Promise of methane hydrate

Climate change is a hot topic and as is often the case it is filled with misinformation either out of ignorance or on purpose. It is now common knowledge that Al Gore’s book was filled with exaggerations and when asked about this, he replied that he had to exaggerate to get people’s attention. In the long run this hurt the cause of those pursuing changes because they lost credibility. This was further damaged when it was discovered that scientist in England were deliberately skewing data to prove their ideas. This combined with many people who just don’t believe that climate change is a problem based on their own feelings or their preconceived bias has caused the whole issue to become bogged down and swallowed up by politics. Nothing will destroy good science like politics. Recently a new source of energy called methane hydrate has come to prominence. This is an almost unlimited supply of natural gas found on the ocean floor and research is underway in many countries around the world on how to harvest this new source. Japan, in particular is interested since they must import all of their energy. Other countries are interested in methane, as a clean source of energy especially when compared to coal and oil and China is dying in their own smog. Many people have made a commitment to solar and wind as the answers to the problem of climate change and many of those see natural gas as getting in the way of their solution. Thus articles are published emphasizing the leakage of methane at the pumps and pipelines. Instead of fixing the leaks they demand that methane not be used. Others say that while methane eliminates the problems of air pollution in things like acid rain and heavy metals they say the release of carbon dioxide is the cause of climate change and methane still does that. When these people were told that carbon dioxide can be used to mine methane hydrate they say that there will be leaks and once again instead of fixing the leaks they say methane should not be used. Cars running on natural gas are less expensive to run. Methane at $2 is equivalent to gasoline at $3.60 and has an octane rating of 110 vs 90 for most gasoline. Unlike gasoline the exhaust contains no acid rain chemicals and no heavy metals and emits 25% less CO2. The engine runs cleaner and requires less maintenance and oil changes are less frequent and engine ware is reduced. Home filling stations can be purchased for $500 where they tap into the natural gas line used to heat the home which further lowers the fuel cost. In the event of a collision natural gas is safer.