ALTERNATE ENERGY: Siberia — Permafrost, climate change, nature, politics and a contentious future

Torn thru the distance of man
As they regard the summit.
Even Siberia goes through the motions.
​— Jon Anderson of Yes, “Siberian Khatru”
​
In my research on the nuances of alternate energy, one of the most disturbing situations I have come across is the Siberian permafrost and the huge methane reserves that lie underneath. Yes! Global warming is real! This past week for us upstaters, the weather may have changed your opinion. However, the jet stream is to blame for the more recent acute weather changes.
But yes, global warming, dare I say again, is real and regardless of what we believe the cause is, we must adjust for the resulting changes, which will result in higher water levels and the ebbing of the permafrost yielding more highly concentrated greenhouse gases in the form of methane. Under the permafrost is a large quantity of natural gas and not all of it has practical economic value. If this volume of methane is freely released into the atmosphere all at nearly the same time ... well, please, read on.
Let’s go over some basics. Siberia is a region of the Russian Federation situated east of the Ural Mountains. Its borders have changed with the advent of the new Russian Federation. It spans several time zones and is larger than Canada. It has the richest deposits in rare earth minerals, aluminum, oil and natural gas in the world. I said 50 years ago that if Russia had ever had the desire to create a free enterprise system, it would have outdone the United States economically and thus been the world leader with the U.S. in a distant second place. Thank goodness for Soviet-style communism ... uh, maybe!
Siberia also has the dubious honor of having the largest continuous region of permafrost.
Understanding the climate history of Siberia is critical to understanding its unique hibernation network, which is currently awakening. The geological history of Siberia is still an enigma. There are regions where numerous adult woolly mammoths were completely frozen for 20,000 years with food still in their stomachs. The woolly Steppe mammoths were up to 15 feet tall and weighed up to 11 tons. Imagine what it took to feed them.
They were in Siberia because of the rich and seemingly limitless grassland. This rich grassland had 10-20 thousand years to incubate and turn into methane underneath the ice sheath. Now, that sheath is disappearing. The thaws are lasting longer, and the resistance of the ground holding the methane is diminishing. The methane is either escaping or pooling underneath. It was the perfect combination of events to create these vast reserves of methane.
Couple this with global warming and you have a perfect storm brewing. Geologists know the earth burned to the ground at least three times before. They suspect that methane along with volcanic action caused these immense fires. While a fire of biblical proportions may not be in the offing, the release of huge quantities of methane gas is. This could be a major problem by 2050 unless there is a reversal in the direction of the climate or man does something about it.
Currently, there is chronic release of methane to the atmosphere. Methane has 32 times the carbon of carbon dioxide. It is almost incalculable what effect this could have. The positive feedback greenhouse effect would be accelerated to such an extent that it would reach a point of no return. Picture the feedback on a sound system where you cannot move the microphone out of the feedback range and you are trapped in that auditorium.
The consequences of a methane proliferation in the Siberian landscape has not yet been evaluated. However, you don’t have to be Lewis and Clark to map out the area where the proliferation of methane from centuries of decay resides to see what could happen with the only trap door holding it in was suddenly opened.
Is there a solution?
Siberia has 5.1 million square miles, nearly 1 1/2 million square miles more than Canada, the U.S. or China, with a population less than Poland. The only thing currently stopping that methane is the ice layer over the top of it, which is disappearing at an unprecedented rate. The period of thaw is much longer now. This is so prevalent that tusk hunters are appearing in droves to pick at the thawing ice fields on the shores of the Russian arctic where the remnants of herds of wooly mammoths reap a rich harvest of the mammoth’s long abandoned tusks.
Gazprom, the second largest producer of natural gas, already has over 1 million miles of pipeline. Imagine how many more miles of pipeline it would take to manage all of Siberia. The economic cost will be staggering. Not all the natural gas is economically viable, which will lead to burning off some of the natural gas.
Now add a nation that supports an oligarchical society whose prior history has little regard for human life let alone the environment. The release of methane will affect not only the Russian Federation but the entire world. What will it take to convince that nation of its responsibility to deal with this inevitable environmental problem? It will take a worldwide effort to legislate and enforce. At this juncture, there is no plan to even measure the gas nor its rate of ascension, by them that is. Fortunately, others are.
The Siberian Russo-China Pipeline is a bone of future contention. It is something of critical political importance. This $55 billion pipeline will provide natural gas to China on an unprecedented scale. It will be a huge boon to the burgeoning economy and life of the Chinese. With Russia supplying natural gas to China, the question that must be asked is Will the tail wag the dog?
I think this is a very serious problem and it needs to be addressed. Most people are not even aware of the aforementioned discussion. Making people aware of the situation may be job one. I think Russia should perform a survey and make an assessment of the capture of methane or the burning of extraneous methane on its own. America should value its relationship with China and examine its relationship with Russia. This may be difficult with a president who believes global warming is a hoax, marginalizes science and scientists, places tariffs on our biggest trading partner and rents to Russia’s most notorious organized crime figures.