a better energy mix. The
subsidies are unfair. But we don’t really question the inevitability that the future belongs to
renewable energy. After all, fossil fuels are certain to run out sooner or later. But what if
they don’t run out? Under what conditions does the future belong to renewables? A
Japanese breakthrough may force the answer upon us. Methane hydrates are
methane trapped in water under the ocean floor. Several weeks ago, energy
researchers in Japan figured out how to a) extract and b) burn this methane. Also known as
“fire ice”, the methane can be converted into natural gas. A neat trick, and they
weren’t doing it just to see if they could, either. Though commercial extraction is
still years from being possible, Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial
Science and Technology thinks there is enough gas in Japanese waters to power the island
country for 100 years. Not to be outdone, the United States Geological Survey estimates
that the world's gas hydrates “may contain more organic carbon than the world's coal, oil, and
other forms of natural gas combined”. In other words, there’s an untapped fossil fuel out
there in impressive quantities. The US, incidentally, has already run a successful test
off the coast of Alaska. “Energy independence” has been on the lips of American
politicians since the oil crisis of the 1970s and an untouched supply of extractable
fuel will not go unnoticed in Washington if further tests come back with positive
results. Of course, even those massive reserves of methane will eventually run out, but that’s
really beside the point. Burning it all – or rather, burning it all instead of using renewable
energies – will likely push global warming past the point of no return while further delaying the
emergence of renewables as the world’s primary energy source. Many governments around
the world have been at least paying lip service to the idea that renewables will eventually
take over from the coal, oil or gas on which most states currently rely. It has been a
relatively easy decision to make, given that even the most optimistic predictions show a
steady decline in global fossil fuel reserves, and it’s impossible to discern whether the
shift can be traced to changing environmental attitudes or old-fashioned political
realism – an adherence to narrowly defined self-interest. If realism takes over, and if
“fire ice” is anywhere near as plentiful as scientists think it is, then it may not be hyperbole to
say that the climatic future will come down to a simple matter of cost-effectiveness: can
renewable energy be produced for less money than hydrate methane? It remains
unknown how cheaply “fire ice” can be extracted. If the cost is significantly higher
than that of wind or solar energy then renewables may yet win the day. All things
being equal, renewable energy has the inside track as our next big energy source. It’s plentiful,
getting cheaper all the time and supported by large segments of the population. Against
diminishing quantities of fossil fuels, renewables have been making steady gains. Will these
gains continue if renewable energies are thrown into a cage match with a massively plentiful
new fuel? Have we been kidding ourselves in thinking that the world has seen the
environmental light? Or would it come down, as it has so many times in history, to the
unsentimentality of classical economics? Cross your fingers that we don’t have to find
out.
2NC – uniqueness
Renewable energy investments increasing – trends prove
Phillips 7/8/14, (Ari Phillips is reporter for ClimateProgress.org. A native of Santa Fe, New
Mexico, he received his bachelor of arts in philosophy from the University of California, Santa
Barbara, and dual master’s degrees in journalism and global policy studies from the University
of Texas at Austin. He previously held internships with The Texas Observer, the Institute for
Global Environmental Strategies in Japan, and the Center for Global Energy, International
Arbitration, and Environmental Law at The University of Texas School of Law, “Investment In
Clean Energy At Highest Point Since 2012”, [
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/07/08/3457438/clean-energy-investment-3/ ] ,//hssRJ)
The global clean energy sector is growing at a healthy pace with new investment totaling $66.2
billion in the second quarter this year, an eight percent increase from the same period in 2013.
According to an analysis by Clean Energy Pipeline, project finance reached a five-quarter high
and has rebounded from a slump during 2012 and 2013. “It is perhaps a little early to make
predictions, but based on investment levels during the first six months of 2014 last year’s total
looks like it will be eclipsed,” Douglas Lloyd, CEO of Clean Energy Pipeline, said in a statement.
“This is very positive news given that total clean energy investment posted annual year-on-year
declines in both 2012 and 2013.” Investment last quarter was bolstered by growth in the onshore
wind industry, according to the report, which totaled $18 billion. Projects included the 300megawatt, $1.3 billion Aysha wind farm in Ethiopia and the 252-megawatt, $650 million
Ventika wind farm in Mexico. There were also some major offshore wind projects, including the
$3.8 billion Gemini offshore wind farm in the Netherlands. Rapid growth in the U.S. residential
solar sector helped the value of solar leasing companies rise. SunRun, Sunnova and Sungevity
raised $150 million, $145 million and $70 million respectively during the second quarter.
Renewable energy investment in U.S. wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal power has increased
nearly 250 percent since 2004, reaching 36.7 billion in 2013. In a promising sign for the future
of the industry, this week the World Bank announced plans to invest $775 million in clean
energy projects across India, a capital outlay it expects the government to use to help galvanize
more investment in renewable energy. “The support shown by the new government towards
clean energy is quite encouraging and is expected to give the much-needed push to the sector
and unlock pending investments,” said Ashish Khanna, lead energy specialist at the Bank.
According to a recent Bloomberg News Energy Finance report, $5.1 trillion will be invested in
renewable energy sources by 2030. Out of 5,000 gigawatts of power generation capacity to be
added worldwide by 2030, renewable power will account for 4,000 gigawatts.
Renewable investment increasing – massive investment from tech
companies
Richey 7/10/14 , (Erin Richey is a freelance data and investigative journalist reporting on
digital security and construction from St. Louis, this article was published in Forbes Magazine,
“Why Big Tech Companies Are Investing In Renewable Energy”, [
http://www.forbes.com/sites/emc/2014/07/10/why-big-tech-companies-are-investing-inrenewable-energy/ ] , //hss-RJ)
When it was completed in 2013, the London Array was the largest offshore wind farm in the
world, designed to produce a gigawatt of electricity. In April of this year, Google GOOGL -0.57%
announced that it had contracted for that much renewable energy over the course of seven
different purchase agreements since 2011—the largest one being the most recent purchase
agreement for 407 megawatts of wind-sourced power from MidAmerican Energy Company to
supply its data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa. One gigawatt was almost 20 percent of the wind
power capacity for the whole state of Iowa in 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
Renewable energy seems like a natural solution for data centers, which are notoriously
electricity hungry. Not surprisingly, the purchase of large contracts and certificates by big tech
companies to green their images is driving a new wave of interest in renewable energy. But will
utilities need to significantly expand their capacity to meet this demand? Pressures for efficiency
Data centers accounted for 1.3 percent of global energy consumption in 2010, and 2 percent of
electricity use in the U.S., according to research by Stanford University Steyer-Taylor Center
research fellow Jon Koomey. Between 2000 and 2005, energy use by data centers worldwide
doubled, but from 2005 to 2010 energy use increased by only 56 percent worldwide and 36
percent in the U.S. Koomey’s paper suggests that the cause is a lower than anticipated rate of
server installations. “Enterprise data centers are the biggest part of the issue [of excess energy
use]: between 80 and 85 percent are in companies whose primary business is not computing.
The Facebooks, the Apples, the Googles are the most efficient of all the data centers, and they’re
the ones getting all of the attention,” says Koomey. In his research, Koomey found that Google’s
data centers’ electricity use comprises less than one percent of all data center energy use
globally. As a result, Koomey says, demand from the companies with the most pressure to switch
to renewable energy is tempered by their improvements in data center energy efficiency. “These
are customer-facing companies, and the customers care about this issue,” says Koomey. He adds
that assuaging customers’ energy concerns has benefits for the companies in addition to benefits
for the environment. “These companies also have very high margins. Data centers are highly
profitable. That means that they’re willing to pay a little bit extra” to get green energy kudos.
