MOSCOW, January 18. /TASS/. Russian mathematicians created a model for the development of deposits of the richest source of natural gas on the planet - gas hydrates, the concentration of which is high in the Arctic zone, and Skoltech scientists proposed a technology for extracting methane from hydrates. Experts told TASS how the production of such methane will help reduce the greenhouse effect, what are the advantages of new research, and whether there are prospects for the industrial development of gas hydrates in Russia.

Against the greenhouse effect

Gas hydrates are solid crystalline compounds of ice and gas, they are also called "combustible ice". In nature, they are found in the thickness of the ocean floor and in permafrost, so it is very difficult to extract them - you need to drill wells to a depth of several hundred meters, and then extract natural gas from ice deposits and transport it to the surface. Chinese oilmen managed to do this in the South China Sea in 2017, but for this they had to go deeper into the seabed by more than 200 meters, despite the fact that the depth in the production area exceeded 1.2 km.

Researchers consider gas hydrates to be a promising source of energy, which can be in demand, in particular, by countries that are limited in other energy resources, such as Japan and South Korea. Estimates of the content of methane, the combustion of which provides energy, in gas hydrates in the world vary: from 2.8 quadrillion tons according to the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation to 5 quadrillion tons according to the World Energy Agency (IEA). Even minimal estimates reflect huge reserves: for comparison, BP (British Petroleum) Corporation estimated the global volume of oil reserves in 2015 at 240 billion tons.

"According to the estimates of some organizations, primarily Gazprom VNIIGAZ, the resources of methane in gas hydrates on the territory of the Russian Federation range from 100 to 1,000 trillion cubic meters, in the Arctic zone, including the seas, up to 600-700 trillion cubic meters, but this is very approximate," - Yevgeny Chuvilin, a leading researcher at the Center for Hydrocarbon Production at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech), told TASS.

In addition to the source of energy itself, gas hydrates can become a salvation from greenhouse gases, which will help stop global warming. The voids freed from methane can be filled with carbon dioxide.

"According to researchers, methane hydrates contain more than 50% of carbon from the total known world hydrocarbon reserves. This is not only the richest source of hydrocarbon gas on our planet, but also a possible reservoir for carbon dioxide, which is considered a greenhouse gas. You can kill two birds with one stone - get methane, burn it to generate energy and pump in its place the carbon dioxide obtained during combustion, which will take the place of methane in the hydrate," Nail Musakaev, deputy director for scientific work of the Tyumen branch of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told TASS.

In permafrost conditions

Today, researchers identify three main promising methods for the extraction of gas hydrates.

"Before extracting gas from hydrates, it is necessary to decompose them into components - gas and water or gas and ice. The main methods of gas production can be distinguished - lowering the pressure at the bottom of the well, heating the formation with hot water or steam, supplying inhibitors (substances for the decomposition of gas hydrates - approx. TASS)," Musakaev explained.

Scientists from Tyumen and Sterlitamak have created a mathematical model for methane production in permafrost. It is noteworthy in that it takes into account the process of ice formation during the development of the field.

"The formation of ice has pros and cons: it can clog equipment, but, on the other hand, the decomposition of gas hydrate into gas and ice requires three times less energy than when decomposed into gas and water," Musakaev said.

The advantage of mathematical modeling is the ability to predict the scenario for the development of gas hydrate deposits, including evaluating the economic efficiency of methods for extracting gas from such deposits. The results may be of interest to design organizations involved in planning and exploration of gas hydrate deposits, the scientist noted.

Skoltech is also developing technologies for extracting methane from hydrates. Together with colleagues from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Skoltech scientists proposed to extract methane from gas hydrates by pumping air into the rock formation. "This method is more economical than existing ones and has less impact on the environment," Chuvilin explained.

This method assumes that carbon dioxide or nitrogen is injected into the reservoir, and gas hydrates decompose into components due to the difference in pressure. "We are still conducting methodological studies to test the method and its effectiveness. It is still a long way before the creation of technology, while we are creating the physicochemical foundations of this technology," the scientist emphasized.

According to Chuvilin, there are no completely ready-made technologies in Russia for the efficient extraction of methane from hydrates, since there are no targeted programs to support this scientific direction. But development is still ongoing. "Perhaps, gas hydrates will not become the main energy resource of the future, but their use will certainly require the development of new knowledge," Musakaev added.

Economic expediency

The exploration and development of gas hydrate deposits is considered among the long-term prospects for gas production by the forecast for the development of the fuel and energy complex of Russia for the period up to 2035. The document notes that gas hydrates can become "a factor in the global energy industry only in 30-40 years," but a breakthrough scenario is not ruled out. In any case, the development of hydrates will lead to a global redistribution in the world market of fuel resources - gas prices will decrease, and mining corporations will only be able to save income by capturing new markets and increasing sales. For the mass development of such deposits, it is necessary to create new technologies, improve and reduce the cost of existing ones, the strategy notes.

