Will Shale Gas Power the World?

UK firm “IGas” has reported that there is likely to be up to 170 trillion cubic feet of gas in the areas it is licensed to frack in northern England. Shale gas is extracted by fracking – which involves pumping highly pressured water, chemicals and sand at rock to release gas for extraction.

Source: BBC News

It had previously said it had about nine trillion cubic feet of shale gas. It now estimates that the volume of “gas initially in place” could range up to 172.3 trillion cubic feet, the higher figure being nearly 20 times higher than the earlier estimate.

The UK’s annual gas consumption is currently about 3 trillion cubic feet.

“The licences have a very significant shale gas resource with the potential to transform the company and materially benefit the communities in which we operate,” said IGas chief executive Andrew Austin.”Our estimates for our area alone could mean that the UK would not have to import gas for a period of 10 to 15 years.”

Additionally, energy firm Cuadrilla, which has drilled wells near Blackpool in Lancashire, says it has 200 trillion cubic feet of gas in its license area of the Bowland Shale. That suggests that the overall number for the region could be in excess of 400-500 trillion cubic feet in total.

Shale gas has revolutionised the U.S. energy market and has also led to a significant decrease in gas prices worldwide.

Since 2006, U.S. production of shale gas — so named because it originates in shale rock formations — has risen from 28.3 billion cubic meters to 220.8 billion cubic meters in 2011. That number is forecast to continue climbing to 472.9 billion cubic meters, a 114 percent increase, by 2040. By then, shale gas will account for more than 50 percent of all U.S. natural gas production. New supplies of this volume will have a huge impact on global energy supplies.

Japanese trading firms are expected to start importing shale gas from the U.S. as early as 2017 if Washington approves exports to Japan in the first half of the year. Japan has made progress in its attempts to curtail soaring fuel costs since the 2011 Fukushima disaster and Washington on Friday gave it the green light to import cheap liquefied natural gas.

Since Japan is relatively poor in natural resources, it has long wished to import U.S.-produced LNG emerging from the shale gas boom. This is not only because the price of U.S. natural gas is around a quarter of what it is now paying for LNG imports, but also because it increases the nation’s bargaining power against other energy suppliers.

Yet the good news is not limited to America, Europe and Asia.

America’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that South Africa might have shale-gas reserves of around 485 trillion cubic feet. If this is correct, this would mean that South Africa has the third highest shale gas reserves in the world. Indeed, a report published earlier this year by Econometrix showed that if only a tenth of the estimated gas can be extracted, thousands of jobs could be created. The gas extracted could provide South Africa with 400 years’ worth of energy. For a country that regularly endures hardship this could provide South Africa with what it so urgently needs: jobs and development.

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Washed-up boat in California confirmed as Japanese tsunami debris

On April 7^th, a 20 foot fishing boat, crusted with barnacles and somewhat worse for wear, washed ashore in the small town of Crescent City, in northern California. Its arrival on US shores prompted an investigation to match this lost and lonely fishing boat to its owner, and, just three weeks later, it was confirmed that this particular panga was a long way from home, and is in fact the first debris from Japan’s devastating 2011 tsunami to find its way across the Pacific Ocean to Californian shores.

It seems that social media played an important role in the locating of the vessel’s home town. Upon hearing about the boat washing up in Crescent City, Lori Dengler, a geologist at the Humboldt State University, translated the Japanese characters which adorned the sides of the fishing boat with the help of a University librarian. The handwritten characters translated to ‘Takata High School’, and ‘Rikuzentakata’, a coastal town in northern Japan which was all but wiped out by the tsunami. Without further delay, Dengler, who had in fact travelled to Rikuzentakata shortly after the tsunami, posted photos of the boat to Rikuzentakata’s Facebook page, and within hours, a teacher at the Takata High School had identified the boat as belonging to the school.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed the boat’s origin on Thursday, after conferring with the Japanese Consulate in San Francisco. But the fishing boat is not the first piece of debris which has been traced back to Rikuzentakata. A football with a student’s name on it was recently found washed up on an Alaska island, and was also identified as having travelled from the Japanese town. Keeley Belva, a spokesperson for the NOAA, said “As of 4 April, NOAA has received approximately 1,691 official debris reports, of which we have been able to confirm that 27 items are definite tsunami debris as of today. The skiff is the first confirmed item for California.” Other confirmed items include a small boat found in Hawaii waters, and a motorcycle washed up on the shores of British Columbia.