Significant investments In addition to Google’s goal of powering all of its operations with 100percent renewable energy—the company claims to have achieved 34 percent so far—it has
invested more than $1 billion in renewable energy projects, some of which supply residential
energy demand or support renewable energy infrastructure overseas. In 2013 Facebook
purchased renewable energy certificates from a wind farm being developed by MidAmerican
Energy to cover 100 percent of the anticipated energy consumption for a new data center in
Altoona, Iowa. Facebook has also committed to a goal of 25 percent renewable energy for all of
its global data centers by the end of 2015. It already has one data center, in Lulea, Sweden,
powered entirely by hydroelectric energy. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s
National Top 100 Partner Rankings, Intel uses 3.1 billion kilowatt hours of green power
annually. This constitutes the entirety of the company’s electricity use, making Intel the topranked EPA green power partner. Microsoft ranks third, using 1.4 billion kilowatt hours of green
power—50 percent of the company’s total electricity use. Some of these contracts and certificates
explicitly require extra output from utilities. Google’s power purchase arrangement with
MidAmerican will be supplied by a wind project that is set to expand Iowa’s wind power by
1,050 megawatts by the end of 2015. When the wind project supplying Facebook’s Altoona data
center comes online, it will add 138 megawatts of new renewable energy capacity to the existing
grid. Even with these substantial agreements taking place, renewable energy capacity is growing
at a far faster rate. Most contracts with major tech companies involve wind power, production of
which grew almost 20 percent between 2012 and 2013 in the U.S., totaling 467 million megawatt
hours last year. Meanwhile, wind energy consumption for the commercial sector has remained
steady at around 293,071 megawatt hours since 2012. So, while suppliers continue to expand
their projects, steady demand isn’t likely to stress the market. On whether major contracts could
someday pressure renewable energy facilities and suppliers to expand their capacity, Koomey
says, “If enough companies do it, then, absolutely.”
Renewable energy investment is high and increasing – that solves warming
Collins 7/8/14, (Jemma Collins joined Blue & Green Tomorrow in June 2014. She
graduated from the University of Lincoln with a 2:1 in journalism in 2011 and her short film
about mental health discrimination was nominated for both the Mind Media Awards and the
BBC Connect and Create Awards. Her dissertation focused on scaremongering in health
reporting in the British press and she now covers a variety of subjects including ethical
consumerism and sustainability, “Renewable energy investment at five-quarter high, says new
data”, [ http://blueandgreentomorrow.com/2014/07/08/renewable-energy-investment-at-fivequarter-high-says-new-data/ ] , //hss-RJ)
The global clean energy sector is thriving, with new investment totaling $66.2 billion (£38.72
billion) in the second quarter of 2014, a significant increase on 2013. The preliminary figure
includes venture capital, private equity, project finance, mergers and acquisitions and public
markets activity. It represents an 8% increase from the same period last year and is a positive
step forward, as total sustainable energy investment declined in 2012 and 2013. The data was
released by Clean Energy Pipeline, an online financial data service, and builds on the success
seen in the first quarter of 2014, when investment increased by 14%. With the UN warning in
April this year that investment in renewables must increase to stop global temperatures
reaching dangerous levels, this comes as good news. Douglas Lloyd, CEO of Clean Energy
Pipeline, said, “It is perhaps a little early to make predictions, but based on investment levels
during the first six months of 2014 last year’s total looks like it will be eclipsed. “This is very
positive news given that total clean energy investment posted annual year-on-year declines in
both 2012 and 2013.” Offshore and onshore wind investment saw progress with a $3.8 billion
(£2.22 billion) project finance deal for the Gemini offshore wind farm in the Netherlands. Large
deals were also struck for onshore wind with project finance increasing by over $4 billion (£2.33
billion) since the second quarter of 2013. This was due to large deals in emerging markets
including the Aysha wind farm in Ethiopia in May this year and the Ventika wind farm in
Mexico in April both receiving significant investments.
Focus on hydro by the DOE now
Harris 5/5 (Michael Harris, Renewable Energy World.com, “DOE Unveils Ambitious Plan
for Long-Term Hydroelectric Power Development”,
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/05/doe-unveils-ambitiousplan-for-long-term-hydroelectric-power-development, May 5, 2014)
WASHINGTON, D.C. The U.S. Department of Energy today unveiled a plan ultimately designed
to dramatically increase American hydroelectric capacity in the coming decades. The ambitious
multi-year program, announced at the National Hydropower Association's annual conference in
Washington, D.C., calls upon industry members to collaborate with the U.S. Department of
Energy and other federal agencies in creating a long-term plan allowing for the development of
the nation's uncultivated hydroelectric resources. "We have been working quite a bit with NHA
and the NHA board to try to figure out if this 'Hydropower Vision' plan makes sense now -today -- and trying to move toward a roadmap for this industry," DOE Wind and Water
Power Program manager Jose Zayas said. "We've confirmed with them that it does make sense.
We've confirmed with them that now is the time to do it." Often overlooked as a source of
readily-available renewable energy, Hydropower Vision is not only meant to increase the
sector's visibility, but also quantify and monetize its advantages in a way that makes it an
attractive option for policymakers, developers and consumers. It is telling this story, Zayas said,
that makes the involvement of industry members so important. "It will require participation
from all of you in terms of your knowledge, your information and your voices," Zayas said.
"We're launching it here today, but these are just introductory steps that we hope to share with
you to solicit not only feedback, but also awareness. "Our goal is that by the time we are
completed, most of you know what this is about, most of you have had an opportunity to voice
your opinion, and at the same time, you become agents of this work and of this industry." The
report will seek to answer a number of questions regarding the current state and future of
hydroelectric power, including market and growth opportunities; how conventional and
pumped-storage projects factor into America's energy mix; hydropower's economic,
environmental and social benefits; and what activities might be needed to realize Hydropower
Vision's scope. "The key section of this report is taking that picture, taking that understanding,
taking all that information and then distilling it to the activities that all of us must do," Zayas
said. "What is the role of the government? What is the role of the industry? What is the role of
other stakeholders and what do we need to do to make these things happen in order to try to
maximize the possibility?" Already America's most prevalent source of renewable energy and an
important component in President Barack Obama's all-of-the-above energy strategy, a DOE
report also released today notes that an additional 65,000 MW of hydroelectric capacity exists
across more than three million U.S. rivers and streams. "Far from being tapped out, hydropower
has the potential to play an even larger role in our diverse electricity portfolio as we strive for a
cleaner energy future and a stronger economy," NHA Executive Director Linda Church Ciocci
said. "I applaud DOE for undertaking this extensive study." The report, which builds on a
previous DOE study that identified 12,000 MW of capacity at the nation's existing non-powered
dams, further emphasizes hydro's room for growth. "Hydropower can double its contributions
by the year 2030," Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said. "We have to pick up the covers off of
this hidden renewable that's right in front of our eyes and continues to have significant
potential." DOE said it plans to provide updates on Hydropower Vision at the HydroVision
International 2014 conference and exhibition in Nashville, Tenn., and the 2015 NHA conference
before issuing a draft report during the third quarter of 2015. "This is an exciting time," Zayas
said. "But we believe the time is now, and we need all of your help.''
Ocean renewable development about to skyrocket
Labonte 13 (Alison Labonte, Marine and Hydrokinetic Technology Manager, DOE, “Ocean
Energy Projects Developing On and Off America's Shores”,
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/01/ocean-energy-projectsdeveloping-on-and-off-americas-shores, January 28, 2013)
Take a moment to think about where your electricity comes from and what comes to mind?
