(physical reality) -(empirical reality) = religion. Religion doesn't power electric sockets.
Methane hydrate phase diagrams,
http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/oil...s_phasebase.gif http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/oil...ns_phasearc.gif http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/oil..._phaseocean.gif 1) There is no reasonable way to get to it at those ocean or permafrost depths.
2) The "immense deposts" are dilutely dispersed through hundreds of thousands of cubic miles of continental shelf and deeper ocean sediments.
3) It falls apart on the way to the surface.
4) If you destabilized a suitably large deposit worth mining you could trigger an uncontrollable massive (cubic miles, STP) methane release. Sediment is only a mud pile.
4a) Methane is a powerful Greenhouse Effect gas.
4b) Methane is flammable.
4c) Sea foam is much less dense than water. Everything formery floating in the froth would head right for the bottom - that's your mining ships and you.
As with all things Enviro-whiner, it is a nice Liberal demo and crap when performed at scale. Nature is non-linear. Don't take Uncle Al's word for it - do a methane hydrate Day of Doom experiment yourself: One unopened 2-liter bottle of fizzy soft drink at room temp. One Mentos candy.
Securely place the 2-liter bottle of fizzy pop on lawn, top up. Carefully unscrew the top and remove. Is everything OK? Good! Now drop in one Mentos candy to furnish heterogeneous nucleation sites. That is what a methane hydrate mining screwup will do,
BIG TIME.
http://www.funnycoolstuff.com/2006/06/12/diet-coke-and-mentos-experiments/ God, save us from do-gooders and inflict us with scientists.