Rikuzentakata was reported to have been “wiped off the map” by the tsunami following the Tōhoku earthquake. Hundreds of its citizens died in the disaster, and just a handful of buildings were left standing in the coastal town. Two years on, the town is still being rebuilt, and the effects of the tsunami are felt every day. Amya Miller, the city’s global public relations officer, reflects on the sentimental value of the washed-up school boat: “Everything that was lost, we just never expected to find again. That something made it across the Pacific and landed practically on your doorstep is one of those ‘you can’t make it up moments…that something made it across the ocean is beautiful. It’s absolutely beautiful.”

Takata High School has requested the boat be returned to them. Miller said of the request “Having it back would be incredibly meaningful only because the school lost so much – the city lost so much.” Discussions are currently taking place to determine the best way to return the boat to its hometown.

Sources include The Huffington Post, The Guardian

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Methane –Fuel of the Future?

In the search for alternative hydro carbon energy sources attention is turning to one of the most abundant organic compounds on earth Methane.  Compared to other hydrocarbon fuels, burning methane produces less carbon dioxide for each unit of heat released therefore making it a relatively clean energy in comparison to petrol or gasoline.

Emissions from engines fuelled by compressed natural gas are 10 per cent lower than those from a petrol engine. (Methane is the major component of natural gas, about 87% by volume.) However, about 30 per cent more fuel is needed to maintain a vehicle’s range. That requires fatter, heavier, high-pressure fuel tanks, which eat up space, dent fuel efficiency and increase the price of the car.

However a possible solution has recently been unveiled, a new kind of fuel tank inspired by the human intestine which could make cars running on methane much more attractive to motorists.

The space-saving notion, developed by technology firm Otherlab of San Francisco, with funding from the US government’s energy research arm, ARPA-E, copies the way the human body maximises storage capacity by folding the intestines back and forth. Instead of one large, high-pressure tank there are multiple banks of thin, pressurised metal tubes that can be bent and distributed all through the car, from the inside of the wheel arches to the roof supports and front wings.

A possible source of the methane needed to power future vehicles like this has also recently been located just off Japan‘s south-west coast, 1300 metres below the surface, a huge cache of slushy, combustible ice lies buried in the ocean floor. This month, Japan is carrying out the first offshore attempt to produce methane gas from these frozen methane hydrates. If successful, this could be the next great energy source.

Methane hydrates consist of methane molecules trapped in a cage-like structure of water, they are abundant in ocean floors around the world and under Arctic permafrost. It is estimated that the total energy of the planet’s hydrates is greater than all other energy sources combined. The US, India, South Korea and Russia all have programmes to explore the potential of hydrates, but the on-going natural gas boom makes it a low priority for now.

Japan is the exception, as the world’s largest importer of natural gas and with concerns about continued use of nuclear energy. It has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in hydrate research, especially in the Nankai trough off its Pacific coast. The area may hold enough gas to meet the country’s energy needs for a century.

This month, a team led by the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation will drill 300 metres below the seabed, and place a pipe to carry methane to the surface. The goal is to produce tens of thousands of cubic metres of gas over about two weeks. Commercial production could start in 2018.

The Japanese team will monitor sea floor movement during their test, particularly watching for landslides. They hope this will help them calculate how much gas can safely be extracted over a larger area, and how fast.