Perhaps natural gas pipelines and railcars filled with coal -- or maybe solar farms spread across
acres of land. Adding to this mix is a newcomer to the field. With advancements in technologies,
Americans will soon be able to tap into energy derived from the ocean. Artist rendering of Ocean
Power Technologies' proposed wave park off the coast of Oregon. | Photo courtesy of Ocean
Power Technologies. Marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) technologies — which generate power
from waves, tides or currents in ocean waters — are at an early but promising stage of
development. Many coastal areas in the United States have strong wave and tidal resources
close to areas with high-energy demand. With widespread deployment, these technologies
could make substantial contributions to our nation’s electricity needs. To advance
the development of these promising technologies, the Energy Department funds research and
development of MHK technologies, including laboratory and field-testing of individual
components up to demonstration and deployment of complete, utility-scale systems. With
funding and technical assistance from the Energy Department and landmark permits issued in
2012 by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), four U.S. companies are putting
wave and tidal energy projects in the water that will generate clean electricity for thousands of
homes and pave the way for continued industry growth. Ocean Power Technologies
(OPT), a New Jersey company, is preparing to deploy its wave energy device off the coast of
Oregon this spring. OPT received Energy Department support to develop and refine its PB150, a
computer-equipped buoy more than 100 feet long. The buoy captures energy by bobbing up and
down as waves pass by. FERC gave OPT approval on Aug. 20 to build a grid-connected 1.5megawatt wave power farm off the Oregon coast, making it the first wave power station
permitted in the United States. Meanwhile, another MHK developer called Columbia Power
Technologies (CPT) recently designed a new wave energy device called “StingRay.” A patent
application has been filed for the innovation, and testing of a physical model in a wave tank has
been completed. Data produced during testing verified that initial performance predictions from
computational models were correct and that the new design results in a much more efficient
device.
2NC – link
Massive hydrate development crowds out renewables investment and
postpones transition to green energy
Nelder 13 (Christ, energy analyst and consultant, The Atlantic, May 2, 2013, “Are Methane
Hydrates Really Going to Change Geopolitics?,”
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/are-methane-hydrates-really-goingto-change-geopolitics/275275/, alp)
On a broader level still, cheap, plentiful natural gas throws a wrench into efforts to combat
climate change. Avoiding the worst effects of climate change, scientists increasingly believe, will
require “a complete phase-out of carbon emissions … over 50 years,” in the words of one widely
touted scientific estimate that appeared in January. A big, necessary step toward that goal is
moving away from coal, still the second-most-important energy source worldwide. Natural gas
burns so much cleaner than coal that converting power plants from coal to gas—a switch
promoted by the deluge of gas from fracking—has already reduced U.S. greenhouse-gas
emissions to their lowest levels since Newt Gingrich’s heyday. Yet natural gas isn’t that clean;
burning it produces carbon dioxide. Researchers view it as a temporary “bridge fuel,” something
that can power nations while they make the transition away from oil and coal. But if societies do
not take advantage of that bridge to enact anti-carbon policies, says Michael Levi, the director of
the Program on Energy Security and Climate Change at the Council on Foreign Relations,
natural gas could be “a bridge from the coal-fired past to the coal-fired future.” “Methane
hydrate could be a new energy revolution,” Christopher Knittel, a professor of energy economics
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told me. “It could help the world while we reduce
greenhouse gases. Or it could undermine the economic rationale for investing in renewable,
carbon-free energy around the world”—just as abundant shale gas from fracking has already
begun to undermine it in the United States. “The one path is a boon. The other—I’ve used words
like catastrophe.” He paused; I thought I detected a sigh. “I wouldn’t bet on us making the right
decisions.”
Aff’s just kicking the can – renewables key
Morris 13 (Craig, author of the 2006 book Energy Switch along with numerous German and
English journal publications on energy technology and policy, writer for Renewables
International, Renewables International, March 18, 2013, “Getting more carbon out of the
ground,” http://www.renewablesinternational.net/getting-more-carbon-out-of-theground/150/537/61291/, alp)
In a way, what Japan is doing would be good for the environment if we assume that these
methane hydrates will eventually be dissolved anyway as a result of climate change. Otherwise,
the news should be taken as cause for alarm. Were Japan to reduce its carbon emissions in the
next few years by switching to methane hydrates, carbon counters would probably praise the
Japanese as they have done with the United States, which is lowering its carbon emissions by
switching to shale gas. In fact, however, the problem is the same as with both technologies. The
US – and now possibly Japan – are coming up with ways of getting new sources of carbon from
the ground. In the midterm, they will be able to reduce coal production, but shale gas and
methane hydrates will only help us kick the can down the road another few decades. And at that
point, all of that coal will still be available. We should not be so myopic as to focus on annual
carbon emissions. Instead, we need long-term goals, not shortsighted ones – and the only goal
that will help us slow down climate change is finding a way to leave more carbon in the ground,
not get more out of it. In this respect, Germany's switch to renewables and efficiency seems
more reasonable.
Hydrate mining guts renewable energy investment – undermines
market competition
Curtis 13 (Selwyn, analyst specializing in European renewable energy generation, Data
Monitor Energy, June 28, 2013, “Renewables under threat from methane hydrates.,”
http://www.datamonitorenergy.com/2013/06/28/renewables-under-threat-from-methanehydrates/, alp)
Supporters of renewable energy might feel confident that the future belongs to them.
However, this confidence might be dented because there are signs that another major form of
fossil fuel is approaching commercial viability. Renewables have seen major cost
reductions in recent years, but the threat of energy from methane hydrates means
that investors in renewables will need to continue to find ways to cut costs to remain
competitive. Technological improvements have recently allowed methane hydrates to be
extracted in Japanese waters in what could lead to a commercially viable method of mining this
untapped resource within five years. Methane hydrate is a form of fossil fuel that
exists in frozen deposits of natural gas, either on or under the seabed. The
estimated global reserves of methane hydrates are comparable to all conventional
fossil fuel reserves combined. Japan currently imports all of its fossil fuels but
has methane hydrate reserves that could support its domestic gas demand for at
least 30 years. It is little wonder therefore that support will continue to be provided for
research to drive down the cost of methane hydrate mining.
Economics prove
Moeller 12 (Holly, graduate student in ecology and evolution at Stanford University, author
for the MIT Newspaper The Tech, MA in Biological Oceanography from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Science 2.0, May 10, 2012, “Blowing Hot Air: The Methane Hydrate
Delusion,”
http://www.science20.com/seeing_green/blowing_hot_air_methane_hydrate_delusion89822, alp)
Now to don our economic hats. Increased supply and decreased costs only drive up demand. Say
we can, as the DoE promises, double our natural gas supply and effect dramatic price cuts by
using only 1% of domestically available methane hydrates. This quick fix of another carbonbased fuel will only delay our ultimate sustainability reckoning. Methane hydrates, no matter
how vast their supply seems, are just another nonrenewable resource. A boom in gas production
will add years – maybe decades – to the difficult but necessary transition to renewable energy
sources. And in the meantime, we’ll be doing plenty of damage to our environment both globally
– through additional greenhouse gas emissions – and locally – by drilling in sensitive
ecosystems. In the last decade, we’ve fought plenty of environmental battles over how and where
to drill for oil. We’ve seen the consequences – Deepwater Horizon and the Gulf of Mexico 2010
spill, for example – of pushing our technological limits towards harder and harder to reach
deposits. And now we want to grasp at something even more risky, at mineral formations that,
when destabilized, cause explosions and landslides. I’m afraid that the laws of economics –
especially in a country that will invest $6.5 million this year alone (plus an additional $5 million,
pending Congressional approval) on methane hydrate recover research – will once again favor
Sarah Palin’s mantra, “Drill, baby, drill.” Because as surely as methane is trapped within its
lattice of ice, we’ve trapped ourselves in a spiderweb of fossil fuel dependency. Unlike methane,
however, it seems even climate change can’t force us out.