Given the inaccessibility of hydrates and the complexity of their production, experts call them a promising source of energy, but note that this is not a trend in the coming years - hydrates require new technologies that are still being developed. And in the conditions of well-established production of natural gas, methane from hydrates is not in the most advantageous position. In the future, everything will depend on the conjuncture of the energy market.

Aleksey Cheremisin, Deputy Director of the Skoltech Center for Hydrocarbon Production, believes that methane from hydrates will not be produced soon just because of the existing reserves of traditional gas.

"The timing of commercial production depends both on the economically available technology for searching, localizing and producing gas, as well as on market factors. Gas producing companies have a sufficient amount of conventional gas reserves, so they consider gas hydrate production technologies as a long-term reserve. In my opinion, industrial production in the Russian Federation will begin no earlier than in 10 years," the expert said.

According to Chuvilin, there are fields in Russia where methane from gas hydrates can be produced in the next 10 years, and this will be quite promising. "In some gas fields in the north of Western Siberia, with the depletion of traditional gas reservoirs, it is possible to develop overlying horizons, where gas can also be in hydrated form. This is possible in the next decade, everything will depend on the cost of energy carriers," the agency's interlocutor summed up.

Vladimir FRADKIN

In the mass consciousness, alternative energy carriers are exclusively renewable energy sources - the Sun, wind, biomass, sea surf, and the like. There is, however, another very promising, albeit non-renewable, energy source: seabed methane. Many people do not even know about its existence, which, in general, is excusable: after all, until quite recently, scientists did not know about it either. Meanwhile, huge reserves of methane are stored on the seabed! True, it is there in a bound form - in the form of solid hydrates.

The formation of methane hydrates, that is, its compounds with water, occurs under the influence of high pressure and low temperature - under conditions that are quite typical for the ocean depths. Where the oceanic plate, moving, goes under the continental one, there are zones of powerful compression. It is they who squeeze out the methane formed in the thickness of organic deposits. One of these tectonic zones is located off the western coast of North America. The expedition, which went there in search of methane hydrate, indeed found it, but the main sensation was that its huge deposits were discovered directly on the surface of the seabed. Professor Jurgen Minert, a researcher at the German Research Center Geomar, headquartered in Kiel, says: “We have reason to believe that the gas mixture contained in this rock is 98 to 99 percent methane. When a sample of soil from the seabed is brought on board, the gas immediately begins to escape. Black spots indicate an increased carbon content in sedimentary deposits. In other words, the methane found on the seabed is a product of the decomposition of organic matter, the result of the death of living organisms, that is, it has a biogenic, not a thermogenic origin.”

Gas hydrate samples recovered off the coast of the United States have since been carefully stored in special cold storage tanks and studied - for example, at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven. Here is one of the few laboratories in which conditions have been created to ensure the safety of gas hydrate in its original form. That is, the room temperature is maintained at -27°C, so the researchers are forced to work in special overalls and warm gloves. Pieces of gas hydrate lifted from the bottom of the sea look like pieces of ice rolled in the mud. Actually, this is ice with a high content of methane. The samples are cut into the thinnest plates, each section is photographed, and only after that the hydrate is subjected to chemical analysis. Jens Greinert of the Geomar Research Center explains: “Mostly it is methane. It is 98% methane, but the rest - it can be hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide - is of great interest to us, since impurities largely determine under what conditions the hydrate is stable and under which it is not. Knowing this, one can begin to study the question of when and how methane hydrates are formed, when and how they decompose.

Climatologists also show considerable interest in the work of geophysicists. In their eyes, methane is not so much a valuable energy source as one of the main culprits of global warming.

“Methane is known to be the third largest greenhouse gas. It is generally accepted that the oceans and, especially, the peripheral seas are an important source of methane. But often scientists cannot even qualitatively assess whether the sea releases methane into the atmosphere or, on the contrary, binds atmospheric methane, forming hydrates. And there is no need to talk about the quantitative assessment of these processes today. Meanwhile, this is a very important issue. And we hope that our new instruments will help to find the answer to it, says Klaus Weitkamp, ​​an employee of the GKSS Research Center in Geesthacht, which specializes in the creation of highly sensitive gas sensors. But what are the reserves of methane in gas hydrates? Can they have a significant impact on the climate - for example, if, as a result of global warming, the hydrates lying on the bottom under the water column begin to decompose into constituent components, and all the methane goes into the atmosphere? Gerhard Bormann of the Geomar Research Center says: “There are estimates that about 50% of all carbon on Earth is contained in these hydrates. Just imagine, we have been talking so much about the content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, about the carbon cycle in nature, and so far we have not taken into account such an important component of this process! However, all the calculations that we use are very approximate. Predicting where and in what quantity underwater gas hydrate fields can be found, we proceed from seismic observations and geophysical studies. But in order to increase the reliability of forecasts, it is necessary to carry out trial drilling and measurements in those regions of the ocean where the presence of methane hydrates is predicted, and to analyze the results obtained. So far, we are only at the very beginning of the journey, but I think that the study of gas hydrates will become a key topic for the coming years, and possibly decades.”

