• Shell halts 2013 drilling plans in Alaska's Arctic seas

    Sara Francis / U.S. Coast Guard via AP, file

    An aerial image provided by the U.S. Coast Guard shows the Royal Dutch Shell drilling rig Kulluk aground off a small island near Kodiak Island on Jan. 1. Shell announced Wednesday that it had put off further drilling in Alaska's Arctic Ocean for the year.

    By Yereth Rosen, Reuters

    ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Royal Dutch Shell will not drill for oil in Alaska's Arctic seas this year, the company said Wednesday in a widely expected decision that follows a series of high-profile setbacks in 2012.

    Both critics and supporters of Shell's controversial Arctic offshore foray welcomed its decision to give up on drilling there for 2013 while the company tries to get its drill ships ready and answers to U.S. investigators.

    Michael LeVine, senior Pacific counsel for environmental group Oceana in Juneau, Alaska, said Shell and the government agencies regulating the company faced a "crisis of confidence."

    "The decisions to allow Shell to operate in the Arctic Ocean clearly were premature," LeVine said in a statement. "The company is not prepared and has absolutely no one but itself to blame for its failures."

    Few observers doubted that a postponement of Shell's drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas was coming after the company said earlier this month its two Arctic offshore rigs would head to Asia for repairs and upgrades.

    But ConocoPhillips reaffirmed on Wednesday that it will continue with its own plans to drill one or two exploration wells in the Chukchi Sea in 2014 and that it expected to submit more information on the plans to federal regulator by the end of March.

    Analysts say the Arctic's allure for oil drillers remains strong given the complications of politics and violence they face in other parts of the world.

    Shell has spent more than $4.5 billion searching for oil in Alaska's Arctic seas since it won licenses to drill in 2005. Yet its season last year was delayed by problems with equipment, and 2012 ended dramatically with the grounding of the Kulluk drill ship in a storm as it was being towed south for the winter.

    "Our decision to pause in 2013 will give us time to ensure the readiness of all our equipment and people," said Marvin Odum, director of Shell Upstream Americas.

    David Yarnold, of environmental group Audubon, said Shell had "come to its senses," since drilling amid ice floes near the nurseries of threatened wildlife was not "smart or safe."

    The Anglo-Dutch company's move into Alaska's Arctic waters -- the first since the Macondo disaster of 2010 -- was expected to face criticism, but technical problems with its rigs led to even deeper concerns.

    'A disappointment'
    U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said in a statement that she was a strong supporter of Shell's activities off her state's northern coast if they meet the "highest safety standards."

    "This pause -- and it is only a pause in a multiyear drilling program that will ultimately provide great benefits both to the state of Alaska and the nation as a whole -- is necessary for Shell to repair its ships and make the necessary updates to its exploration plans," she said.

    Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell, also a Republican, said in a statement: "While Shell's decision to pause drilling in Alaska is a disappointment, I commend the company's commitment to safety and responsible development."

    "Much progress has been made toward developing the vast resources in Alaska's Outer Continental Shelf, and we recognize this is a long-term endeavor," the governor added. "Taking the long view, we are at the early stage of a new era of oil exploration in the Arctic, one that will continue for decades in a measured and responsible way."

    Even before the Kulluk ran aground on Dec. 31 after escaping its tow lines, Shell's 2012 drilling program was stalled by troubles with support vessels and regulatory scrutiny of the other rig, the Noble Discoverer, owned by Noble Corp.

    After the Arctic drilling season closed at the end of October, a fire broke out on the Discoverer. There were also engine failures on the Aiviq, the specially designed ship pulling the Kulluk, before it lost its tow connection.

    Related:

    Drilling in Arctic too risky, oil CEO says

    Shell sues environmental groups to score drilling rights

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  • Climate-changing methane 'rapidly destabilizing' off East Coast, study finds

    NOAA

    In this visualization, the Gulf Stream is seen as the dark red current coming into the Atlantic from the Gulf of Mexico.

    By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

    A changing Gulf Stream off the East Coast has destabilized frozen methane deposits trapped under nearly 4,000 square miles of seafloor, scientists reported Wednesday. And since methane is even more potent than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas, the researchers said, any large-scale release could have significant climate impacts.