The plan collapses investment into renewable energy – causes
warming and turns the case
Camus 4/23/14, (Gabriel Camus is an independent energy consultant and free-lance
journalist based in Paris, France, “A story of ice and fire: how methane hydrates could change
the world”, [ http://www.energypost.eu/story-ice-fire-methane-hydrates-change-world/ ] ,
//hss-RJ)
Now, in the context of the upcoming global negotiations on climate change (COP21) in Paris
next year and of a European energy and climate package for 2030 that has already been watered
down to almost nothing, should we welcome this looming revolution? I think not. The recovery
of enormous amounts of gas from beneath the seabed or from deep layers under the Arctic
permafrost will require large-scale and long-term investments in the upstream gas sector. The
advocates of gas as the panacea for a clean energy future will brandish the usual arguments to
defend such a considerable influx of funding into new drilling platforms, pipelines and ships,
which will only be amortized over long decades of intense utilization. The most important
among these are: the twice lower carbon footprint of natural gas compared to coal and the role
of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) facilities to reduce the remaining emissions. The truth of
the matter is however that, while gas is indeed better than coal, it remains a fossil fuel. A rush
into methane hydrates reserves could therefore hardly be considered a positive signal for the
development of the carbon-free economy that the EU and the UN champion. Methane hydrates
would simply reveal once again that our economies favour sailing further and drilling deeper
over developing alternatives. A methane hydrates frenzy would be further evidence that inertia
and path dependency are still predominant and that the easier road is still the one that our
growth-oriented economies invariably opt for, despite the well-known long-term consequences.
This certainly applies to countries whose wealth is already largely based on the exploitation of
their fossil fuel resources (such as the US, Canada, Russia and Norway). Turning to this new
godsend after conventional and shale reserves are exhausted would merely mean the
continuation of their deeply entrenched economic model. Methane hydrates would drain the
momentum from the construction of green economies and lead to significant steps backwards
But, as demonstrated earlier in this article, those countries would probably be latecomers as far
as methane hydrates are concerned. The hydrate revolution would have an even more
detrimental effect on those countries that will lead the way, i.e. the resource-poor ones, such as
Japan, Korea and even India (whose coal mines do not suffice, by far, to quench its thirst for
energy). Well aware of the danger of energy dependency, these countries have all engaged in
extensive support programmes for the only domestic energy sources they have at their disposal:
renewable and nuclear energy (at least until recently in the case of Japan). The sudden
availability of large amounts of natural gas on their territory, which, unlike renewable, would
not require an overhaul of their power systems, would most certainly draw politicians’
and investors’ attention away from renewable energy. Thus, methane hydrates
would drain the momentum from the construction of green economies and lead to
significant steps backwards. In addition, it would undoubtedly have a negative impact on
these countries’ so far rather progressive approach to the international negotiations on climate
change. That cannot be good news for anyone who cares about the future of this planet.
Regarding CCS, the hopes that it could play a meaningful role in “greening” gas and coal-fired
power plants seem increasingly far-fetched. The example of the United Kingdom shows that
even technologically-advanced countries struggle to bring projects to fruition[16], despite grandsounding announcements.[17] In light of this, it is hard to believe that CCS could play a
meaningful role at the global scale in the foreseeable future. Therefore fossil-fuel-fired power
plants will keep on polluting as long as we keep feeding them with new reserves. Finally, even
apart from the inevitable increase in greenhouse gas emissions (methane is a 20-time more
potent heat-trapping agent than CO2[18]), exploitation of these hidden resources would entail
the usual range of environmental risks: gas leakages directly into the ocean, increased
acidification of seawater, depletion of the ocean’s oxygen, etc.[19] Plenty of reasons, each one of
them sufficient in itself, to stay away from methane hydrates.
2NC – turns economy
Renewable energy key to economic growth – diverse portfolios and
foreign investment
Batistelli 9/20/13, (Paul Batistelli freelances in the energy field for the promotion of a
greener society and energy means. He works to raise awareness on ecological issues, energy
dependency, and reducing carbon footprints, “Renewable Energy and Economic Growth Go
Hand in Hand for Massachusetts”, [Renewable Energy and Economic Growth Go Hand in Hand
for Massachusetts] , //hss-RJ)
As the American economy begins to recover, some might argue that renewable energy has
played a role. In Massachusetts, the clean energy industry has caused significant growth. Jobs in
the state’s clean energy sector have increased by 24 percent since 2011, according to the latest report from the Massachusetts
Clean Energy Center (MassCEC). Now almost 80,000 people are employed by the state’s clean energy industry with
jobs focused on renewable energy, carbon management, alternative transportation and related technologies. About 30,000 of these employees work specifically with green energy according to the report. MassCEC
predicts that Massachusetts will continue to see strong growth over the next year. In fact, it estimates the renewable energy sector will see the job market grow another 11.1 percent, which would bring the clean
energy workforce to a whopping 88,000 people.
Solar energy seems to be the biggest economy booster in Massachusetts .
According to the Boston Globe, about 12,550 of all the renewable jobs in the state come from the solar market. The state has implemented incentive programs to encourage solar growth and has even set a goal to
reach 1,600 megawatts (MW) of solar capacity by 2020—enough to power 400,000 homes. As of Sept. 1, Massachusetts had 311 MW of installed solar energy. Wind power has also been the beneficiary of
government incentives, but has seen slightly smaller growth, with just 100 MW of installed wind capacity by the end of 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. However, the state has a goal to increase
its capacity to 2,000 MW by 2020. The wind industry employs about 2,300 in Massachusetts. Although not as highly thought of in the renewable energy world, hydropower plays a big role in clean energy jobs
within the Bay State. It employs about 2,700 Massachusetts residents, including those involved with tidal or wave technologies. Hydropower accounts for 13.2 percent of Massachusetts’ energy in the winter and
14.2 percent in the summer, according to the state’s Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. Top Three Reasons for Significant Renewable Energy Growth In the midst of worldwide hype about reducing
pollution and switching to green energy, Massachusetts is leading the way toward a sustainable future. While many states may tout renewable energy expansions, not everyone can boast the clean energy job
. Three things can be attributed to the significant growth seen within the state.
1. Diversified portfolio The government hasn’t focused on building up just one type of renewable
energy generation. It’s set concrete goals and deadlines to boost the state’s capacity of both wind
and solar energy separately, allowing it to have a diversified energy portfolio. This is different from many other states
growth Massachusetts has experienced
that lump all forms of renewable energy into one category. For example, Texas’ Renewable Portfolio Standard mandated that the state generate 10,000 MW of renewable energy by 2025. However, only wind
2. Government incentives
The state of Massachusetts offers plenty of incentives to make installing renewable energy an
affordable option. It offers rebates for residential or commercial customers who install solar
panels, tax deductions and exemptions for wind, hydro or solar installations as well as a number
of grants and utility renewable energy rebate programs. 3. Outside investments It’s no secret
that investors are looking to capitalize on the renewable energy craze. In fact, worldwide, clean
energy project financing grew by 404 percent between 2011 and 2012, according to MassCEC. In
2012, the state received about $312 million from outside investors for clean energy projects. One
could argue that both the diversified portfolio and government incentives were keys in attracting
investors.
energy took off in the state. Now it has more than 12,000 MW of wind power but hasn’t taken advantage of its sun-filled skies nearly as much as it could.
Counterplans
CP – Japan
1NC
Japan should increases its oceanic methane hydrate extraction via carbon
capture and sequestration.