The search for methane hydrates is carried out in the most diverse areas of the world's oceans and with the involvement of the most modern special equipment. It is noteworthy that at the same time, geophysicists spare no effort to study the benthic flora and fauna. The fact is that the inhabitants of the seabed can serve as a kind of indicators indicating the presence of a gas hydrate deposit in the depths. An employee of the Geomar Research Center, biologist Peter Linke, says: “Between the limestone blocks that arose at the bottom as a result of geochemical and tectonic processes, there is an outflow of methane-containing liquids, which are the basis for the existence of a certain type of molluscs. The presence of these molluscs is a sure sign for us that methane is being released from the depths here. Of course, mollusks cannot feed on methane as such - it is just as poisonous for them as it is for humans. Here we are dealing with a typical example of symbiosis: a methane-containing liquid is assimilated by special bacteria living in the mantle of mollusks. And the mollusks themselves feed on the waste products of these bacteria, which allows them to exist at such a depth where sunlight practically does not penetrate. Naturally, mollusks tend to settle as close as possible to the source of food, that is, to those cracks and crevices in calcareous deposits, from which methane-containing liquids flow out. In turn, these mollusks serve as food for some other types of marine fauna. That is, those places in which, according to our estimates, there are conditions for the formation of gas hydrates, are a kind of oases in the desert of the sea depths.

Mollusks recovered from the bottom of the sea during an expedition to the coast of the United States were, of course, subjected to the closest study. They were dissected, then carbon was isolated from the tissues of the shell and mantle, binding it into carbon dioxide, and analyzed using a mass spectrometer. The high content of the carbon isotope С12 allowed us to conclude that the mollusks actually fed on the liquids washing the gas hydrate deposits.

But finding these same mollusks turned out to be difficult: numerous soil samples from the bottom of the sea in those places where, based on geophysical considerations, gas hydrate deposits were supposed, did not give a positive result for a long time. Why?

“Either they didn’t search hard enough, or the sources of methane, which once provided food and served as the basis for the existence of these mollusks, are now impoverished or completely dried up. For mollusks, this is a disaster, they are dying out. For us, this is evidence that the sources are poor or empty. If we find a large colony of live shellfish, this gives us reason to believe that there are significant sources of methane here. If there are no mollusks or we find only empty shells, it means that there is most likely no intensive release of methane-containing liquids here, - continues Peter Linke, a member of the expedition that discovered rich deposits of methane hydrate and accompanying mollusk colonies off the coast of the United States, and in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Pakistan.

However, scientists are most interested in the cold seas of the Far North and the Far South. In particular, the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. Professor Erwin Suess, who has been head of the Geomar Research Center for many years, emphasizes the climatological aspect: “The source of methane in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, as in many other peripheral seas, is hydrates. The Sea of ​​Okhotsk is covered with ice for more than 9 months a year, and the methane rising from the bottom is retained by this ice cover. In the spring, when the ice begins to melt, huge masses of methane are released into the atmosphere in a matter of weeks. Given the importance of methane as a greenhouse gas, the impact of these seasonal emissions on the global climate should be studied very carefully. This will help to understand the trends and mechanisms of climate change occurring on Earth.”

To understand what scale changes Erwin Suess means, one should take into account the following figure: from one cubic meter of hydrate extracted from the seabed, 164 cubic meters of gaseous methane are released! That is, we are talking, on the one hand, about the colossal energy potential hidden in methane hydrates, and on the other hand, about the great danger that these hydrates can pose for the planet's climate. And the fact that gas hydrate deposits on the seabed are really huge is beyond doubt among specialists. Hans Falenkamp, ​​professor of environmental technology at the University of Dortmund, says: “Geologists evaluate gas hydrate reserves by comparing them with the total volume of explored oil, natural gas and coal deposits to date. Their conclusion is that the deposits of methane at the bottom of the seas and oceans have twice as much energy as all other fossil fuels combined.”

And this is neither more nor less than 10 thousand billion tons. However, the technology suitable for large-scale extraction of this priceless treasure from the bottom of the sea did not exist until recently. Professor Hans Falenkamp's colleague in the Department of Environmental Technology at the University of Dortmund, Heiko Jürgen Schultz, says: “The extraction methods proposed so far have not been sufficiently effective. The calculations made showed that the methane raised by these methods from the bottom of the sea cannot compete with natural gas produced by traditional methods.”

In addition to low efficiency, there is a second problem - safety. Gas hydrate deposits are located on steep slopes, at depths of 300 to 1000 meters and are a factor stabilizing the seabed in these geologically active regions. Large-scale development of deposits can cause underwater landslides and, as a result, destructive tidal waves - tsunamis. In addition, one cannot but reckon with the possibility of emergency releases of huge masses of methane into the atmosphere, which is fraught with a grandiose environmental catastrophe, not to mention the threat to the health and life of personnel servicing mining equipment. But Heiko Juergen Schultz recently proposed a new and, in his opinion, very promising method for extracting gas hydrates. At the very least, the calculations on the computer model look promising: "We have presented a technology that will provide high efficiency and significant production volumes."