    Temperature changes in the Gulf Stream are "rapidly destabilizing methane hydrate along a broad swathe of the North American margin," the experts said in a study published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.

    Using seismic records and ocean models, the team estimated that 2.5 gigatonnes of frozen methane hydrate are being destabilized and could separate into methane gas and water.

    It is not clear if that is happening yet, but that methane gas would have the potential to rise up through the ocean and into the atmosphere, where it would add to the greenhouse gases warming Earth.

    The 2.5 gigatonnes isn't enough to trigger a sudden climate shift, but the team worries that other areas around the globe might be seeing a similar destabilization. 

    USGS

    Methane hydrate samples

    "It is unlikely that the western North Atlantic margin is the only area experiencing changing ocean currents," they noted. "Our estimate ... may therefore represent only a fraction of the methane hydrate currently destabilizing globally."

    The wider destabilization evidence, co-author Ben Phrampus told NBC News, includes data from the Arctic and Alaska's northern slope in the Beaufort Sea.

    And it's not just under the seafloor that methane has been locked up. Some Arctic land area are seeing permafrost thaw, which could release methane stored there as well.

    An expert who was not part of the study said it suggests that methane could become a bigger climate factor than carbon dioxide.

    "We may approach a turning point" from a warming driven by man-made carbon dioxide to a warming driven by methane, Jurgen Mienert, the geology department chair at Norway's University of Tromso, told NBC News.

    "The interactions between the warming Arctic Ocean and the potentially huge methane-ice reservoirs beneath the Arctic Ocean floor point towards increasing instability," he added.

    For thousands of years, permafrost has trapped Siberia's carbon-rich soil, a compost of Ice Age plant and animal remains. But global warming is melting the permafrost and exposing the soil, causing highly flammable methane to seep out. NBC's Jim Maceda reports.

    He also noted, however, that "one of the big unknowns is the magnitude of rapid methane escape from the ocean floor, and how natural filter systems react and affect the future ocean, its environment and the climate."

    Relate: Thawing Arctic permafrost is releasing methane

    Another unknown is what caused the Gulf Stream changes, said Phrampus, an earth sciences PhD candidate at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

    "Multiple events can play a factor, such as changing sea level or an addition of cold/fresh water from the north," Phrampus said, adding he was hopeful that the changes might be "reversible under their own influence."

    But, he added, "we need more data to resolve this, and we are currently investigating this process."

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  • Warming sign in the Arctic: Starving female polar bear challenges male for food

    A recent voyage by the National Geographic Explorer ship to the Arctic captured a female polar bear fighting a male for food. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports on the trip, which allowed experts to evaluate the environmental changes in the Arctic.

    By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

    Wildlife biologist Ian Bullock is a seasoned visitor to the Arctic, but even he was surprised by what he saw last month: a thin female polar bear, shadowed by her cub, trying to challenge a much bigger, stronger male for food.


    It wasn't much of a challenge, but it showed just how desperate she was, Bullock told NBC News on returning from his 10th straight summer cruise to the Arctic.

    That desperation, he feels, stems from the fact that the Arctic's summer sea ice — which polar bears using as floating stations from which to hunt seals — has been shrinking over the last few decades due to a warming Arctic, forcing polar bears into smaller areas and more intense competition. 

    "She was the thinnest female with cub I have ever seen," he said. "She had a single cub which implies she has already lost one other cub this year.

    "If she cannot feed, she cannot suckle her cub; with a hungry cub it is even harder for her to hunt effectively, so from what I saw her last cub is at risk and ultimately so is she," he added. "This is why she was challenging a big male with food. She was hungry enough to take a big risk." 

    In a video filmed during the National Geographic Explorer cruise to the Arctic's Svalbard region, Bullock said it looks like that reduced ice is "really putting the bears under stress."

    "The worst thing is when we've encountered bears, we've found them really packed in tight, in the last little areas of fast ice attached to land, or the last little patches of pack ice at sea," said Bullock, who served as a guide on the cruise ship. "And there they've been in competition."

