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REPORT COPYRIGHT VIOLATION IN REPLY
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Something Just Went BEZERK in the Gulf of Mexico. The US Navy just sunk a French Submarine
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 holy smokes!!! hey guys, look at this!! Article!! Researchers analyzing the genomes of microorganisms living in shale oil and gas wells have found evidence of sustainable ecosystems taking hold there— populated in part by a never-before-seen genus of bacteria they have dubbed "Frackibacter."
The new genus is one of the 31 microbial members found living inside two separate fracturing wells, Ohio State University researchers and their colleagues report in the Sept. 5 online edition of the journal Nature Microbiology One implication of the study is that methane produced by microbes living in shale wells could possibly supplement the wells' energy output.
Wrighton and Daly described the amount of methane produced by the microbes as likely minuscule compared to the amount of oil and gas harvested from the shale even a year after initial fracturing. But, they point out, there is a precedent in a related industry, that of coal-bed methane, to use microbes to greater advantage. "In coal-bed systems they've shown that they can facilitate microbial life and increase methane yields," Wrighton said. "As the system shifts over time to being less productive, the contribution of biogenic methane could become significantly higher in shale wells. We haven't gotten to that point yet, but it's a possibility."
[ link to phys.org (secure)]    and.... right on schedule!! A survey of offshore installations extracting oil and natural gas in the North Sea revealed far more leakage of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, than currently estimated by the British government, according to a research team led by scientists from Princeton University. Using a laser-based instrument mounted on small fishing boats, the researchers estimated methane emissions from eight North Sea production platforms off the coasts of England and Scotland. Contrary to current expectations, they found that all the sampled offshore installations leaked even when they were not conducting operations expected to cause methane emissions. On average, methane leakage occurring during normal operations more than doubles each installations' reported emissions to the U.K."s National Atmospheric Emission Inventory.
In an article published Aug. 2 in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, the researchers noted that previously reported leakage from operating oil and gas platforms appear low: 0.13 percent of production by U.K. government estimates. However, the researchers found that an additional 0.19 percent occurred during normal operation. For the U.K., this additional 0.19 percent corresponds to an additional 330,000 cars on the road (an increase of 1 percent in registered U.K. vehicles), the researchers said. [ link to phys.org (secure)]
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