To obtain gaseous methane from solid gas hydrates, they must be melted, that is, heated. The Heiko Jurgen Schultz project involves laying a special pipeline from a platform on the sea surface to gas hydrate deposits on the seabed. The peculiarity of the pipeline is that it consists of pipes with a double wall. It is like two pipelines, one of which is passed through the other. Heiko Jürgen Schultz explains: “It works like a coffee maker. Through the inner pipe, we supply sea water, heated to 30...40 degrees, directly to the gas hydrate field. They melt, and bubbles of gaseous methane are released from them, which, together with water, rise up the outer pipe to the platform. There, methane is separated from the water and fed into tanks or into the main pipeline, and warm water is again pumped down to the gas hydrate deposits.”

Calculations show that when using this technology, the amount of energy generated will be 40 times higher than the amount that will have to be spent on mining. That is, the economy is evident. And what about environmental friendliness? The question is important, if only because methane is one of the most harmful gases for the climate, Professor Falenkamp recalls: “All greenhouse gases are usually compared with carbon dioxide. If the degree of carbon dioxide impact on the climate is conditionally taken as a unit, then the greenhouse activity of methane will be 23 units.”

But if computer calculations are to be believed, no accidental releases of methane can be expected. Moreover, Heiko Jurgen Schultz is confident that his technology also eliminates the threat of underwater landslides. He is currently looking for investors to put his idea into practice. The cost of the project is estimated at 100 million euros.

Irkutsk limnologists explore the fuel of the future, located in the bottom sediments of the lake

In early September of this year, scientists from all over the world gathered in Listvyanka to learn about the achievements of scientists from the Irkutsk Limnological Institute in the field of research on gas hydrates, which are already called the fuel of the future. Scientists from China, Japan, Belgium, Germany and the United States came to Baikal to learn about another secret of the unique lake hidden in its bottom sediments - methane ice.

What is hot ice?

A rather simple phenomenon is hidden under the incomprehensible chemical term "gas hydrates" - it is loose ice, consisting of a mixture of water and methane, which is formed under special conditions, that is, with a combination of high pressure and low temperatures. At five degrees Celsius, this compound is formed at a depth of three hundred to six hundred meters. It differs from ordinary ice only in that, when it is brought to the surface, it begins to decompose into water and methane, which is capable of burning: if you bring a match, you can amaze everyone with the spectacle of burning ice.

The research and industrial development of gas hydrates is now one of the most promising energy projects in the world. This unusual combination of water and gas, among other hydrocarbon feedstocks such as oil and gas, is considered the fuel of the future.

Baikal is the only freshwater reservoir in the world where gas hydrates have been found. Its history dates back 25 million years, during which time about seven and a half kilometers of sediments have accumulated at the bottom, in which methane is constantly being formed.

No one proposes to extract hydrates on Baikal. This question is not raised at all in Russia - we have enough natural gas and oil. But today the question of the industrial use of hydrates is very relevant for countries with access to the oceans or inland seas, - said Oleg Khlystov, head of the laboratory of Baikal geology at the Institute of Limnology. - For example, Japan and India are very interested in our developments. In 2005, the Indians came to us, participated in two expeditions. Although vast reserves of hydrates are supposed to be in the Indian Ocean, for the first time they held them in their hands only in Baikal. We have been cooperating with Japan for five years already and every year we conduct joint expeditions.

The advantage of Baikal is that, unlike the seas, research in winter can be carried out directly from the ice surface. Now scientists are setting themselves the task of working out on Baikal - as on an experimental site - the technology of industrial production of gas hydrates, which will subsequently be used all over the world.

Miners will be presented with bouquets that feed on methane

In addition to the study of hydrates as a fuel of the future, scientists of the Limnological Institute of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences are interested in other related problems along the way. For example, how excess methane is absorbed at Baikal, what effect does this gas have on the ecosystem of the lake, is there any harm from it.

Small methane emissions at Baikal constantly occur in shallow waters - in the Selenga delta, on the Posolskaya gully, in Babushkin Bay. In these places, it just bubbles to the surface.

We already know that the Baikal ecosystem has adapted to the constant release of methane from the bottom of the lake. In particular, there are different types of microorganisms that process methane, - says Tamara Zemskaya, scientific secretary of the institute.

Studying the bacteria that absorb methane in Baikal, scientists came to the conclusion that it is advisable to use them in mines. Theoretically, the enzymes of Baikal microorganisms can be transplanted into ordinary plants. Methane explosions in the coal-mining regions of Russia present us with tragedy after tragedy. And as one of the ways to secure mines, scientists propose to use these plants that feed on methane.