Japan solves the aff – better technology and modeling
Camus 4/23 (Gabriel, independent energy consultant and freelance journalist, “A story of
ice and fire: how methane hydrates could change the world”, http://www.energypost.eu/storyice-fire-methane-hydrates-change-world// AK)
But a recent series of technological breakthroughs has changed this picture. In 2002, a team of
Canadian and Japanese scientists succeeded in extracting methane from the Mallik gas hydrate
site ̶ in the permafrost of the Beaufort Sea ̶ using heat. Even better results were obtained in
2008 by simply lowering the reservoir’s pressure without resorting to heating, which
considerably improved the energetics of the process. But the real breakthrough came early last
year, in March 2013, when a Japanese drilling ship of the Japan Oil, Gas & Metals National
Corporation (JOGMEC) successfully extracted methane hydrates from the seabed off Central
Japan (Nankai Trough) during 6 days, using a similar technique. It produced 120,000 cubic
meters in total, i.e. 20,000 cubic meters a day. This was hailed as a particularly significant
development, as ocean beds are thought to be the repositories of the bulk of methane hydrates
reserves worldwide. However, extraction costs still have to be dramatically cut and adequate
infrastructure developed in order to make extraction profitable under current market
conditions. According to the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), quoted
by Platts News Agency[3], a sustained flow rate of 55,600 cubic meters/day could be achieved
around 2018/2019. At such a rate the extracted gas could be commercialized around
$16/MMBtu, a level compatible with regional prices. Considering the 20,000 cubic meters/day
recorded in 2013 ̶ twice higher than METI’s expectations ̶ this target seems quite achievable.
But only time will tell: further drillings are scheduled in fiscal 2014-2015. Nevertheless the
announcement triggered a wave of enthusiasm in resource-deprived Japan. In the words of Ryo
Minami, director of the oil and gas division at Japan’s Agency for Natural Resources, speaking
to the Financial Times[4], methane hydrates may already be at the stage where shale gas was 10
years ago. In practical terms, that means he believes Japan can start commercialization of
methane hydrates in around 10 years. That is already reflected in the Japanese official energy
policy: hydrates are one of the specific measures put forward by the METI’s Strategic Energy
Plan to achieve the 2030 target of raising Japan’s energy independence ratio from current 38%
to about 70%[5]. No doubt that images of a bountiful energy future are now dancing before the
eyes of corporate tycoons and government officials there and elsewhere. II. The shape of things
to come: Japan as front-runner So how will this revolution in the making likely unfold and what
will be the market and environmental consequences? As always in the energy business, a map of
resources merely reflects available knowledge, which is bound to change dramatically as
investments flow in and exploratory wells sprout in new areas. An educated look at the map of
the US Geological Survey ̶ available here[6] ̶ nonetheless brings some interesting insights. (Note
that the open circles represent recovered hydrate samples and the closed circles inferred
occurrences.) The first conclusion is that the new resource is, by and large, present all over the
planet, both in traditional areas of fossil fuel extraction and in resource-poor countries. The
prospects of these methane hydrates deposits are therefore just as diversified as their
geographical localisation. What will the consequences of this geographical distribution on the
looming revolution be? Besides Japan and Canada, some countries have started exploratory
drilling programmes, most notably the US, India, China, Korea and to some extent Malaysia.
Japan is nevertheless poised to be the leader of this revolution. Beyond its clear
technological edge, it has indeed expressed strong political will to pursue this path, pushed by a
number of factors. In the wake of the Fukushima disaster and the resulting shut-down of its
considerable nuclear generation capacity (its contribution to national power production fell
from 26% in 2011 to less than 2% in 2012[7]), Japan’s already extreme dependence on energy
imports has been notably worsened. Japan is today the world’s biggest importer of LNG (its
share in the electricity mix leapt from 27% to 48% between 2011 and 2012[8]). It also comes
second for coal and third for oil. Gas spot prices in Japan ̶ and East Asia more generally ̶ are
today twice those in Europe and three times those in Northern America. A new energy resource
that Japan could call its own would therefore bring badly needed relief to a country that fears for
its energy security and rapidly degrading trade balance.[9] On the strategic side of the story, it is
essential to keep in mind that the bulk of Japan’s fossil fuel imports comes from the Middle East
(Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates) and South East Asia (Malaysia, Brunei,
Indonesia). Before reaching Japanese ports, the tankers transit through the Malacca straits and
the South and East China seas, i.e. within arm’s reach of China. In this context, three factors
have brought Japan’s energy security worries to an all-time peak: first, the flaring-up of tensions
between China and its neighbours over the South and East China Seas, which threatened to turn
into full-blown regional confrontation following China’s unilateral announcement of a new Air
Defence Identification Zone in November 2013; second, the extremely strained relations
between Tokyo and Beijing over the Diaoyu-Senkaku Islands; and third, the periodical surge of
nationalistic and hawkish rhetoric that has characterized the Japan-China relationship over the
last decades, against the background of the bad blood left by Japan’s refusal to apologize for (or
even recognize, for that matter) large-scale abuses during the Second World War. Conversely,
most other countries with strong methane hydrates potentials are, for various reasons, less likely
to take the lead in developing them. The United States and Canada have been engaged in
methane hydrates research programmes since the 1990s (sometimes even in cooperation with
JOGMEC, as in the Prudhoe Bay in Alaska). But these two energy giants presently have little
incentive to rush ahead as they are still reaping the enormous benefits of the shale gas
revolution. Their proven reserves and output have been considerably increased over the last few
years, while the North American gas market is currently characterised by very low prices
(around $4.30 per Million Btu). According to energy consultancy IHS[10], this is unlikely to
change before 2035. Canada even recently decided to abandon its methane hydrates
programme.[11] East Asia’s emergence as a world-leading gas producer would have tremendous
market ramifications Similarly, Russia, whose reserves of hydrates in Northern Siberia are
deemed to be titanic in size, is currently busy investing on another front: developing its
conventional reserves in the Arctic zone. Given the flagging financial situation of the country,
Russia can ill afford to open up another front that would require huge investments for at best
medium-term benefits. Even if Russia were able to direct large investments towards the
exploitation of new resources, it would most likely prioritise its untapped shale gas reserves,
which are believed to be enormous, as technology is more mature. Note, incidentally, that
Russia’s methane hydrates will probably have partially disappeared when it decides to start
exploiting them. As a matter of fact, they are already slowly being released from the thawing
Siberian permafrost into the atmosphere because of rising temperatures.[12] Besides a probably
catastrophic effect on global warming itself, it means that the days of Russian reserves are
numbered. India, like Japan, is facing a situation of worrying energy scarcity and burdensome
energy imports. It has expressed interest in pursuing the development of its methane hydrates
potential in the future[13], but lacks the technical capability to do so now. Moreover, its gas
market remains tiny in size, marred by corruption and red tape. Recent disasters in the
upstream sector (KG6 Basin[14]) have also chilled the enthusiasm of investors. China, for its
part, is confronted with similar technological hurdles and has not expressed strong political
interest in exploiting these new reserves so far, mainly because it is endowed with the largest
shale gas resources on the planet, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). [15]
Thus, Japan ̶ and perhaps, for similar reasons, South Korea ̶ seems bound to be the flagbearer of this revolution in the making. Others will certainly follow if Japan is
successful (Japanese-Indian and Japanese-American cooperation programmes have already
been initiated). Clearly, East Asia’s emergence as a world-leading gas producer would have
tremendous market ramifications. It is not, however, the object of this article to depict them in
detail. No doubt that the IEA and other energy world-class energy institutions are re-evaluating
their forecasts in this new light as we speak. As a foretaste, think diversion of massive amounts
of LNG away from Asia, doubts over the EU’s ability (and willingness) to absorb them, drops in
prices and heightened tensions over territorial disputes in the hydrates-rich South and East
China seas (involving not only China and Japan, but also certainly South Korea, the Philippines,
Vietnam and Taiwan), not to mention the impact on the US and Russian global export strategies
(America’s intention to become an LNG exporter and Russia’s long-term plan to re-orient its
exports from Europe to East Asia).