    Polar bears are listed as "vulnerable" and in decline by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which estimates the population at no more than 25,000 across the Arctic.

    The U.S., which has two Arctic regions where polar bears live, in 2008 listed its population as "threatened".

    Last year, researchers cited three incidents where polar bears might even have resorted to cannibalism due to warming and reduced sea ice.

    The diminished sea ice also got the attention of the National Geographic Explorer's skipper.

    Captain Leif Skog told NBC News that he had e-mailed his boss, Sven Lindblad of Lindblad Expeditions, to describe "a shocking escalation of the reduction of sea ice."

    One data graph he monitored daily, showing the total volume of Arctic sea ice, "could be called the death spiral of the Arctic sea ice," he said in his e-mail to Lindblad.

    Because of the reduced sea ice, he added, the cruise was able to visit northeast Greenland "a month earlier than what was normal in the past."

    "We expected to face some sea ice but everything was gone in the fjords upon our arrival," he added. "The sea water temperature in the fjords was also unbelievably high."

    Another expert on the cruise called the outside temperature "surprisingly warm." 

    "It was T-shirt weather," Paul Berkman, an environmental science professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, told NBC News. Berkman noted two other major Arctic developments over the summer:

    Berkman said the polar regions, and the Arctic in particular, show an "amplified response" to a warming climate ahead of other parts of the globe.

    That response is twofold, he adds: Arctic temperatures have warmed 3-6 degrees F above the global average, and reduced ice removes huge amounts of reflective white from the sea and reveals a dark sea that absorbs heat.

    The sea ice is like "a giant mirror on Earth's surface" he said. "Without summer Arctic sea ice, more heat from the sun is absorbed into the Earth system, which is a feedback that further accelerates warming of our climate."

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  • In Arctic oil battle, Shell starts preliminary drilling

    Shell

    Shell's Noble Discoverer drilling rig sits above an oil field in Alaska's Chukchi Sea on Saturday, Sept. 8.

    By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

    More than 20 years after the last drill bit went into the Chukchi Sea floor off northern Alaska, a Shell drilling rig on Sunday began work that the company hopes will lead to a bonanza that adds to its bottom line and extends Alaska's oil economy.


    "Today marks the culmination of Shell’s six-year effort to explore for potentially significant oil and gas reserves, which are believed to lie under Alaska’s Outer Continental Shelf," Shell Alaska Vice President Pete Slaiby said in a statement.

    Welcomed by the Obama administration, the exploration in Alaska's Arctic waters has become a major battleground for environmental groups, which fear oil spills in the pristine area already threatened by warming temperatures and reduced sea ice.

    "The melting Arctic is a dire warning, not an invitation to make a quick buck," said Dan Howells, a campaign director for Greenpeace.

    Shell has paid the U.S. $2.8 billion for lease rights to areas in the Chukchi and neighboring Beaufort Sea, and the U.S. estimates those waters hold 26 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 130 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

    On Aug. 30, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that Shell, even though its spill response barge was not yet certified by the Coast Guard, would be permitted to drill pilot holes and then dig what's called a cellar to hold a critical safety device.

    The pilot holes will be 1,300 feet below the ocean floor and roughly 4,000 feet above a known petroleum reservoir. 

    Marvin Odum, Shell Oil president, discusses Tropical Storm Debby and its impact on oil production, oil drilling in Alaska and more, with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo.

    Shell argues there's little chance of a spill like BP's 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster. Drilling will be in water about 130 feet deep, it says, versus 5,000 at the site of the gulf spill, and wellhead pressure is expected to be far less.

    Support vessels could quickly choke off and cleanup any spill, Shell adds. 

    Workers on Friday moored the drill ship, the Noble Discoverer, in heavy seas with eight anchors that each weigh 15 tons. The diameter of the circular pattern of anchors is more than 6,500-feet, it added.

    The immediate goal is to dig a 20-by-40-foot mud-line cellar that will house a blowout preventer below the seafloor, protecting it from ice scraping the bottom.