A bomb is stored at the bottom of the Arctic seas, which is hundreds of times more dangerous than all the Earth's volcanoes combined. This is methane gas, which comes from the depths of the planet and fills the colossal areas of the ocean floor.

While it is in a "frozen" state. However, with the warming of the climate, he begins to be released from his "ice captivity". At the same time, it should be taken into account that methane, getting into the atmosphere, creates a greenhouse effect 30 times faster than carbon dioxide.

An increase in the greenhouse effect on the planet will cause an even greater increase in the melting of "frozen" methane, which, in turn, will cause even more warming. This phenomenon is called the "methane flywheel". It is possible that thanks to this "flywheel" by 2100, the Earth will become similar to Venus in its climatic conditions...

THOUSANDS OF GIGATONNES OF METHANE READY TO RELEASE TO THE ATMOSPHERE

Methane in the form of so-called methane ice, or methane hydrates, is concentrated on the bottom of the World Ocean in huge quantities. In "methane ice" methane gas is "packed" very densely: 1 cubic meter of "ice" gives about 1000 "cubic meters" of gas.

"Methane ice" forms in the deep sea at high pressure and low temperature. Under such conditions, the mechanism of self-preservation of methane is triggered, when it turns into methane hydrate - an ice-like formation that cannot be decomposed.

However, with the smallest changes in the environment, methane hydrates begin to decompose. A “gas reservoir” is formed, which at one fine moment bursts to the surface in a huge bubble.

For the first time deposits of methane hydrates on the ocean floor were discovered in the 1960s. In the 1970s, they were found on the Arctic shelf (the shelf is the underwater margin of the mainland, adjacent to it and similar in geological structure), as well as on land, in the Siberian permafrost.

Already in this century, scientists from the Geological Institute in Zurich, who have been studying methane hydrate deposits at the bottom of the World Ocean for many years, have calculated that there are about 10 thousand gigatonnes of methane in the entire "methane ice" on the planet, while now it is in the atmosphere of "total" 5 gigatons.

In their article, published online in the journal Nature Geoscience, they argue that the amount of methane released into the atmosphere from the seafloor has increased significantly in the past decade. Scientists attribute the melting of "methane ice" to global warming, which affects the temperature of deep ocean waters.

There is a version that the melting of methane hydrates is caused by the warming of the earth's crust, which is provoked by the accelerated shift of the magnetic poles. Recently, the site Poteplenie.Ru published the forecast of the Anglo-American scientific group about the possible imminent destruction of approximately one tenth of all oceanic "methane ice" reserves - provided that global warming continues at the same pace as now.

Based on these calculations, scientists from the Institute of Energy Problems of Chemical Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences made an approximate calculation of the warming effect from such an increase in methane concentration. Calculations have shown that by the end of this century, the concentration of methane in the atmosphere will increase by about 300 times, which will cause such a climate change in which life! people on Earth will be almost impossible.

"METHANE ICE" MELTING ON THE SIBERIAN SHELF

More recently, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) predicted warming by the end of the 21st century in the range of 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius. However, the most recent calculations, which include the impact of human activities on the greenhouse effect, have raised the amount of possible warming to 10 degrees.

Recent studies show that the oceans are also warming. The warming of its deep waters in the current century can be 3 or more degrees. And a temperature increase of only 1-1.5 degrees, scientists say, can disrupt the current "frozen" state of methane hydrates and lead to their decay.

Studies of the water temperature in the North Atlantic, conducted in the early 1990s, showed that the water here warmed up by 0.2 degrees compared to the 1970s. Most recent studies, conducted both by traditional methods and modern methods of acoustic thermometry, have shown that over the past 50 years, the water temperature in the Arctic Ocean in a layer of up to three thousand meters has increased on average from 0.47 to 0.61 degrees.

In connection with the warming, especially close attention of scientists is attracted by the state of deposits of "methane ice" on the largest continental shelf of the planet - the Siberian shelf, where "methane ice" occurs at shallow depths, sometimes only a few tens of meters.

Currently, this "ice" is rapidly melting. Only he, according to the calculations of specialists from the University of Fairbanks (Alaska), annually delivers about 17 teragrams of methane to the atmosphere (1 teragram is equal to 1 million tons).

This is a significant share in the total volume of methane annually released into the atmosphere from various sources, including man-made ones. Russian scientists Natalya Shakhova and Igor Semiletov have been studying methane hydrates at the bottom of the shallowest of the Arctic seas, the Laptev Sea, for more than 10 years.

It is believed that methane has been "frozen" here since the Ice Age, when sea levels were much lower. During their last expedition in the summer-winter of 2012, scientists many times observed the release of bubbles of “thawed” methane to the surface of the water. In some places, small bubbles came to the surface almost continuously. There were also large bubbles. They burst out with a characteristic pop and caused quite high waves.