Richard Charter, who sits on the DoE’s hydrate advisory committee, worries that large-scale mining could cause greater unforeseen impacts, like small earthquakes or an uncontrollable gas release that would escape into the atmosphere or acidify the waters around the borehole. “You’re basically punching a hole into a zone we don’t know about,” he says.

Tetsuya Fujii of the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation says deep-sea hydrates have a built-in fail-safe: if the pipeline breaks, the water pressure would make the hydrates recrystallise, helping to stem the leak. Any gas that did escape would dissolve in the water column or be eaten by bacteria.

Sources include New Scientist and Wikipedia

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One-metre tsunami hits Japan

An earthquake centred off the north-east coast of Japan hit the country on Friday, measuring 7.3 in magnitude according to the US Geological Survey (USGS) and causing houses as far away as Tokyo to shake violently for several minutes. Emergency procedures were undertaken following fears of a consequent tsunami, with tsunami alarms sounding along the north-east coast. In actuality, the earthquake, which measured 5 on the Japanese scale of 1 to 7 in the Iwate, Miyagi, Aomori, Ibaraki and Tochigi prefectures, triggered a tsunami of only one metre in height, compared to the 11-metre tsunami of 2011.

The 1-metre tsunami hit at Ishinomaki, in Miyagi where trains halted operations and Sendai airport closed its runway.  Radio broadcasts on the national NHK station told people on the coast to leave their homes immediately and one presenter said, “remember last year’s quake and tsunami. Call on your neighbours and flee to higher ground now!” Telephone systems were jammed up with calls as family and friends attempted to contact each other. Many people heeded these, and other, calls to move to higher ground before all alerts were later lifted. There were no immediate reports of deaths or serious injuries. The USGS reported at least six aftershocks, the strongest of which was 6.2 in magnitude. Several smaller tsunamis were also recorded, including a 40-centimetre wave at Soma, a city that lies just outside the evacuation zone declared around the Fukushima nuclear plant after meltdowns there last year. However US monitors in Hawaii said there would not be a Pacific-wide tsunami and officials in both Indonesia and the Philippines said there was no threat of a localised tsunami.

Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant, reported no irregularities at its plants following the earthquake and tsunami, though workers were ordered to move to higher ground. A TEPCO spokesperson said, “no abnormalities have been recorded on instruments at the [Fukushima] nuclear plant’s six reactors. All workers were ordered to take shelter inside buildings at the Fukushima plant.”

In the wake of last year’s disaster, Japanese people have been extremely alert to the possibilities of further tsunamis, and public spending on quake-proof buildings is now a major issue in the upcoming Japanese elections. Technology also now allows for warnings to be sent directly to people’s mobile phones, up to tens of seconds before an earthquake begins. However, the science behind longer-term predictions – hours, days or weeks in advance – is the subject of intense research. This ranges from using satellites to detect tiny deformations of the Earth’s surface through purely mathematical approaches to harnessing animals’ purported ability to sense coming quakes. Despite this research, scientists are still some way from making reliable predictions, and avoiding the damaging risk of false alarms.

The March 2011 earthquake and following tsunami killed nearly 20,000 people and triggered the world’s worst nuclear crisis in 25 years when the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant was destroyed, leaking radiation into the sea and air.

Sources include: The Guardian, BBC News, Japan Today

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Nuclear plant on fault line causes fears of Fukushima repeat

The last remaining nuclear power plant still in operation in Japan since March 2011 could be situated above an active fault line in the earth’s crust, warns a Japanese geologist, risking a Fukushima-scale disaster.

Mitsuhisa Watanabe is a tectonic geomorphologist and one-fifth of a five man team charged by the Nuclear Regulation Authority with the task of investigating the tectonic landscape beneath the nuclear plant in Oi, Fukui Prefecture, the only plant to have resumed operation since last year’s nuclear disaster in Fukushima.