    Shell's oil spill response barge remains in Bellingham, Wash., and is expected to undergo sea trials over the weekend, Shell said.

    Shell

    This illustration shows how far drilling will go for now, as well as what the cellar for the blowout preventer will look like.

    Shell last explored in the area in 1991, but it was not economically viable to produce from there at the time.

    Shell's other Arctic Ocean drill ship, the Kulluk, is in the Beaufort Sea waiting for the fall whale hunt to end before moving to the drill site.

    The company isn't expecting to drill for oil until next year, since it only has a few weeks before sea ice forms in the area. It will then resume drilling next summer.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • 'A less polar pole': Arctic sea ice at record low

    A report from the National Snow and Ice Data Center shows the Arctic's melting ice is resulting in the lowest sea ice levels since satellites started tracking the measurements in 1979. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

    The amount of summer sea ice in the Arctic has reached a record low in three decades of satellite data, scientists reported Tuesday, with one of them describing recent warm years there as creating a "less polar pole." The decline was expected to continue for at least several more days before cold weather sets in and creates new ice through fall and winter.


    The area of Arctic waters covered by sea ice was measured at 1.58 million square miles on Sunday, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reported. That's below the previous record low of 1.61 million square miles set on Sept. 18, 2007, and in line with earlier expectations for the season.

    "Including this year, the six lowest extents in the satellite record have occurred in the last six years," the center noted on its website.

     

     

    "Parts of the Arctic have become like a giant Slushee this time of year" due to thinning ice, Walt Meier, a scientist at the center, told reporters.

    That thinner ice also explains how a storm in early August made a significant impact in speeding up the decline this month, Meier said.

    At NASA, which helps with the satellite data, scientist Claire Parkinson said the trend has been "strongly downward."

    This visualization shows the extent of Arctic sea ice on Aug. 26, 2012, the smallest area in three decades of satellite records. The yellow line shows the average minimum summer ice coverage from 1979 to 2010.

    The 2007 decrease "stunned" researchers since it was so large compared to previous years, she said, and "this year it's plummeting" further.

    It's not just sea ice in summer that's been weakened, she added. "No matter what month you're in, it's less ice than it used to be decades ago," she said.

    The researchers added that manmade emissions tied to global warming offer the best explanation for the decline.

    Ted Scambos, a senior NSIDC researcher, told NBC News that no one weather pattern explains the downward trend. "Greenhouse gasses are the only consistent explanation for a persistently warming Arctic," he added.

    "The Arctic was our refrigerator," he said, but the warmer weather of the last five or six years have meant "a less polar pole."

    Scambos said the Arctic system is too variable to guarantee that each future year would show a decline, but over time he expects the decline to continue. "I think we can expect further declines to new records," he said, "and eventually, an ice-free North Pole."

    Oct. 15, 2009: The Arctic Ocean will be an "open sea" almost entirely free from ice within just ten years. Thats the claim by a team of researchers. ITN's Tom Barton reports.

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  • Shell scales back Arctic drilling this summer

    Capt. Kristjan B. Laxfoss via AP

    A Shell drilling ship drifts near shore on Unalaska Island, Alaska, on July 14. ship lost its mooring but did not ground and was not damaged, the Coast Guard said.

    By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

    The first drilling in Arctic waters off Alaska later this summer is being curtailed, Shell said Tuesday. The company focused on the ongoing presence of sea ice, while environmentalists pointed to the fact that Shell has yet to get certification for its spill containment system. 


    Shell had planned to drill five exploration wells this summer but now will aim for two as well as additional "top hole" locations, "meaning we will begin new wells which can be completed in 2013," Shell spokeswoman Kelly op de Weegh told NBC News.

    "We have continued to be delayed by the sea ice in place, and while the ice is just now beginning to clear near one of our locations, we are still monitoring for ice to clear elsewhere," she added.

    "If the ice had been cleared, we would be awaiting final testing and certification of the containment barge,' she said.

    The containment system was being tested Tuesday and later in the week, she said, adding that "we feel very good about the progress we’ve made."

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    The drilling will be in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. Thick Chukchi sea ice stands in contrast to thin ice or wide-open seas in other parts of the Arctic.

