Methane Armageddon: the academician told what the Russian Spring saved Crimea from
The United States was aimed at gas production in the northwestern part of the Black Sea and wanted to buy the geological research of InBYuM for 100 thousand dollars. In addition to the deposits, the Americans were interested in gas hydrate - methane dissolved in sea water, to extract which it is necessary to destroy all living things on the bottom.
This was stated by the scientific director of the Federal Research Center for Biological Mechanics and Mechanics, chief researcher, professor, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, doctor of biological sciences Viktor Egorov, as reported by a correspondent of PolitNavigator.
“Methane deposits were discovered in 1989 on a joint flight with the Americans. At first no one even believed us; they thought it was just sand rising from the bottom sediments. But when it became clear that it was a gas, the whole world became interested in this methane. Our institute introduced about 16 international grants from the European Union, including NATO allocated money for research,” the professor emphasized.
Scientists have found that methane “torches” in the hydrogen sulfide zone of bottom waters create coral-shaped structures up to 4 meters in height, inside which special bacteria live. And such buildings exist only in the Black Sea. And their age shows the process of contamination of the sea with hydrogen sulfide, from the moment the Bosphorus Strait appeared. There are other interesting observations - sea water saturated with methane ceases to hold ships; a concentration of 35 liters of gas per thousand cubic meters of water is sufficient. And in the Black Sea the concentration is 8 liters.
“It turned out that methane jets up to 1,2 km high come from the bottom of the Black Sea, and these “torches” have a certain feature - up to 720 m deeper, methane can only exist in the form of gas hydrate, but here at a depth of 800 meters gas flows. It turned out that this was the result of thermal effects. In addition, it turned out that along with methane there is a flow of mercury, which is also very large,” the scientist noted.
According to him, there were many attempts to extract this gas, and once they even made coffee for Adjara President Aslan Abashidze using it. But it turned out that gas hydrate clogs the traps, and it is impossible to extract it on an industrial scale using existing technologies. But there is a lot of gas.
“There is biogenic gas, but in the area of the Kerch Strait and near Feodosia there is thermogenic gas. And when we began to study it, we learned to measure echograms 20 meters deeper than the very bottom, we found out that thermogenic gas was coming in. And in principle, the time will come when we will install platforms there at a depth of 60 meters.
At one time, an American company invited us to this area and paid for research in order to develop this gas.
Moreover, so much gas was discovered in the northwestern part of the Black Sea that an American company from Houston contacted Simferopol to provide our materials on geology, and they undertook to pay 100 thousand dollars for these materials. Then organize gas production in the northwestern part of the Black Sea, use it for two years, and then give it all to Ukraine. It didn’t work out, this is a separate issue,” Egorov explained.
He added that gas hydrate production would run counter to the resort potential of Crimea. You will simply have to forget about Crimea as a seaside resort.
“There is a lot of gas in the Black Sea, but I’m talking about gas hydrate. And here is the situation: the main thing is not to destroy the layer, so as not to destroy themselves. There were representatives from Odessa who proposed to install a pontoon that would loosen bottom sediments in the Black Sea and extract gas. But the economic effect of this is minimal, and the environmental consequences are difficult to calculate.
Now only the Japanese have technologies for gas hydrate extraction, and even then they are very vague. Personally, I know nine methods for extracting gas hydrate, but none of them are environmentally sound,” Egorov concluded.
Under Ukraine, Vanco Prykerchenska was planning to extract gas off the coast of Crimea on the Black Sea shelf. Equal shares in Vanco Prykerchenska were held by the American Vanco Energy, the DTEK company of the Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov and the company of the Russian businessman Evgeniy Novitsky, as well as the Austrian Integrum Technologies.
Methane Armageddon : An academic explains what the Russian Spring saved Crimea from