SHIP DISAPPEARANCES IN BERMUDA TRIANGLE CAUSED BY METHANE BUBBLES

Russian scientists in their report write about the danger of large methane bubbles for floating craft. With a high concentration of gas in water, its density decreases so much that the water cannot withstand a heavy vessel and it is rapidly sinking. This theory was confirmed by experiment: the water in the pool was saturated with methane in a very short period of time, as a result of which all objects floating in the pool went to the bottom.

With the current warming of ocean waters, which has affected the deep layers, the outputs of huge methane bubbles have become much more frequent. One incredibly large bubble that came to the surface in the western Indian Ocean was observed by astronauts from orbit. Any floating craft that finds itself in the epicenter of such a bubble will sink in a matter of seconds.

Sudden breakthroughs of methane from sea deposits explain, in particular, the disappearance of ships in the Bermuda Triangle, the Devil's Sea and some other places where large accumulations of methane ice lie at the bottom. In this regard, the Arctic ones are of particular danger.

In August 2012, in the Laptev Sea, the bottom "not far from the coast, in clear weather, calm water, in front of a dozen eyewitnesses, a boat with three fishermen suddenly sank. “There was a loud bang to our right,” said Vasily Nikolaev, 62, who was fishing on his boat. And in that direction, Simonenko and his comrades were just hunting.

I looked there, and there everything seemed to be in a haze. The very air trembles. Simonenko's boat is also trembling, and suddenly it is gone. And from where there was a haze, strong waves went. I have heard from anglers I know that the sea sometimes claps. One day I heard a bang myself. But that it could drag away a boat full of people—I would not believe it if I saw it with my own eyes.

"DESCOLATION OF SHELF METHANHYDRATES - "THIS IS A REAL DISASTER"

The expedition of Shakhova and Semiletov periodically measured the surface temperature of the sea water on the shelf of the Laptev Sea and drilled the bottom to find out if the methane deposits were still in a "frozen" state. As a result, it was found that the water in the bottom layers of the Arctic seas in some places heats up during the summer by more than 7 degrees Celsius.

For this reason, some bottom methane deposits have already been “thawed out” (for example, near the Lena River delta) and emit hundreds of cubic meters of gas to the surface, etc. “Methane evaporation from methane hydrate deposits on the Siberian shelf has a negative impact not only on the Arctic region, but also on the climate of the entire globe,” says N. Shakova.

In turn, Professor of Cambridge University Peter Wadhams - and the head of the Anglo-American scientific group studying the current state of the Arctic, notes that the melting of methane hydrates on the Siberian shelf began only recently. “Massive breakdown of offshore methane hydrates can be a real disaster,” he emphasizes.

Wodhams and his colleagues calculated that the process of releasing methane from the Siberian shelf in just a decade could increase the temperature on the planet by about 0.6 degrees Celsius.

"POINT OF NO RETURN" PASSED?

The close attention of scientists around the world is also caused by methane deposits on land. With the current warming, they pose no less danger to the Earth's climate than deposits at the bottom of the oceans. Huge reserves of methane are stored in the Siberian permafrost. Formed more than 10 thousand years ago during the last ice age, the giant frozen swamps of Western Siberia constantly generate methane in themselves.

Their ice traps this gas, partly coming from within the planet, partly produced by microbes living in the soil. Today, in summer, the permafrost thaws deeper than before, and gradually disappears along the edges, and tons of methane “stored” in past centuries enter the atmosphere. All this leads to increased global warming on the planet, which, in turn, leads to even greater melting of "methane ice".

In the press, this process was called the "methane flywheel". The first studies of methane deposits in permafrost began in the 1990s. However, very little is known about how much permafrost methane is emitted into the atmosphere. According to various estimates, in general for the Arctic, including the shelf and land, this is from 20 to 100 million tons per year. Most scientists in the West believe that the "point of no return" in the process of thawing permafrost has been passed.

Climate warming has already led to the active disintegration of "methane ice" in Siberia and the Arctic Ocean. The chain reaction has started. The release of Arctic methane provokes the active melting of icebergs and the ice cover of the planet and increases warming, since methane retains heat in the atmosphere much better than other gases. “Our attempts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through quotas are ridiculous,” says Professor J. Worgate from Michigan on this occasion. - Look at the tundra.

This is its methane now the main source of warming, and it is impossible to keep it with any quotas and prohibitions. "Methane ice" is melting everywhere now, but, as Russian experts believe, Arctic methane deposits, held back only by a relatively thin crust of ice, are melting much more intensively than similar deposits in other regions of the earth.

Scientists do not undertake to predict when the large-scale release of Arctic methane will begin. But if warming continues at its current rate, such a release will begin as early as around 2030. As a result, the greenhouse effect on the planet will increase many times over. By the middle of the century, the amount of precipitation will increase sharply on the planet, flooding of low-lying areas will begin, hot periods will become more frequent, water quality will deteriorate, crops will decrease, and pathogenic microbes will begin to develop rapidly.

However, the main danger of the greenhouse effect is the escape of water vapor into space, the dehydration of the planet, turning it into a similarity to the current Venus or Mars.