    Shell hopes drilling the "top holes" will allow it to get back on track and still have 10 wells drilled by the end of summer in 2013.

    Watch the most-viewed videos on NBCNews.com

    Shell suffered another setback in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, earlier this month when one of its exploration ships, the Discoverer, drifted toward shore and nearly grounded.

    Drilling opponents say the recent problems show why Shell's plans are too risky.

    "As Shell Oil continues to push to drill exploratory wells in our Arctic Ocean this summer, the oil giant is giving us a preview of how disastrous a situation this could be," Kristen Miller of the Alaska Wilderness League said in a statement. 

    Greenpeace USA questioned whether the mooring system in Shell's barge would be safe. "If the Coast Guard certifies this barge with a mooring system that can’t withstand strong storms, how will Shell handle an oil spill during such a storm," asked Jackie Dragon, the group's lead Arctic campaigner.

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  • Some offshore Arctic waters to be leased for energy drilling, US says

    Ted S. Warren / AP

    This Shell drilling rig, upgraded in Seattle, will soon head to Alaska, where Shell hopes to drill exploratory wells in Arctic waters.

    By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

    Parts of America’s Arctic waters, long a battleground between environmentalists and the energy industry, will be open for oil and natural gas drilling in four years, the Obama administration said Tuesday -- the same day Shell announced it had successfully tested a new spill containment system for its planned Arctic exploration this summer. 


    Details will be released Thursday, but Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told reporters the idea is to adopt "targeted leasing" -- opening some areas in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas for drilling while protecting others critical for native subsistence and ecosystem health.

    Shell is awaiting the final permits to explore in the region this summer, and on Tuesday said a device to cap any spill was successfully tested in waters off Seattle. "The capping stack was deployed to a depth consistent with the shallow water scenario we will encounter off the coast of Alaska," the oil giant said in a statement.

    How the industry prepares for spills has come under greater scrutiny since the 2010 BP oil spill disaster, where the containment system failed.

    Environmentalists oppose drilling in America's Arctic due to the sensitive ecosystem it provides for polar bears, walruses, whales and seals. 

    Shell

    A newly designed "capping stack" is tested by Shell in waters off Seattle, Wash., on Monday.

    "There is no viable way to clean up oil spilled into the Arctic Ocean," Kristen Miller of the Alaska Wilderness League said in a statement. "The Arctic is perhaps the most extreme region on the planet with subzero temperatures, hurricane force storms and long periods of darkness. Spill response capacity is practically nonexistent in these remote, icy waters -- the nearest Coast Guard station is more than 1,000 miles away."

    Shell is required to have a flotilla of spill response boats should its capping system fail, and Salazar said no commercial drilling would proceed if Interior concludes that spills cannot be contained.

    Shell's work "will be conducted under the closest oversight and most rigorous safety standards in the history of the United States," he said from Norway, where he and ministers of other Arctic nations were talking about the region's energy wealth.

    Salazar was confident Shell would receive the final permits for exploratory drilling this summer. 

    "It is highly likely that the permits will be issued" because Shell has been in compliance so far, he said. In past years, and before strict standards, 30 exploratory wells were drilled in Alaska's Arctic waters with no harm, and before strict standards, Salazar noted. 

    Salazar added that other Arctic nations like Canada, Russia and Norway were busy developing Arctic energy fields and that the U.S. should also be a player as long as protections are in place.

    "These resources, if developed safely, can be important components in the 'all of the above' energy strategy," he said in a speech at the Norway meeting. The strategy was crafted after Republicans accused President Barack Obama of blocking traditional energy in favor of renewables like solar and wind.

    The Arctic areas will be part of Interior's five-year offshore lease plan being sent to Congress on Thursday.

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  • 'Megabloom' of tiny plants under Arctic sea ice tied to climate change

    Kathryn Hansen / NASA

    Arctic melt ponds visited during a July 2011 expedition on the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy gave scientists a chance to find "windows from the sky to the ocean" that are perfect for phytoplankton blooms.

