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Posted on 01/07/2011 2:20:13 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Last August, just two days into a research cruise to study methane gas spewed into the Gulf of Mexico by the Deepwater Horizon gusher, Texas A&M University oceanographer John Kessler turned to one of his colleagues and said, "Well, it looks like it might be gone. What do you think?"
The huge wallop of methane burped up from deep inside the earth was, in fact, missing.
Kessler and his colleagues now report in Science that a huge swarm of gas-gobbling bacteria swelled to consume nearly all of the estimated 200,000 tons of methane dumped into the gulf. .....
Besides providing some good news for the gulf region, the finding has potential implications for climate change science, too. Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and, as the earth warms, climate scientists worry that much more methane will be released from the oceans. "What this tells us is that natural releases of methane from the seafloor with similar characteristics will not make it up to the atmosphere, will not influence climate," Kessler says.
While the gusher was still flowing, in June, a team sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had found intense concentrations of methane in the waters near the wellhead, ..........At the time, that team detected very few of the methane-eating bacteria that naturally live in the gulf. So Valentine and colleagues arrived at a grim - though early - conclusion. "Originally, we had expected that the methane would be consumed gradually," Valentine says. "We really thought it would be around for a year or more."
Instead, two to three months after engineers finally capped the well, the gas was gone. All of the evidence points to an explosion of methane-eating bacteria.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The methane was converted to CO2 and released in the atmosphere.
Nobody noticed.
“Methane is essentially INSOLUBLE in salt water...”
Thank you for your post here of reasoned observation. Seems one of the things in this discussion that has been missing has to do with the nature of the product that was actually released into the Gulf. There was some discussion of disappearing ‘plumes’ of oil, but very little as to the nature of these methyl hydrates that were so critical, at first, to the challenge to cap the discharge at the sea floor. Ultimately, under less pressure, these compounds would progressively volatilize. None of this was very clearly reported during the event.
Schmitt Named Energy Secretary (NM)
Ex-astronaut Schmitt gets energy post (NM-global warming denier!)
I recall the BP engineers worrying that the change in state from a gas to a solid (methane hydrate) as it emerged from the bent drill/riser pipe would plug oil recovery equipment they were using to capture the oil.
The Register (UK) which normally follows computing stuff picked up on this story:
'Methanotroph' bacteria feasted on blown BP rig's methane belch
*********************************************
7th January 2011 16:11 GMT
Scientists believe they have solved the mystery over what happened to the hundreds of thousands of tons of methane that belched into the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion last April.
According to a study published in Science Xpress, the gas served as a feast for methanotrophs: bacteria able to use natural gas as food.
A team of US researchers found that the level of dissolved oxygen in a 36,000-square-mile are surrounding the rig had plummeted, a tell-tale sign of a boom in the methanotroph population. They made measurements that ruled out the possibility that the escaped methane had simply bubbled into the atmosphere.
"What we observed in June was a horizon of deep water laden with methane and other hydrocarbon gases," said UC Santa Barbara oceanographer David Valentine.
"When we returned in September and October and tracked these waters, we found the gases were gone. In their place were residual methane-eating bacteria, and a one million ton deficit in dissolved oxygen that we attribute to respiration of methane by these bacteria."
The scientists were particularly surprised at the speed with which the bacteria consumed their enormous meal. Earlier studies elsewhere in the world suggested methane levels around Deepwater Horizon would be well above normal for years ahead.
Valentine's co-author, John Kessler of Texas A&M, said the study has major implications for our understanding of how methane releases affect the climate. There are vast stores of the powerful greenhouse gas trapped on the sea floor, and it had been supposed that occasional large releases have a significant impact on global temperatures.
"What the Deepwater Horizon incident has taught us is that releases of methane with similar characteristics will not have the capacity to influence climate," Kessler said.
The question of what happened to the more than four million barrels of crude oil spilled after the blow out, which also dissipated sooner than expected, remains under debate. Factors including high winds, natural breakdown, evaporation and the clean-up operation have all been suggested. ®
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Bunches of baby bacteria?
Been going on for centuries. Oil and gas are natural products of the earth and like everything else, there is something that will eat it.
For heavens sake. Methane is a natural contributor to the GOM environment.
I'm sorry, but this is simply not true. The solubility of methane in both fresh and salt waters is far from negligible.
