Energy

What can be done?

What is known about methane hydrates, about their behaviour and their distribution along with the geological data of the past, suggest caution in the race to utilize these compounds for the production of methane. The exploitation of these enormous energy reserves could temporarily solve many energetic problems and help in the difficult transition phase between the utilization of fossil fuels and the use of renewable energy sources. However, the environmental risks connected to an indiscriminate exploitation that does not respect the environment seem very high. Commercial exploitation must therefore be postponed till when state of the art technologies can protect us from the most serious risk: the release of great quantities of methane into the sea and the atmosphere. Moreover, the possible risk of triggering off great underwater landslides on a vast scale must not be forgotten. The presence of compounds with such particular and unstable characteristics, that are so sensitive to the slightest variation in temperature keeps us on guard as far as man’s contribution to the greenhouse effect is concerned: it is true that geological data show that climate changes on a large scale and environmental and climatic ‘crises’ at a planetary level have occurred in the geological past without any involvement on man’s part, but our behaviour could give a decisive contribution to sparking off these processes that, once started, could prove to be irreversible.