Watanabe’s research strongly suggests that the plant, including important water pipe equipment for half of the plant’s nuclear reactors, is located above an active seismic fault.

The geologist, along with other experts on the panel, have determined that the underground structure on which the plant stands has showed movement as long ago as 125,000 years. Watanabe suggests that this underground movement is due to faultline activity, and has called for the plant to cease operation immediately until further research has been carried out, concerned that failure to do so could result in a repeat of Fukushima, the tsunami-triggered nuclear meltdown that left hundreds of thousands of people without homes. “We are not seeking to decommission the plant,” Watanabe said. “We should first stop operation and then carry out underground investigation thoroughly before reaching a conclusion.”

Whilst it is against government regulations to run a nuclear plant under an active fault line (where ‘active’ is classed as any seismic fault that has shifted in the past 130,000 years), the plant is still in operation. Watanabe claims that the line has showed activity in the past 130,000 years, though other members of the team are reluctant to close the plant, suggesting instead that the land scarring is due to nothing more than a past landslide, rather than any seismic activity. National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology researcher Norio Shigematsu has cautioned jumping to any conclusion until more experts are consulted.

The experts may remain in disagreement, but the several thousand protesters that joined together in Tokyo’s government district this Sunday spoke with a different voice, as shouts of “No need to wait for the panel’s finding! We must stop the Oi plant now!” could be heard outside parliament. After the Japanese government’s declaration in September of their plans to phase out nuclear power in Japan by 2040, the issue of nuclear power and public safety has never been so important.

Watanabe is keen that seismologists do not underestimate the possible effects of future earthquakes. “We have to sound the alarm as soon as we find the possibility of active faults,” he said. “The accident in Fukushima had really never been imagined. Scientists must learn from that.”

Sources include Japan Today

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More tsunami debris washed ashore America’s West Coast

Debris from the tragic 2011 tsunami in Japan has hit the west coast of North America, a year earlier than expected. Since April this year, bays along the coast in Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and California have received painful reminders of the Japanese tragedy, in the form of bottles, polystyrene, fishing ropes, and even a Harley Davidson.

Three months ago a 20m concrete dock was found in Newport completely in tact. It is thought that it had been washed across 3,500 miles of ocean from Tokyo Bay. Locals are sensitive to the memories such arrivals evokes for Japan. In the tsunami last year more than 15,000 people died and whole villages were dragged out into the ocean. One American said, “[the debris is] a reminder of what happened, so it’s not just trash. It was people’s belongings and people’s livelihoods and people’s homes.”

A glimmer of light has however been seen in the kind acts of the people who have attempted to return property found in amongst the debris back to its owners in Japan. Two volunteers involved in the clear-up, David and Yumi Baxter found a football and volleyball with names written on them in Alaska, and were able to send them back to their teenage owners in Japan. Similarly, when a Harley Davidson was found in a container in British Columbia, a person who had seen it in the press used the registration plate to locate its Japanese owner.

Volunteers, from surfers to students to pensioners, are working along the American coast to clear the debris but are bracing themselves for more in the next few weeks as the winter storms begin to hit. The worst is yet to come however, as the bulk of the debris is still north of Hawaii. Larger amounts are expect to reach the West Coast next year.

As well as the emotions induced by the debris, there are also practical concerns about radioactivity in the debris. Although none has yet been detected, this remains a fear among many. Volunteers can alert rangers if they find debris that they do not want to touch.

The major concern for residents of the West Coast however is the prospect of a similar tsunami disaster striking there. Despite the 5,000 miles of ocean between them, Oregon and Japan have a shared geology. The coast has, historically, been victim to several earthquakes that have caused giant waves. Chris Havel of Oregon Parks and Recreation Service said that the next earthquake could leave Oregonians “susceptible to the same sort of tragedy that struck Japan“. Tsunami evacuation safety procedures are currently in place in Oregon, as set out by the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries.

Sources include: The Huffington Post, BBC News

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