SELL argument stronger on methane news

Carbon derived from fossil fuels is a major portion of the total global greenhouse gas (GHG) effect causing our climate problems.  In my prior blog Peak Carbon, we looked at what gases exist, and included the concerns about the melting Arctic. 

One of the worst GHG gases is methane.  Produced by animals and also from deep wells beneath the sea, for example.  And there was very bad news today, exclusive to Steve Connor of The Independent.

Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane – a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide – have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region.

The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years.

In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Igor Semiletov, of the Far Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that he has never before witnessed the scale and force of the methane being released from beneath the Arctic seabed.

"Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of metres in diameter. This is the first time that we've found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures, more than 1,000 metres in diameter. It's amazing," Dr Semiletov said. "I was most impressed by the sheer scale and high density of the plumes. Over a relatively small area we found more than 100, but over a wider area there should be thousands of them."

As far as I can assess this, it means that the negative pressure on the balance sheets of our listed fossil fuel companies (coal, gas and fuel) just became far worse. 

As reported in the Independent,  "We carried out checks at about 115 stationary points and discovered methane fields of a fantastic scale – I think on a scale not seen before. Some plumes were a kilometre or more wide and the emissions went directly into the atmosphere – the concentration was a hundred times higher than normal."

Although The Independent suggests that the damage to the environment from methane is 20 times the equivalent of carbon emissions (usually referred to as (GtCO₂eq)), elsewhere it is widely referred to as 25 GtCO₂eq. The equivalent measure enables us to consider apples with oranges so to speak, so that we can consider the global warming potential (aka GWP) of a particular GHG such as methane to the effects of carbon.

With this conversion factor of methane (CH₄), we can then return to the excellent work of the Climate Tracker report which I covered in this blog, explaining why all our fossil fuel companies should be on a SELL.

Based on a 25 GtCO₂eq for methane, and the Carbon Tracker report I calculate -

·         111 GtCH₄ methane equals 2,795 GtCO₂ all known reserves of fossil fuel

·         70 GtCH₄ methane equals 575 GtCO₂, the known amount of carbon left to be burnt before we pass the agreed 2^oC tipping point of catastrophic climate events. 

Now there is a fair bit of research that suggests that there is about 45 to 50 GtCH₄ (methane) in the Arctic and East Siberian Arctic Ice shelf. However there is other commentary that suggests that it is more than all known reserves of coal.  Again, according to Carbon Tracker's report, coal is 65% of all know reserves.

So we can do some cross referencing to get a reasonably robust adjusted figure for the amount of methane in the Arctic and Siberian Ice Shelf.  The greater than coal reserves suggests that there is 72 GtCH_4.

So where are we?  It is either 45, 50 or 72 GtCH_4, which is the equivalent of nearly all available carbon from fossil fuels before we hit catastrophic weather events.  That is, as Carbon Tracker says, before we hit the Unburnable Carbon threshold.

What is interesting about this argument, if there is one because so far my research suggests the argument is all one way, is that – Governments and listed Companies who own and sell the present fossil fuels, no matter what they do, nature can do its worst, possibly bigger and better, with methane.

I can see a day, when shareholders in listed companies that own their reserves (still on the balance sheets as unimpaired assets) will be fighting with governments (think sovereign, eg the middle east oil reserves on their balance sheets) about who has to write off their assets first.  And in the meantime, the melt in the Arctic wipes us all out anyway whilst Rome burns.

So that it is clear.  The methane is starting to gush from the melting Arctic. There is enough methane in the Arctic / Siberian Ice Shelf to equal the remaining limit of fossil fuels we can use before we hit a catastrophic limits on warming. 

This adds considerably more weight to the argument for impaired assets, as the Carbon Tracker report suggests.

To end on a different but related note.  As I was thinking about this issue, I was sitting in a sunny but cold park in London watching two gentlemen mowing the lawn on XX stroke fuel.  And I was thinking soon we will have to return to the times that the commons kept their grass down with sheep agistment.  And then I got thinking about the methane that sheep emit, and indeed would their methane GtCO₂eq be greater or less than the carbon from a lawnmower burning fuel. 

And then this brought me back to another blog, Peak Food, which showed that the aspiring and new middle classes in emerging nations are shifting their dietary wants to meat as opposed to grains, and this demand was placing increasing demand on the production of beef et al, all of whom produce methane. 

Still a SELL I am afraid.