    By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

    Experts were shocked to find a thick, 60-mile-long "phytoplankton megabloom" under Arctic sea ice, announcing in a study Thursday that ice made thinner by warming temperatures has, for now at least, created ideal conditions for the microscopic, single-cell plants to flourish.


    More blooms are likely hidden under the ice, making for "ecological shifts" in Arctic waters that favor some species over others since phytoplankton are the base of the marine food chain, Stanford professor and lead researcher Kevin Arrigo told msnbc.com.

    Scientists had thought Arctic phytoplankton blooms only happened after sea ice melted in summer, so the discovery is "like finding the Amazon rainforest in the middle of the Mojave Desert," added Paula Bontempi, who manages the ocean biology program at NASA, which funded the research.

    "The waters literally looked like pea soup," Arrigo said at a press conference announcing the study in the journal Science. "It was as thick as a 5-year-old child is tall."

    The team discovered the bloom in July 2011 in thin sea ice pocketed with ponds of melted ice on the Chukchi Sea off northern Alaska. Arctic sea ice has been shrinking and thinning in summer since 1979, the result of warming temperatures over the region. 

    Those melt ponds proved crucial, allowing just enough light to get the growth process started while also protecting the algae from ultraviolet radiation.

    "They were the windows from the sky to the ocean," said researcher Don Perovic, an ice scientist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

    "If I were a phytoplankton," Perovic added, "that's where I'd want to live."

    Arrigo said in his 25 years of studying phytoplankton blooms he had never seen one this large. Blooms in open water are much smaller, he noted, while very thick ice won't allow any light in to start photosynthesis.

    "It's going to be a more productive system," Arrigo said, noting that plankton bottom feeders will benefit as the plankton sinks to the bottom of the Chukchi, much of which is around 160 feet deep.

    Is this the laziest walrus colony ever? One World One Ocean's Shaun MacGillivray talks with TODAY.com's Dara Brown about this YouTube clip and his film "To The Arctic."

    The researchers didn't expect Arctic sea ice to disappear completely, since winters are still very cold, but they did note some potential downsides.

    Some fish species that rely on mid-level nutrients will suffer, Arrigo said, and the bigger issue is that a warming Arctic appears to be triggering phytoplankton blooms earlier.

    Species that can't adapt "to be there at the right time of year" will suffer, Arrigo said.

    NASA funded the expedition as a way to match the satellite-based data it gathers on the Arctic with data gathered on the ice.

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  • US claims 'unprecedented' success in test for new fuel source

    U.S. Geological Survey

    Scientists have been studying methane hydrates for years, including this drill used to estimate how much there might be under the Arctic permafrost.

    By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

    Could the future of cleaner fossil fuel really be frozen crystals now trapped in ocean sediments and under permafrost?

    Backed by an oil industry giant, the Obama administration recently tested a drilling technique in Alaska's Arctic that it says might eventually unlock "a vast, entirely untapped resource that holds enormous potential for U.S. economic and energy security." Some experts believe the reserves could provide domestic fuel for hundreds of years to come.

    U.S. Geological Survey

    Natural gas is released from methane hydrates.

    Those crystals, known as methane hydrates, contain natural gas but so far releasing that fuel has been an expensive proposition.

    The drilling has its environmental critics, but there’s also a climate bonus: The technique requires injecting carbon dioxide into the ground, thereby creating a new way to remove the warming gas from the atmosphere. 

    "You're storing the CO2, and also liberating the natural gas," Christopher Smith, the Energy Department's oil and natural gas deputy assistant secretary, told msnbc.com. "It's kind of a two-for-one."

    The Energy Department, in a statement last week, trumpeted it as "a successful, unprecedented test" and vowed to pump at least $6 million more into future testing.

    "While this is just the beginning, this research could potentially yield significant new supplies of natural gas," Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced.

    ConocoPhillips, the oil company that worked on the test at its oil facility in Alaska's North Slope, was hopeful the technique could become economically feasible for producing natural gas, a fuel that's much cleaner than petroleum.