2NC – yes economic incentive
Japan solves – economic incentive means they produce the tech faster
Mead 13 (Derek, motherboard.com, internally cites experts, July 30, 2013, “Oil Companies
Are Preparing to Tackle Methane Hydrate, Assuming It Doesn't Melt First,”
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/oil-companies-are-preparing-to-tackle-methane-hydrateassuming-it-doesnt-melt-first, alp)
Japan is currently leading the charge, which comes as no surprise, as the country has at least 10
years' worth of proven reserves off its coasts and natural gas prices that are four times higher
than in the US. As of right now, methane hydrate extraction remains incredibly costly and fairly
theoretical, but a successful Japanese extraction test in March led the country to state it would
try to have viable extraction operations by 2023.
Japan has energy and incentive – production starts in 2018
Addison, 12- Writer and Editor for Hart Energy’s E&P Magazine, BA in journalism from
University of Texas (Velda, “Methane Hydrates Emerge as 2013 Technology Wildcard”,
Exploration and Production Magazine, http://www.epmag.com/Technology/MethaneHydrates-Emerge-2013-Technology-Wildcard_110919, 12/18/12)//KC
Japan’s energy outlook could take a turn for the better if the country is able to unlock and make
use of abundant offshore methane hydrates, which are 3D ice structures with natural gas locked
inside. The “Horizons 2013: Key Themes for the Year Ahead” report by Wood Mackenzie called
Japan’s push for methane hydrates the 2013 technology wildcard. “If a 2013 marine production
test is successful, this resource could supply Japan’s energy needs for decades – radically
altering the country’s role in global energy markets – and herald the arrival of a major new
global energy source,” according to the report. Currently, Japan – the world’s 10th most
populous country – is heavily reliant on other countries to meet its energy needs. The country is
only 16% energy self-sufficient, having domestic oil reserves of about 44 MMbbl and 738 Bcf of
proven natural gas reserves as of January 2012, according to the US Energy Information
Administration (EIA). Following the US and China, Japan is the third-largest importer of crude
oil, getting most of its resource from Saudi Arabia. But no other country imports more LNG than
Japan, which held more than a third of the global LNG market in 2011, EIA data revealed. LNG
imports jumped 12% in 2011 to 3.8 Tcf following a March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that
caused the shutdown of nuclear power plants across Japan. Following the Fukushima nuclear
disaster, the country’s reliance on natural gas and oil increased. Japan is already working to take
advantage of the methane hydrates, estimated to make up half of the world’s known global gas
reserves. “Methane is not bonded to the ice chemically; technical challenges center on releasing
the gas to flow into the well,” according to the Wood Mackenzie report. “Once flowing, the
methane can be transported and processed identically to other forms of natural gas.” An
estimated 40 Tcf of methane hydrates could exist offshore Japan, according to the EIA. The
country hopes to start production by 2018, if high production costs and challenges don’t force
delays. Realizing the complexity of methane hydrates and the potential, Japan joined forces with
the US Department of Energy (DOE) to conduct a methane hydrate production test. As part of
the field trial, with the results released in May 2012, DOE partnered with ConocoPhillips and the
Japan Oil, Gas, and Metals National Corp. to test a technique that injected a mixture of CO2 and
nitrogen into methane hydrate to release natural gas. The trial was deemed a success, safely
extracting a steady flow of gas from methane hydrates, in Alaska’s North Slope. The DOE
continues to study the process and has awarded millions of dollars to universities across the US
to conduct research projects. Japan and the US are cooperating to study the fossil fuel.
“Successful development of methane hydrates would dramatically reposition Japan on the world
energy stage,” Sondra Scott, head of global markets for Wood Mackenzie, said in the report.
“Though abundant, methane hydrates will have to compete through the medium term with
conventional and shale production.” The report pointed out that the shale gas boom has not only
depressed gas prices, but also has decreased the incentive to pursue methane hydrate research.
Yet, Japan has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into methane extraction technology since
2001. The country’s next major test is set for early 2013 when it will run the “world’s first
methane hydrate marine production test” in the Nankai Trough, south of Honshu. “However
unlikely, achieving this target will dramatically reposition Japan on the world energy stage,
potentially turning it from a gas importer to a self-sufficient province,” the report said. “The
resulting fall in gas imports would severely disrupt the global LNG market, and question the
viability of projects in Australia, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea."
2NC – yes tech
Japan solves, first successful extraction last year
Tsukimori, 13 – Reuter’s Energy Correspondent (Osamu, “Japan achieves first gas
extraction from offshore methane hydrate”, Reuters,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/12/us-methane-hydrates-japanidUSBRE92B07620130312, 3/12/13)//KC
(Reuters) - A Japanese energy explorer said on Tuesday it extracted gas from offshore methane
hydrate deposits for the first time in the world, as part of an attempt to achieve commercial
production within six years. Since 2001, Japan, which imports nearly all of its energy needs, has
invested several hundred million dollars in developing technology to tap methane hydrate
reserves off its coast that are estimated to be equal to about 11 years of gas consumption. Staterun Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp (JOGMEC) said the gas was tapped from deposits
of methane hydrate, a frozen gas known as "flammable ice", near Japan's central coast. Japan is
the world's top importer of liquefied natural gas and the lure of domestic gas resources has
become greater since the Fukushima nuclear crisis two years ago triggered a shake-up of the
country's energy sector. Japan's trade ministry said the production tests will continue for about
two weeks, followed by analysis on how much gas was produced. Methane is a major component
of natural gas and governments including Canada, the United States, Norway and China are also
looking at exploiting hydrate deposits as an alternative source of energy. Japan used
depressurization to turn methane hydrate to methane gas, a process thought by the government
to be more effective than using the hot water circulation method the country had tested
successfully in 2002. In 2008, JOGMEC successfully demonstrated for the first time a nearly
six-day continuous period of production of methane gas from hydrate reserves held deep in
permafrost in Canada, using the depressurization method. Methane hydrate, is formed from a
mixture of methane and water under certain pressure and conditions. A Japanese study has
estimated the existence of at least 40 trillion cubic feet (1.1 trillion cubic meters) of methane
hydrates in the eastern Nankai Trough off the country's Pacific coast, about 11 years of Japanese
gas consumption. Japan's LNG imports hit a record 87.3 million metric tons last year after
Japan shut down most of its nuclear power plants following the Fukushima nuclear disaster two
years ago
2NC – yes resources
Japan has enough -- huge energy reserves in the Nankai Trough
Nagata, 12- Staff Writer for The Japan Times (Kazuaki, “Methane hydrate energy solution?
Seabed deposits could rival natural gas but safety, cost issues loom”, The Japan Times, 3/13/12,
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2012/03/13/reference/methane-hydrate-energysolution/#.U8CoqLDD_t8)//KC
The launch of preparatory drilling for methane hydrate off Aichi Prefecture last month drew public attention amid hopes it will
become an alternative to nuclear power at a time when Japan’s self-sufficiency rate in energy is a meager 4 percent. While the
potential of methane hydrate is still unclear, the government aims to establish technical bases for commercial use in fiscal 2018.
