[ckilmer]

Actually, part of the interest here would be to find out what the cost of the desalinized water would be.

[kapj]

The liberals will find some way to ban this - they just can't accept there's no limits to growth!!!

[Bigg Red]

Very interesting. Sounds like the costs would be prohibitive, though, unless many technological breakthroughs occur.

[Greybird]

Production and supply of all the traditional hydrocarbon fuels – coal, gas and oil – are well established but will peak by the year 2010.

The supposed "experts" were saying the same thing about petroleum in 1870, and at about twenty-year intervals ever since. We've had three such "peak" predictions in my own lifetime, and I'm only 43.

Between what a worldwide market is pulling out of the oil patches, the oil shales, and the methane hydrates ... don't believe them.

[wastoute]

IMHO we are already exploiting this resource. Petroleum doesn't come from dinosaurs, it is created when hydrocarbons from this source are subducted and under intense pressure and heat become petroleum. Hence petroleum is a RENEWABLE resource. Hence there is no justification for the exorbitant price Saudis have ARBITRARILY placed on it. Time for a decrease in the pump price. It is only loopy lefties who allow this fiction of oil not being renewable to exist.

[PeaceBeWithYou]

And, when burned as a fuel, it releases less carbon dioxide pollution than anything else around.

Grrrrrr. Carbon Dioxide is NOT pollution. It's plant food.

[Movemout]

Clive Cussler has a Dirk Pitt novel out in paperback which features these methane hydrates. I believe it was Valhalla Rising. A fun read.