    "Many experts believe that methane hydrates hold significant potential to supply the world with clean fossil fuel," spokesman Davy Kong told msnbc.com. "The completion of this successful test of technology is an important step in developing production technology to access this potential resource while sequestering carbon dioxide."

    But even the CO2 bonus doesn't convince environmentalists worried about a reliance on fossil fuels -- the key source for manmade carbon dioxide emissions.


    "Finding new ways to produce fossil fuels doesn't change the fact that we can't transfer to the atmosphere all the carbon in the fuels we already have without causing catastrophic climate disruption," Dan Lashof, a climate analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council, told msnbc.com.

    "Rather than perpetually seeking new sources of fossil fuel, our federal research dollars should be going into carbon-free energy sources" like solar and wind, added Brendan Cummings, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity, a group that's tied climate impacts to its petitions to protect wildlife.

    Cummings also worries about inadvertent releases of methane, which is even more powerful as a warming gas than CO2.

    Alaska's Arctic is the U.S. area "most under stress from warming," he added. "Even if we could safely develop and install infrastructure there, we're still industrializing an area that essentially should be left alone."

    Methane hydrate fans include Vladimir Romanovsky, a permafrost expert at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks.

    It has "great potential and not much danger" compared to conventional natural gas, he said. "Extracting energy and sequestering CO2 is win-win situation."

    Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the ranking Republican on the Senate energy committee, noted that future testing needs to look at issues like soil stability, but overall she was bullish.

    "If we can bring this technology to commercialization, it would truly be a game changer for America," she said in a statement. 

    "Taken together, U.S. lands and waters contain a quarter of the world’s methane hydrates -- enough to power America for 1,000 years at current rates of energy consumption," her office added.

    Related: US wants 'fracking' on fed lands to list chemicals

    Alaska alone could hold 600 trillion cubic feet of methane hydrates onshore, the office stated, citing U.S. Geological Survey estimates. That's potentially three times more than the known natural gas deposits in Alaska.

    The state also estimates a whopping 200,000 trillion cubic feet of methane hydrates lie under Alaskan waters. That reflects that fact that the vast majority of methane hydrates -- the U.S. Geological Survey estimates 99 percent -- are in ocean sediments.

    Related: Keystone pipeline application is back for US review 

    A key obstacle for Alaska, and many other areas, is that natural gas pipelines would have to be built. Moreover, today's low natural gas prices due to a saturated market mean little investment incentive, at least for now.

    U.S. Geological Survey

    A methane hydrate crystal is seen in sediment pulled up by a core drill.

    Smith, the Energy Department official, said the testing done earlier this year was notable because it was the first to produce natural gas for 30 days straight. Previous tests had only been able to do that for a few days, and the longer run should make for better analysis, he said.

    "The next steps will be determined by what we learn" in the lab over the next few months, he added.

    One hydrate expert who had been skeptical said the test showed him that it is possible to remove a costly step: melting, or dissociating, methane from the hydrates to get the fuel.

    "The advantage I see is that the need to dissociate hydrates in order to recover the gas will be reduced and probably eliminated," Gerald Holder, dean of engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, told msnbc.com.

    Having worked with the Energy Department on hydrates, Holder also said the process shouldn't have any environmental impacts "beyond what drilling for conventional gas entails."

    So when might we see commercial production? "I would guess decades," he said.

    "One decade would be optimistic," he added, "but not absurd."

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  • Cold winters tied to Arctic summers, study says

    By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

    Stuard McDill / Reuters

    Arctic sea ice is a key focus for climate scientists, including this expedition last fall on drift ice some 500 miles from the North Pole.

    Remember New York City's 2011 blizzard? Or Florida's 2010 hard freeze? Blame them on the summer.

    According to a new study, those are the type of extreme cold events in the northern hemisphere's winter that appear tied to warmer Arctic summers.

    It's certainly counterintuitive, the authors acknowledge, and that could be why climate models haven't picked up on the trend identified in the study: The warmer Arctic, along with melting sea ice, create more moisture in the Arctic and that typically leads to more snowfall across northern Eurasia in October -- a key factor in this entire dynamic. That extra snowfall, in turn, alters what's known as the Arctic Oscillation, sending cold blasts down south.