Here are some basic questions and answers about methane hydrate and Japan’s efforts to develop it as an energy source. What is
methane hydrate? The substance is a combination of methane and water molecules. The high-pressure, low-temperature
environment under the seabed causes water molecules to encase methane, giving it a texture like sherbet. Chunks of methane
hydrate have been likened to fiery or burning ice cubes, which easily combust when exposed to flame. Methane hydrate holds large
amounts of combustible methane. When
a cubic meter of methane hydrate decomposes, it releases about
160 cu. meters of gas that can be burned to generate power. Where can it be found? Methane hydrate can be
only generated in a high-pressure, low-temperature environment. Since a temperature of about minus 80 is needed for it to form, it
is generally only found in permafrost or deep below the seabed. Is
there an abundance in Japanese territory? It is
still unclear exactly how much methane hydrate lies in the seabed around Japan. But a recent study by Research
Consortium for Methane Hydrate Resources in Japan, an industry-government-academia research body better
known as MH21, estimated the Eastern Nankai Trough, which spans a stretch of seabed from
Shizuoka to Wakayama prefectures, has about 1.2 trillion cu. meters of methane hydrate, or the
equivalent of a large natural gas field that could provide Japan with 12 years’ worth of such fuel.
How much R&D has been conducted and what are they trying? The government has been looking into the potential of methane
hydrate since the mid-1990s, so research
and development are well under way. The government formed MH21 in
was able to successfully collect
methane from methane hydrate buried in permafrost in Canada. R&D is now in Phase 2, which will continue
2002 to carry out Phase 1 of the research until 2009. During that period, Japan
until March 2016. On Feb. 15, MH21 started preparatory drilling in the Eastern Nankai Trough, about 80 km south of Aichi’s Atsumi
Peninsula. “We are now drilling and setting wells. But since this is the first attempt in the world, we are still not sure if the methane
gas can be safely collected from the seabed,” said Yoshihiro Nakatsuka, who leads an MH21 environmental team. “In that sense, we
are just trying to make sure it can be collected,” he said. The approach MH21
is employing is called the decreasingpressure method, in which a well on the seabed lowers the pressure of the layer with the methane
hydrate by pumping water near it to initiate decomposition to release and collect the gas.
Japan has 100 years’ worth of energy in methane hydrates
FRCER, 09- Frontier Research Center for Energy and Resources University of Tokyo (“Gas
Hydrate”, FRCER, http://www.frcer.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/english/research/gas_hydrate.html)//KC
Natural methane hydrates have a huge potential as a future energy resources. Global estimate of
in-place methane gas volume within oceanic hydrates is about 1000 – 5000 trillion m3 and it
corresponds to the volume 2 to 11 times larger than the ultimate recoverable conventional
natural gas resource (436 billion m3). Assuming technologies can be developed to recover 10
percent methane gas from these hydrates, it will allow 34-172 year supply of natural gas to the
world. Especially, the hydrates distributed under seabed in offshore Japan are estimated to
contain about 12 trillion m3 of methane gases (the volume equivalent to more than 100-years
Japan's domestic annual consumption of natural gas), so we hope that they will a new domestic
energy resources for strengthening our energy security. As the discovery of North Sea oil fields
allowed the UK to be an oil and natural gas supplier, Japan can be a resources power. In
addition to the energy security issue, the early realization of methane hydrate development will
contribute to the mitigation of global warming because it is a cleaner energy resource than oil
and other fossil fuels. However, we have now a big engineering problem to overcome, that is,
“the technology has not been established to safely and economically recover gas from methane
hydrates”. This problem arises from the fact that they exist as a solid state in sediments unlike
conventional natural gas resources.
2NC – at: accidents
No accidents – they’re drilling around unstable areas
FRCER, 09- Frontier Research Center for Energy and Resources University of Tokyo (“Gas
Hydrate”, FRCER, http://www.frcer.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/english/research/gas_hydrate.html)//KC
Raw methane released into the atmosphere produces a greenhouse effect 25 times more potent
than carbon dioxide. So every effort must be made to ensure it doesn’t leak during extraction.
MH21 says the decreasing-pressure method lessens the risk because the lower pressure in the
wells allows gas released by methane hydrate under the seabed to flow up naturally, giving it
little chance to escape. It has also been noted, however, that when methane hydrate
decomposes, it can trigger landslides as the decomposing layer disappears, warping the seafloor.
The impact of submarine landslides is still being studied, but they are known to occur on slopes.
MH21 plans to drill only in flat layers until further studies shed more light on the risks. More
research is also needed on the potential impact that methane leaks from the seabed could have
on ecosystems.
2NC – at: CCS solvency deficit
Japan has CCS for methane hydrates
FRCER, 09- Frontier Research Center for Energy and Resources University of Tokyo (“Gas
Hydrate”, FRCER, http://www.frcer.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/english/research/gas_hydrate.html)//KC
MH21-HYDRES is one of the few simulators in the world that can evaluate the gas productivity
of sediments containing methane hydrates. It is a compositional simulator code solving in a fully
implicit manner the non-linear equations describing the endothermic hydrate dissociation in
sediments, the mass flow of components (methane, water, salts, etc.), and the heat transfer
phenomena. By using the MH21-HYDRES, we have been doing studies on the evaluation of
various gas recovery methods such as depressurization and thermal recovery, the design and
analysis of gas production test for methane hydrate layers, and the economic feasibility of
methane hydrate field development in offshore Japan (Figure 1). The method of
depressurization is considered to be a promising one for dissociating hydrates to produce gas,
but when we keep the future methane hydrate development in mind, we also need the R & D on
the processes of methane production at higher recovery rates that are in harmony with the
environment (Methane hydrate enhanced recovery method). From this point of view, we have
been doing studies on the method of injecting CO2 into submarine methane hydrate layers to
recover methane where CO2 can be sequestrated as a hydrate state by exchanging guest
molecules. Since CO2 hydrates are more stable than methane hydrates, this method is
thermodynamically possible (CO2 molecules can replace methane molecules in hydrates).
However this molecular exchange is a reaction on the surfaces of hydrates existing in small
pores of the sediment, so the key for the success of this method is to find an injection procedure
or process that CO2 can effectively make contact with the in-situ methane hydrates. We aim to
propose a new process through numerical studies and experiments using the core test apparatus
(Figure 2). Methane hydrates came to the front as a future domestic energy resource when we
discovered and took many methane hydrate cores in the METI-Test-Well-1999 “Nankai
Trough”. Subsequently we achieved great success in gas production test from the permafrost
hydrates at the Mackenzie Delta, the Canada's Northwest Territory, in March 2008. The
methane hydrate R &D is now moving from the basic stage to more systematic and practical one.
The center faculty members are leading “Japan’s Methane Hydrate R & D program” (Prof.
Kensaku Tamaki is serving as a chairman of the Methane Hydrate R & D Advisory Committee of
METI; and Associate Prof. Yoshihiro Masuda is serving as a project leader of the MH21
Research Consortium.) We continue to working on challenging research for early realization of
commercial gas production from offshore methane hydrates in Japan.
Japan has capabilities for CO2 injections now
Ikegawa et. al – Works for The Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, a
Japanese non-profit foundation that conducts research and development of technologies in
scientific and technical fields, conference paper (Yojiro, “SS: Hydrates: Experimental results for
long term CO2 injection near methane hydrate formations”, One Petro,
https://www.onepetro.org/conference-paper/OTC-20575-MS)//KC
Abstract CO2 has been focused for improving recovery factor of methane hydrate. The most of
the principle is replacing guest molecular. It is also known that CO2 hydrate formation
generates a large amount of exothermic heat. This heat can warm sediments up to 10 degrees
Celsius as one of heating method. But a problem is how to inject CO2 at near fields of methane
hydrate formations. CO2 hydrate formed in sediment blocks the pore of sediments. Then CO2
cannot inject into sediments for about ten-year term. But it is possible to inject CO2 for long
term by a thermo-dynamic principle of the stability zone of CO2 hydrate. We will present
experimental results to prove the principle of CO2 injection into formations. 1. Introduction
Methane hydrate is solid, and it doesn't flush and flow from production well. Methane hydrate
must be dissolved into gas and water in sediments by lowering the water pressure of the
sediments or by heating the sediments to flow out from production well. Research consortium
for methane hydrate resources in Japan succeeded to onshore depressurization test at
permafrost in Canada for 6 days, and the consortium estimated the resources in the east part of
Nankai trough[1]. The first trial of offshore test in Nankai trough is planed in 2012. On the other
hand, CO2-enhanced oil recovery is commercialized by injecting CO2 into oil wells in the U.S. to
enlarge oil production [2]. This method mitigates CO2 release into atmosphere. A research
development is therefore necessary for an enhanced recovery of methane hydrate by using CO2.
