The Barents Observer reports that Russia continues excavating the high Arctic permafrost on land and under the sea to open new Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) terminals and dig channels for transporting the LNG in the shallow continental shelves and bays of Siberia. LNG has a lower volume of methane than in its gaseous form. Liquified gas requires massive fossil fuel extraction infrastructure on the tundra, Boreal forests' frozen soils, and the shallow continental shelves off Siberian coasts.
The ice-cold waters worldwide have stores of submerged methane; in it’s solid form is known as Methane clathrate where the gas is trapped “within a crystal structure of water, forming a solid similar to ice.”
Wkik describes it thusly:
Methane hydrate is formed when hydrogen-bonded water and methane gas come into contact at high pressures and low temperatures in oceans.
Methane clathrates are common constituents of the shallow marine geosphere and they occur in deep sedimentary structures and form outcrops on the ocean floor. Methane hydrates are believed to form by the precipitation or crystallisation of methane migrating from deep along geological faults. Precipitation occurs when the methane comes in contact with water within the sea bed subject to temperature and pressure.
The Barents Observer has been closely following these developments by the Russian Government. The Big Dig, known in Arctic circles, will result in the strip mining of 13,5 million cubic meters or 476.7 million cubic feet of the frozen sea bottom.
The lion’s share of the dredging operations will take place in the Gulf of Ob and Gulf of Yenisey, Deputy Director of Rosatom’s Northern Sea Route Directorate Maksim Kulinko said in a recent conference.
The deepening of the shallow Arctic waters is needed for expanded shipping to new seaports and terminals in the area, Rosatom informs.
A total of 6,5 million cubic meters will be removed from the Ob bay as part of the opening of a ship channel to the new port of Utrenneye. In addition comes 2,7 million cubic meters from the Gulf of Yenisey in connection with building of Rosneft’s Sever Bay terminal and 1,8 million cubic from the waters near the new coal terminal of Severnaya Zvezda.
The three industrial projects — the Arctic LNG 2, Vostok Oil and Syradasayskoye coal — will be instrumental for Russia to reach its much-announced 80 million tons of goods on the Northern Sea Route by year 2024.
Russia will have difficulty with this national goal as Putin's invasion of Ukraine has generated worldwide sanctions, including “Rosatom’s subsidiary Hydrographical Company no longer has access to western dredgers to do the job.”
According to Aleksandr Bengert, Head of the Hydrographical Company, a new Russian-owned fleet of dredgers is now under development. The new fleet must be capable of undertaking big volumes of dredging in the course of the short season of ice-free waters, Bengert says.
The Ecological Costs
This could mean death for the precious local fish stocks, researchers from the Ural Institute of the Ecology of Flora and Fauna fear.
Institute research leader Vladimir Bogdanov explains to newspaper Pravda URFO that parts of the Ob Bay must remain untouched by the energy companies if the vulnerable fish stocks are to be preserved.
He especially points at the waters around Cape Trekhburny, an area where fresh waters from the Taz Bay flows into the Ob Bay.
If dredging is conducted in this area it will be the end to the so-called semi-anadromous fish stocks in the area, he underlines.
“It means death for the semi-anadromous stocks of the Ob: neither the sturgeon, whitefish, smelt, nor freshwater cod will be no more. The precious kinds of fish in the Ob will vanish. It will be a huge loss, which actually can not be restored. The ecosystem will be completely changed,” he says to the newspaper.
Fishing is a money maker for Russia. The fish caught by Russian fishing vessels is not sanctioned by the European Union. But why?
A total of 110,000 tons of fish at a value of 1,88 billion Norwegian kroner (€175 million) were landed last year by Russian fishing vessels, the business online E24 reports.
That is up 42 percent compared with 2021. The majority of the landings, worth 1,7 billion kroner, took place after Russia launched its war on Ukraine in late February.
Ukraine’s Embassy in Oslo has called on Norwegian authorities to explain why Russian fishermen are still allowed to sell seafood at ports in Norway, E24 reported.
The three ports of Kirkenes, Tromsø and Båtsfjord are still open and on an average day in January, about 20 Russian fishing vessels stayed at port in Kirkenes.
One of the companies whose vessels are frequently seen in northern Norway is Norebo, a company that according to Dagens Næringsliv has supported the Putin-designed political party United Russia with funding.
In the past few days, Vice President Harris and President Biden have correctly labeled Putin, a war criminal whose policies in Ukraine are crimes against humanity. Cassandra notes that Putin is also guilty of crimes against the planet. Climate change is already warming Siberian waters. The rapid development of fossil fuel industries removing clathrates across Siberian coasts and removing permafrost on land only fuels the fire of destroying the biosphere.
If even a small fraction of Arctic sea floor carbon is released into the atmosphere, we're fucked. Jason Box
From EOS:
Methane bubbles regularly reach the surface of the Laptev Sea in the East Siberian Arctic Ocean (ESAO), each of them a small blow to our efforts to mitigate climate change. The source of the methane used to be a mystery, but a joint Swedish-Russian-U.S. investigation recently discovered that an ancient gas reservoir is responsible for the bubbly leaks.
Methane in the Laptev Sea is stored in reservoirs below the sea’s submarine permafrost or in the form of methane hydrates—solid ice-like structures that trap the gas inside. It is also produced by microbes in the thawing permafrost itself. Not all of these sources are created equal: Whereas microbial methane is released in a slow, gradual process, disintegrating hydrates and reservoirs can lead to sudden, eruptive releases.
Methane is escaping as the Laptev’s submarine permafrost is thawed by the relative warmth of overlying seawater. With an even stronger greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide, methane releases into the atmosphere could substantially amplify global warming.
SNIP
“The big finding was that we really have something that’s coming out from a deep pool,” said Steinbach. As the permafrost thaws, it opens up new pathways that allow methane to pass through.
According to Gustafsson, this is worrying, as the pool likely contains more methane than is currently in the atmosphere. “There is, unfortunately, a risk that this methane release might increase, so it will eventually have a sizable effect on the climate,” he said.