    "I don't think you can point to a single event and attribute it to a climate signal," lead author Judah Cohen tells msnbc.com, "but I would say that the warm Arctic probably helped tip the odds" for the 2011 New York City blizzard. "And when you start to consider that five of the largest snowstorms for NYC occurred over the past 10 years ... that becomes harder to explain by chance alone. Instead there must be a reason and the reason we propose is the warm Arctic and the subsequent increase in fall snow cover." 

    The Arctic sea ice has melted to near-record levels, scientists say, and it could shrink even more. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    The study would seem to be upended by this mild winter, which follows a warm Arctic. So what gives?

    "The paper does not claim that every winter will be cold," says Cohen, the director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research, a for-profit weather service.

    It turns out Eurasia snow cover in October was low. Why?

    The reason "has remained elusive," Cohen says. "All I can say is that the atmospheric pattern was less conducive to the advance of snow cover this October compared to the last two Octobers.

    "The snow cover did advance rapidly in November this year," he adds, "however our research has shown that October is the key month; rapid advances in snow cover the other months does not have the same impact."

    There is a caveat to the warm summer/cold winter theory.

    "If it continues to get much warmer in the fall," Cohen says, "precipitation that currently falls as snow will fall as rain instead, eliminating the winter cooling."

    The study was published Friday in the peer-reviewed Environmental Research Letters. Scientists at the University of Massachusetts and University of Alaska contributed as well.

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  • Stuck in ice: Alaska fuel convoy moves just 50 feet

    U.S. Coast Guard via AP

    The U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy approaches the Russian-flagged tanker vessel Renda Tuesday evening. Shifting ice has slowed the progress of the paired vessels. The ice tends to close in, cutting off the path between the two ships. When that happens, the icebreaker doubles back and makes a relief cut to take pressure off the tanker and open a pathway.

    By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

    What a difference a day makes: After cutting through 53 miles of ice on Monday, a seafaring convoy trying to get fuel to ice-bound Nome, Alaska, made just 50 feet of progress through most of Tuesday.

    "They were roughly in the same position" as Tuesday morning, U.S. Coast Guard spokeswoman Sara Francis confirmed to msnbc.com early Wednesday.

    "Unfortunately, as we watch, there has been no real 'change up' in Renda's progress toward Nome since this morning," ship pilot Pete Garay told alaskadispatch.com from the Russian-flagged fuel tanker on Tuesday afternoon as the ice and strong currents prevented any progress.

    The U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy is trying to break through ice for Renda, but the process can be tedious. Late Tuesday, they were still some 97 miles south of Nome, in northwest Alaska.

    The two ships left Alaska's Dutch Harbor on Jan. 3 to deliver 1.3 million gallons of fuel to Nome, whose supplies could run out before the end of winter.

    The convoy made progress on Monday. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.

    The convoy had hoped to make it to Nome by mid-January but the Coast Guard now says it cannot provide an estimated day of arrival.

    Nome gets its fuel by barge but a November storm prevented its winter shipment from arriving before the annual sea ice formed. A fuel barge won't be able to make it in without icebreaker escort until June at the earliest, and Nome -- which has seen temperatures of minus 40 this winter -- could run out of heating oil by March.

    One option is to fly in supplies, but that would add $3-$4 per gallon of heating oil or gasoline, which already cost $6 a gallon in Nome. There is no road access to the coastal town of 3,500.

    STORY: Another Alaska town 'exhausted' by snow, rain

    The operation is the first time a fuel ship is trying to reach any western Alaska community cut off by winter sea ice.

    Locals are already being warned to stay away from the shoreline if the ships make it.

    "We are extremely concerned that the icebreaking vessels offshore may cause fractures in shore fast ice near shore which could potentially pose a serious safety risk to anyone who may be on the ice," Lt. Nicole Auth, Coast Guard safety zone coordinator in Nome, said in a statement Tuesday. "We strongly encourage residents to remain on shore and avoid transiting on the ice as the ships transit in and out of the shore fast ice until the ice has time to re-freeze." 

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