

Vast costs of Arctic change - anigbrowl
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v499/n7459/pdf/499401a.pdf

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anigbrowl
Overlooked by most churnalists yesterday was this: _The release of methane
from thawing permafrost beneath the East Siberian Sea, off northern Russia,_
alone _comes with an average global price tag of $60 trillion in the absence
of mitigating action — a figure comparable to the size of the world economy in
2012 (about $70 trillion). The total cost of Arctic change will be much
higher._

Methane can be converted to (much more environmentally friendly) methanol:
[http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Methane_to_methanol](http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Methane_to_methanol)

There have been recent and successful field tests of fuel
production/extraction of methane hydrates, with the bonus of performing carbon
sequestration at the same time. This financial year, we're spending the
princely sum of $11.5 million on further research:
[http://energy.gov/articles/us-and-japan-complete-
successful-...](http://energy.gov/articles/us-and-japan-complete-successful-
field-trial-methane-hydrate-production-technologies)

Original news report from 2010 on ESS emissions:
[http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/03/04/us-climate-
methane...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/03/04/us-climate-methane-
idUSTRE6233ZU20100304)

Current releases of methane worldwide are about 600m tons per annum, though
some of this is cyclical.
[http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html](http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html)

