Scientists from St. Petersburg find high methane readings near oil disaster
site
By Craig Pittman, staff writer
Tampa Bay Times: July 21, 2010
ST. PETERSBURG - Two years before the Deepwater Horizon explosion,
scientists from SRI International took readings on the levels of methane in
the Gulf of Mexico less than 10 miles from the rig. Last year, they went
back and did it again.
Now, after the rig blew up and gushed oil for more than 80 days, SRI's
scientists from St. Petersburg have returned to the same area just northwest
of the disaster and taken fresh readings.
They found levels of methane - a particularly potent greenhouse gas - are
now 100 times higher than normal, SRI scientists said. They can't say for
sure it's from BP, said SRI director Larry Langebrake, but "it is a sign
that says there are things going on here that need to be researched."
Higher levels of methane can cause problems both in the gulf and around the
globe.
Seeps in the ocean floor put small amounts of methane into the water, where
it's consumed by naturally occurring microbes. Higher concentrations of
methane can cause the microbe population to boom, gobbling up oxygen needed
by other marine life and producing dead zones in the gulf.
The other problem, said Langebrake: "Methane is a stronger greenhouse gas
than carbon dioxide."
In fact, it's 20 times worse than carbon dioxide, trapping lots more heat
close to the earth, contributing to climate change. And it can hang around
in the atmosphere for up to 15 years.
In addition to the increased amount of methane, the SRI tests "did show
indications that the methane was further up in the water column than we had
seen it before," said Carol Lutken of the University of Mississippi, which
is part of a consortium with SRI that has been doing the tests.
The findings from SRI are not the first to suggest that Deepwater Horizon is
gushing methane as well as oil. Scientists from Texas A&M who tested the
water within 5 miles of Deepwater Horizon reported finding methane
concentrations that were 100,000 times higher than normal.
However they do suggest that the methane may be spreading throughout the
gulf just like the underwater plumes of oil found by oceanographers from the
University of South Florida and other academic institutions.
SRI is still analyzing the results. "We're still trying to understand what
those things are telling us," Langebrake said.
SRI, based in Menlo Park, Calif., is the nonprofit scientific research
institute that began as the research arm of Stanford University. In 2006 St.
Petersburg persuaded the company to open a marine technology operation here
to take advantage of research being produced at nearby state and federal
facilities. Its offices opened last year near Albert Whitted Airport.
SRI is part of a consortium of institutions that has been studying natural
seeps in the ocean floor for what until recently was known as the U.S.
Minerals Management Service. The seeps come from deposits of methane gas
that, because they are so deep beneath the ocean, have frozen into icy
crystals.
Disturbing those deposits - say, by drilling an oil well through them - can
turn that solid methane into a liquid, leaving the ocean floor unstable,
explained Lutken.
Worse, the freed gas may explode. One theory on the cause of the Deepwater
Horizon disaster blames a methane gas bubble for causing the explosion and
fire that sank the rig. There have been rumors that a similar methane
explosion could cause a tsunami, a concern that government officials say is
unfounded.
Generally the oil industry tries to avoid methane areas during drilling for
safety reasons. But the U.S. Energy Department wants to find a way to
harvest fuel from those methane deposits, Lutken said.
For its research, the consortium persuaded the government to let it take
over an area of the gulf floor that turned out to be in the same deepwater
canyon as BP's well, Lutken said. But they're to the northwest and on a
slope, just over half a mile deep, while Deepwater Horizon's well is a mile
below the surface.
That means that the methane in higher levels that SRI discovered during the
most recent tests on June 25 and 26 has apparently been flowing upslope,
Lutken said.
What may turn out to be as important as those higher methane readings,
though, are the earlier test results from research cruises before the oil
rig explosion, she said, because they offer a snapshot of what "normal"
should look like.
"We have what it was like in the neighborhood before Deepwater Horizon
occurred," she said.
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http://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologist/2010/07/bp_scientists_and_gag_orders.php
Mike the Mad Biologist
Mad rantings about politics, evolution, and microbiology
BP, Scientists, and Gag Agreements
Category: Bidness . Ethics . Funding . Oil
Posted on: July 19, 2010 10:10 AM, by Mike
Last week, I wrote about a column by biologist Marc Lipsitch, who described
a conflict of interest for scientists that has not been discussed: gag
agreements for scientists who accept industry funding. In other words, if
the corporate funder doesn't like the results, nobody will hear about them.
These agreements also present other problems, such as reviewing grant
proposals or receiving federal funding, as the scientist will have access to
information that is unknown and undiscussed*.
Well (pun intended), BP appears to have tried this strategy too (italics
mine):
BP has been trying to hire marine scientists from universities around the
Gulf Coast in an apparent move to bolster the company's legal defense
against anticipated lawsuits related to the Gulf oil spill, according to a
report from The Press-Register in Mobile, Ala.
Scientists from Louisiana State University, Mississippi State University
and Texas A&M have reportedly accepted BP's offer, according to the
paper....
Robert Wiygul, an Ocean Springs lawyer who specializes in environmental
law, said BP is in effect denying the government access to valuable
information by hiring the scientists and adding them to its legal team. "It
also buys silence," Wiygul told the Press-Register, "thanks to
confidentiality clauses in the contracts."
Scientists who sign the contract to work for BP will be subject to a
strict confidentiality agreement. They will be barred from publishing,
sharing or even speaking about data they collected for at least three years.
George Crozier, director of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, who was approached
by BP, told the paper: "It makes me feel like they were more interested in
making sure we couldn't testify against them than in having us testify for
them."
BP even tried to hire the entire marine sciences department at the
University of South Alabama, according to the report. Bob Shipp, the head of
the department, said he declined the offer because of the confidentiality
clause.
Since these researchers from Louisiana State University, Mississippi State
University and Texas A&M will not be able to discuss their data, all the
work they do and anything they publicly state simply can't be given
credence. To the extent these universities are about scholarship, this is a
serious violation of that mission. And the article highlights the need for
all universities to address gag agreements:
But according to the Press-Register, Shipp can't prevent his colleagues
from signing on with BP because staff members are allowed to do outside
consultation for up to eight hours a week.
"More than one scientist interviewed by the Press-Register described being
offered $250 an hour through BP lawyers," the article said. "At eight hours
a week, that amounts to $104,000 a year."
Ultimately this stems from:
the lack of recognition that you can't have it all. Sometimes you have to
make choices, and those choices confer benefits and costs. If you want a job
where your ideas and contributions are taken seriously because you don't
have a hidden agenda (good work if you can get it), then there are certain
things you can't do.
Shame on these scientists. And the NRDC is right: the research funds should
be administered by the National Academy of Sciences. But then we would have
to be rude and uncivil to BP, and the Obama Administration just didn't have
the guts to do that.
*Thinking about this issue some more, it seems that an unscrupulous person
could write a proposal for work that they have already done, and receive
funding. This wastes money and takes funding away from other projects.
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