ONE of the hallmarks of addiction is the inability to quit even when it becomes crystal clear that the craving is harming your health. By that measure, humans are dangerously addicted to fossil fuels.
Now, just as the world is waking up to the reality of climate change, preparations are being made to exploit a vast storehouse of energy that until now has been seen as too difficult and expensive to extract.
The fuel is methane, trapped in icy deposits called clathrates in permafrost and beneath the seabed. The energy in these deposits probably exceeds that of all the oil, coal and conventional natural gas left in the world. In fact, there is enough methane in clathrates to supply the entire world鈥檚 energy needs for 100 years or more.
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The existence of this bounty is not news. What is new is a growing international effort to extract it on a commercial scale. Japan, for example, plans to start doing so by 2016. The US, South Korea, Canada, China and Norway are also licking their lips at the prospect of a new energy bonanza (see 鈥淚ce that burns 鈥� the solution to the energy problem?鈥�).
It is easy to understand the attraction of clathrates. Our civilisation runs on fossil fuel, and with oil prices rising inexorably and energy security far from guaranteed, the prospect of opening a deep freeze of hydrocarbons is impossible to resist.
鈥淭he prospect of opening a deep freeze of hydrocarbons is impossible to resist鈥�
Yet some would argue that we must resist. Adding yet another fix of fossil fuels to our already bloated consumption surely risks pushing us beyond a climate tipping point. Clathrates contain an estimated 3 trillion tonnes of carbon 鈥� more than is already in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide 鈥� and it will only take another 500 billion tonnes of the stuff in the air to cause irreversible climate change.
We won鈥檛 be able to go cold turkey, of course. Assuming the most likely outcome is that we exploit clathrates alongside oil, coal and natural gas, it is imperative that we find ways to do it without wrecking the planet. One way would be to liberate methane from its clathrate cage and sequester CO2 in its place.
If used sensibly, methane clathrates could ease the burden of our addiction: joule for joule, burning methane produces less CO2 than coal. That is another reason why many countries are eyeing them. As a bonus, we also turn a potent greenhouse gas into less potent CO2 (see 鈥淢ethane first, OK?鈥�). Switching from coal to methane, however, would require international agreements to leave vast quantities of coal unburned. Does that sound like something political leaders and energy firms are capable of genuinely considering right now, let alone negotiating for? Like all addicts, we will need time to curb our cravings.