Igor Voloznev

A bomb is stored at the bottom of the Arctic seas, which is hundreds of times more dangerous than all the Earth's volcanoes combined. This is methane gas, coming from the depths of the planet and filling the colossal areas of the ocean floor. While it is in a "frozen" state. However, with the warming of the climate, he begins to be released from his "ice captivity". At the same time, it should be taken into account that methane, entering the atmosphere, creates a greenhouse effect 30 times faster than carbon dioxide. An increase in the greenhouse effect on the planet will cause an even greater increase in the melting of "frozen" methane, which, in turn, will cause even greater warming. This phenomenon is called the "methane flywheel". It is possible that thanks to this "flywheel" by 2100, the Earth will become similar to Venus in its climatic conditions...

THOUSANDS OF GIGATONNES OF METHANE READY TO RELEASE TO THE ATMOSPHERE

Methane in the form of so-called methane ice, or methane hydrates, is concentrated on the bottom of the World Ocean in huge quantities. In "methane ice" methane gas is "packed" very densely: 1 cubic meter of "ice" gives about 1000 "cubic meters" of gas.
"Methane ice" forms in the deep sea at high pressure and low temperature. Under such conditions, the mechanism of self-preservation of methane is triggered, when it turns into methane hydrate - an ice-like formation that cannot be decomposed.
However, with the smallest changes in the environment, methane hydrates begin to decompose. A “gas reservoir” is formed, which at one fine moment bursts to the surface in a huge bubble.
For the first time deposits of methane hydrates on the ocean floor were discovered in the 1960s. In the 1970s, they were found on the Arctic shelf (the shelf is the underwater margin of the mainland, adjacent to it and similar in geological structure), as well as on land, in the Siberian permafrost.

Already in this century, scientists from the Geological Institute in Zurich, who have been studying methane hydrate deposits at the bottom of the World Ocean for many years, have calculated that there are about 10 thousand gigatonnes of methane in the entire "methane ice" on the planet, while now it is in the atmosphere of "total" 5 gigatons.
In their article, published online in the journal Nature Geoscience, they argue that the amount of methane released into the atmosphere from the seafloor has increased significantly in the past decade. Scientists attribute the melting of "methane ice" to global warming, which affects the temperature of deep ocean waters.
There is a version that the melting of methane hydrates is caused by the warming of the earth's crust, which is provoked by the accelerated shift of the magnetic poles. Recently, the site Poteplenie.Ru published the forecast of the Anglo-American scientific group about the possible imminent destruction of about one tenth of all oceanic "methane ice" reserves - provided that global warming continues at the same pace as now.
Based on these calculations, scientists from the Institute of Energy Problems of Chemical Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences made an approximate calculation of the warming effect from such an increase in methane concentration. Calculations have shown that by the end of this century, the concentration of methane in the atmosphere will increase by about 300 times, which will cause such a climate change in which life! people on Earth will be almost impossible.

"METHANE ICE" MELTING ON THE SIBERIAN SHELF

More recently, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) predicted warming by the end of the 21st century in the range of 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius. However, the most recent calculations, which include the impact of human activities on the greenhouse effect, have raised the amount of possible warming to 10 degrees.
Recent studies show that the oceans are also warming. The warming of its deep waters in the current century can be 3 or more degrees. And a temperature increase of only 1-1.5 degrees, scientists say, can disrupt the current "frozen" state of methane hydrates and lead to their decay.
Studies of the water temperature in the North Atlantic, carried out in the early 1990s, showed that the water here warmed up by 0.2 degrees compared to the 1970s. Most recent studies, conducted both by traditional methods and modern methods of acoustic thermometry, have shown that over the past 50 years, the water temperature in the Arctic Ocean in a layer of up to three thousand meters has increased on average from 0.47 to 0.61 degrees.
In connection with the warming, especially close attention of scientists is attracted by the state of deposits of "methane ice" on the largest continental shelf of the planet - the Siberian shelf, where "methane ice" occurs at shallow depths, sometimes only a few tens of meters.
Currently, this "ice" is rapidly melting. Only he, according to the calculations of specialists from the University of Fairbanks (Alaska), annually delivers about 17 teragrams of methane to the atmosphere (1 teragram is equal to 1 million tons).

This is a significant share in the total volume of methane annually released into the atmosphere from various sources, including man-made ones. Russian scientists Natalya Shakhova and Igor Semiletov have been studying methane hydrates at the bottom of the shallowest of the Arctic seas, the Laptev Sea, for more than 10 years.
It is believed that methane has been "frozen" here since the Ice Age, when sea levels were much lower. During their last expedition in the summer-winter of 2012, scientists many times observed the release of bubbles of “thawed” methane to the surface of the water. In some places, small bubbles came to the surface almost continuously. There were also large bubbles. They burst out with a characteristic pop and caused quite high waves.