There is a problem of productivity by dropping of temperature for methane hydrate production
by depressurization, because dissolving methane hydrate is endothermic reaction. It absorbs
heat. Combining a heating method as an option to the depressurization to warm sediments, the
productivity would be kept for long term. The recovery factor can also be expected to enlarge by
the heating method. The productivity and the recovery factor are very important for
commercialization of methane hydrate production. However, if we use fossil energy for the
heating method, production rate, which is produced energy over input energy, become small.
Then new technical developments are necessary for heating sediments for commercialization.
We focused that CO2 hydrate formation is exothermic reaction, and we have proposed a heating
method using heat of CO2 hydrate formation [4,5]. Sediments can be warmed up to 10 degrees
Celsius when the pressure is more than or equal to 4.5 MPa to accelerate dissolving methane
hydrate. CO2 works as heating energy of sediments in this case. Blockage of gas transportation
pipeline cased by gas hydrate was reported in 1934. If CO2 is injected in to sediments, CO2
hydrate is formed and it blocks the pore of sediments in the same manner. Then CO2 can't inject
into sediments. A subject for applying the heating method using exothermic heat of CO2 hydrate
formation is to show a method to inject CO2 in to sediments continuously for long terms. The
point of this method is using equilibrium state. No CO2 hydrate formation and dissolving are
occurred. It balanced on the boundary of CO2 hydrate stability zone. Then the pore is kept
opening for flow. Also the temperature of the formations is kept at 10 degrees Celsius by
formation and dissolving of CO2 hydrate naturally. Then CO2 can inject into sediments
continuously for long terms by using the equilibrium state. When the pressure is more than or
equal to 4.5 MPa, the temperature of the equilibrium state is 10 degrees Celsius. In the following
chapter, the principle of CO2 injection into formation continuously for long terms is verified by
experiments are presented.
CP – Russia
1NC
Rosneft solves – best for arctic extraction
Mead 13 (Derek, motherboard.com, internally cites experts, July 30, 2013, “Oil Companies
Are Preparing to Tackle Methane Hydrate, Assuming It Doesn't Melt First,”
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/oil-companies-are-preparing-to-tackle-methane-hydrateassuming-it-doesnt-melt-first, alp)
It may end up being in the Siberian Arctic that methane hydrates could prove most tantalizing to
oil companies. Drilling in the Arctic is incredibly expensive, but that's changing. As fossil fuels
get harder to find and as the Arctic melts, the cost-benefit ratio of drilling in the Arctic has
become more attractive for oil giants like Russia's Rosneft. And with Rosneft recently locking
down the billions in funding it needed to start drilling the Siberian fields it's spent years
acquiring, a methane hydrate boom may not be far off.
CP – oil dependence advantage
1NC
Text: The United States federal government should open the domestic
transportation fuel market to include methanol and compressed
natural gas as price-competitive replacements for conventional
gasoline.
That solves oil dependence
Luft and Korin 13 (Gal Luft – co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global
Security, senior advisor to the US Energy Security Council, doctorate in strategic studies from
the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Anne
Korin – co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, author for Foreign
Affairs, Foreign Affairs, October 15, 2013, “The Myth of U.S. Energy Dependence: What We Got
Wrong About OPEC's Oil Embargo,” http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/140172/gal-luftand-anne-korin/the-myth-of-us-energy-dependence, alp)
The recent proliferation of fracking and horizontal drilling technologies has unleashed such
substantial quantities of tight oil and natural gas in North America that it has become a cliché to
proclaim an “energy revolution.” But if this development is to have any real and lasting impact
on the security of the global oil supply, it will stem from unconventional natural gas production
rather than from unconventional oil. Increases in domestic oil production are, after all, trivial
for OPEC to counter. Low-cost natural gas is another story. At current oil and natural gas prices,
oil costs five times more than natural gas on an energy equivalent basis. But despite its low cost,
less than one percent of U.S. natural gas is used to fuel automobiles. There are a number of
paths to making use of natural gas in transportation. Some would allow for cheap fuel but would
increase the cost of vehicles; others would be able to keep down the cost of both. For example,
using compressed natural gas to power vehicles, while quite cheap on the fuel side, would make
cars more expensive, since a gaseous fuel under pressure requires a much more expensive fuel
tank than a liquid fuel for safety reasons. Electricity generated from natural gas could power
plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles -- also somewhat costly on the vehicle side and quite cheap
on the fuel side. Natural gas could also be converted to liquid fuels such as gasoline, ethanol, and
methanol, all of which could used by engines capable of working on any blend of gasoline and
alcohol. This last option would add roughly $100 to the cost of a vehicle. Methanol offers a
particularly appealing alternative because of its affordability (it sells today for a dollar less than
a gallon of gasoline on an energy-equivalent basis), scalability, and the very low cost of enabling
vehicles to use it. All that is needed to enable a car to run on methanol are a fuel sensor and a
corrosion-resistant fuel line. And in fact, China has opened its transportation fuel market to
methanol and has become the world’s largest producer and user of the fuel, which in China is
primarily made from coal. The fuel’s economics are so attractive that illegal blending of
methanol and gasoline is rampant. Opening vehicles to fuel competition would pit cheap and
abundant commodities such as natural gas and coal against one whose supply is chronically
constrained by a cartel and whose price is consequently inflated. The subsequent increase in
production capacity of non-petroleum fuels, and the ability to shift on the fly among different
fuel sources at the pump depending on their per-mile pricing, would finally allow market
competition to drive down the price of oil. The realities of geology and the comparative marginal
cost of production in different regions make it extremely unlikely that OPEC can be knocked out
of its monopolist position in the global oil market. But fuel-competitive vehicles would make the
cartel just another purveyor of commodities when it comes to the transportation fuel market.
For this to happen, the United States first needs to realize that its current approach might bring
oil self-sufficiency, but it will get the country nowhere near energy security. True energy security
would not require the United States to shield itself from the rest of the world. Rather, it would
require the United States to apply to the transportation fuel sector the economic principles it has
always cherished: consumer choice, open markets, and vigorous competition.
Topicality
T – permits and leases
1NC
Aff uses permits and leases
Petersen 14 (Bo, The Post and Courier, internally cites experts including Richard Charter, a
senior fellow at the Ocean Foundation, January 5, 2014, “Methane hydrate offshore is tempting,
perilous natural gas,” http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20140105/PC16/140109725, alp)
But at least a half-dozen exploration companies already have applied for permits to explore off
the East Coast. All of them want to look off South Carolina. To explore the area off this state
alone could cost a company some $4 million or more, not an insignificant amount for a firm that
sells its findings. Why the competition if there's no real cost benefit to going after the methane?
Leases. The companies expect to sell their results to oil companies, which would apply to the
federal government for leases. The federal Bureau of Energy Management in August 2013 put off
deciding whether to grant those leases, but at least some form of approval is widely expected.
Much like the Gold Rush or the Oklahoma land rush, the effort offshore is a quest to get the first
stake in a claim. Once a company holds title to a lease, there are ways to extend it and not have
to pay the royalties, Charter said. One way or another, "you corner the market on that particular
piece of ocean."