"At atmospheric pressures, the methane solubility in water ranges from 26 to 32 mg/L."
The above is for fresh water. The higher salinity of seawater probably dictates a somewhat lower value at atmosphteric pressure, but that is offset by the higher pressures sub-sea, which should mean the solubility is significantly higher, but the above number is sufficient to make my point. I haven't located a value for seawater yet.
When my wife wakes up, I'll ask her. She is a retired petroleum engineer, and methane solubility is brines is a BIG part of reservoir characterization.
*****************************EXCERPT***************************************************
The Democratic Party of New Mexico was not amused. It seems that Dr. Schmitt is a global warming skeptic.
"On many occasions, Schmitt has scoffed at decades of sound scientific evidence and a mountain of research that validated the human causes of global climate change.
"In one instance he told Fox News that the 'CO2 scare is a red herring,' that the 'global warming scare is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision-making.'"
Some might suggest that this is a feature and not a bug in the nomination of Harrison Schmitt to oversee New Mexico's energy and natural resources. It suggests that he is fully aware of the true underpinnings of the global warming hysteria.
I mean to get back to you earlier, as this is an enjoyable discussion.
I my solubility table, the solubility of methane in round numbers, in generic sea water at 10 degrees C, and 1 atmosphere of pressure is 3 MILLIONTHS of a mole per liter. That happens to be two orders of magnitude LESS than oxygen under the same conditions, and as far as common atmospheric gases go, only helium is a ‘worse’ solute than methane. If our tables differ, then we can blame the publishers. Arguably, subjectively, methane is a lousy solute in water IN COMPARISON to other common gases.
Now in fact you may end up coming out ahead on this point (solubility), or you may not — it;s just irrelevant to the real issue of environmental damage. But to YOUR point, indeed methane IS measurably soluble in sea water. Where we both lose is when we use words like “completely” or “essentially.”
Just (both of us) to try to stay on point here, the real ‘argument’ I was on is to dispute the suggestion that methane escaping into the Gulf of Mexico is a problem. Logically and scientifically I cannot support the idea / hypothesis that a methane release, even one of this magnitude, is or was a threat to the marine ecosystem.
Why?
Gas concentrations in any solvent exposed to air (1 atmosphere) will ALWAYS reach a steady state on their own, based on the nature of the solvent/solute and temperature. Vapor pressure and solubility ‘laws’ did not disappear in the Gulf. What’s my point? Absent ANY action by man or bacteria, methane gas concentrations (dissolved methane), over time, would return to a ‘normal’ steady state.
Secondly methane is NON TOXIC. So what’s the risk to the environment?
AFAIK “we” are aware of methane-oxidizing Bacteria as well as methanogenic and anaerobic methane-oxidizing Archaea that live around the “vents” on the ocean floor. These organisms do indeed utilize methane as food, and ‘oxidize’ them with either sulfur or oxygen to make energy. But I am unaware of any reported blooms of these Classes of bacteria in the Gulf. My point? A reporter can write about blooms of bacteria metabolizing dissolved methane that reduce dissolved O2 levels, but I have yet to read a fact-based report of ANYTHING like that. MANY areas of the Guld have dead/hypoxic regions — the result of fertilizer (nitrogen- phosphorous- and organic iron-based chemicals) run off. but I digress.
The root cause of my very first ranting post on this thread was that I perceive it to be complete and utter poppy cock that a methane release is a biological/ ecological disaster. I am unaware of ANY science supporting the hypothesis that methane, dissolved or gaseous, is harmful to the marine environment.
We can have a sidebar argument over the correct adjective to apply to methane solubility, but the real issue (to me) is that NO ONE should cry havoc over a marine methane release.
Your turn ;-)
Note that the concentration for dissolved oxygen necessary for fish is only 5-10 mg/L. So a methane concentration of 26 to 32 mg/L is quite high enough to be “significantly biologically effective”.
And I said exactly nothing about the methane release being a disaster, so any comments you make to that point are simply your imagination.
What appears to be the case is that a huge amount of "bacteria-food" (methane) was released, the bacteria ate it, and in turn were eaten by something else (probably other bacteria, or microfauna), and are no longer there. A totally natural progression. I think the final result will, in a few more months, be an explosion of "top of the food chain" species, as the increase in available nutrients in the Gulf works its way "up the species chain".
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