SHIP DISAPPEARANCES IN BERMUDA TRIANGLE CAUSED BY METHANE BUBBLES

Russian scientists in their report write about the danger of large methane bubbles for floating craft. With a high concentration of gas in water, its density decreases so much that the water cannot withstand a heavy vessel and it is rapidly sinking. This theory was confirmed by experiment: the water in the pool was saturated with methane in a very short period of time, as a result of which all objects floating in the pool went to the bottom.
With the current warming of ocean waters, which has affected the deep layers, the outputs of huge methane bubbles have become much more frequent. One incredibly large bubble that came to the surface in the western Indian Ocean was observed by astronauts from orbit. Any floating craft that finds itself in the epicenter of such a bubble will sink in a matter of seconds.
Sudden breakthroughs of methane from sea deposits explain, in particular, the disappearance of ships in the Bermuda Triangle, the Devil's Sea and some other places where large accumulations of methane ice lie at the bottom. In this regard, the Arctic ones are of particular danger.
In August 2012, in the Laptev Sea, the bottom "not far from the coast, in clear weather, calm water, in front of a dozen eyewitnesses, a boat with three fishermen suddenly sank. “There was a loud bang to our right,” said 62-year-old Vasily Nikolayev, who was fishing on his boat. And in that direction, Simonenko and his comrades were just hunting.
I looked there, and there everything seemed to be in a haze. The very air trembles. Simonenko's boat is also trembling, and suddenly it is gone. And from where there was a haze, strong waves went. I have heard from anglers I know that the sea sometimes claps. One day I heard a bang myself. But that it could drag away a boat with people - I wouldn’t believe it if I saw it with my own eyes.

"DESCOLATION OF SHELF METHANHYDRATES - "THIS IS A REAL DISASTER"
The expedition of Shakhova and Semiletov periodically measured the surface temperature of the sea water on the shelf of the Laptev Sea and drilled the bottom to find out if the methane deposits were still in a "frozen" state. As a result, it was found that the water in the bottom layers of the Arctic seas in some places heats up during the summer by more than 7 degrees Celsius.

For this reason, some bottom methane deposits have already been “thawed out” (for example, near the Lena River delta) and emit hundreds of cubic meters of gas to the surface, etc. “Methane evaporation from methane hydrate deposits on the Siberian shelf has a negative impact not only on the Arctic region, but also on the climate of the entire globe,” N. Shakova believes.

In turn, Professor of Cambridge University Peter Wadhams - and the head of the Anglo-American scientific group studying the current state of the Arctic, notes that the melting of methane hydrates on the Siberian shelf began only recently. “Massive breakdown of offshore methane hydrates can be a real disaster,” he emphasizes.

Wodhams and his colleagues calculated that the process of releasing methane from the Siberian shelf in just a decade could increase the temperature on the planet by about 0.6 degrees Celsius.

"POINT OF NO RETURN" PASSED?

The close attention of scientists around the world is also caused by methane deposits on land. With the current warming, they pose no less danger to the Earth's climate than deposits at the bottom of the oceans. Huge reserves of methane are stored in the Siberian permafrost. Formed more than 10 thousand years ago during the last ice age, the giant frozen swamps of Western Siberia constantly generate methane in themselves.

Their ice traps this gas, partly coming from within the planet, partly produced by microbes living in the soil. Today, in summer, the permafrost thaws deeper than before, and gradually disappears along the edges, and tons of methane “stored” in past centuries enter the atmosphere. All this leads to increased global warming on the planet, which, in turn, leads to even greater melting of "methane ice".

In the press, this process was called the "methane flywheel". The first studies of methane deposits in permafrost began in the 1990s. However, very little is known about how much permafrost methane is emitted into the atmosphere. According to various estimates, in general for the Arctic, including the shelf and land, this is from 20 to 100 million tons per year. Most scientists in the West believe that the "point of no return" in the process of thawing permafrost has been passed.

Climate warming has already led to the active disintegration of "methane ice" in Siberia and the Arctic Ocean. The chain reaction has started. The release of Arctic methane provokes the active melting of icebergs and the ice cover of the planet and increases warming, since methane retains heat in the atmosphere much better than other gases. “Our attempts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through quotas are ridiculous,” says Prof. J. Worgate from Michigan. - Look at the tundra.

This is its methane now the main source of warming, and it is impossible to keep it with any quotas and prohibitions. "Methane ice" is melting everywhere now, but, as Russian experts believe, Arctic methane deposits, held back only by a relatively thin crust of ice, are melting much more intensively than similar deposits in other regions of the earth.

Scientists do not undertake to predict when the large-scale release of Arctic methane will begin. But if warming continues at its current rate, such a release will begin as early as around 2030. As a result, the greenhouse effect on the planet will increase many times over. By the middle of the century, the amount of precipitation will increase sharply on the planet, flooding of low-lying areas will begin, hot periods will become more frequent, water quality will deteriorate, crops will decrease, and pathogenic microbes will begin to develop rapidly.

However, the main danger of the greenhouse effect is the escape of water vapor into space, dehydration of the planet, turning it into a similarity to the current Venus or Mars.