Squish Squash Squish Squash Squish Squashish Squash Squishy Squashes Squash Squishyly 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."