As soon as I saw the article "The
ice that burns" (SN: 11/14/98, p. 312), I was struck with a sense of
déjà vu. Today's euphoria over methane hydrate is identical to
that which surrounded oil shale (the rock that burns) and tar sands a couple
of decades ago. Just because these materials are sources of natural gas or oil
does not mean they are sources of energy.
Billions of American tax dollars were poured into the unsuccessful search
for a practical way of extracting oil from shale. The method was not economically
feasible. Almost all of this money could have been saved if the investigators
had recognized the fact that the universe operates on an energy economy instead
of a monetary one. After all, the criterion that separates good and bad
extraction methods of any potential energy resource is not the cost of
extraction but rather the amount of energy needed to accomplish it.
J. Richard Guadagno
Paonia, Colo.
