Nobrainer’s Think Tank

As I mentioned on Brad’s blog, I’ve been working on a group presentation about methane hydrates. Wikipedia has a good, short write-up on what they are and why they might be important. In brief summary, methane hydrates are ice structures in which methane, aka natural gas, become trapped. The amounts of natural gas trapped in these configurations has been estimated to be enormous… and sometimes only 4-25% of enormous.

In fact, I used a picture of these hydrates previously, without really knowing what they were.

Among the three of us in the group, the topics were basically split into what they are, where they are, and how to get them — with me explaining the “how to get them”, or extraction techniques. I may or may not include a link to the original file later (my group members may not want to be associated with my criticisms, but I’m not sure how to credit their work otherwise). I will say that the formatting made me want to vomit, but I simply didn’t have the stomach for the fight.

(At one point, one group member gave the ubiquitous “A guy from my high school went to Clemson. He couldn’t get accepted to UVA.” I responded with my typical, “I wanted to go to VT, but I was too dumb to apply on-time. So I went to UVA.” Let me just tell you that everyone here loves that story.)

I had expected my share of the presentation to require about 4-5 hours of preparation: look things up from Wikipedia, the DOE, EIA, USGS, and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). I was sadly mistaken because, in short, extraction remains highly theoretical. If you superimposed methane hydrate production on the timeline of car technology, we would currently be pre-Model T and pre-R.E. Olds — all the way back to the folks who were building cars with large steam boilers. Actual recovery of natural gas from methane hydrates has only been done on an experimental production scale a handful of times (with only one good data set that I could find). Information from the tests in 2002 was primarily locked in technical reports from the DOE. The guy who devises a really good way to dissociate these hydrates and recover the gas efficiently will be a rich man.

Reckoning that I put in a fair amount of work compiling data on a subject in need of compilation, I’m planning to publish my share of the presentation with better sourcing and acceptable formatting.

As for the actual, in-class presentation, it went OK. Given that it’s for a class that is an elective for most folks, and graded mostly on participation, it is unsurprising that the presentations given aren’t of the highest quality.

The main problem was that I didn’t take editorial control. I knew of information that should have been included that wasn’t. [Note: there are times to lead and times to follow. Understanding this is immeasurably important.] Inasmuch I felt we didn’t quite do the topic the justice it deserves. Even as I glanced back at Wikipedia while writing this post, I noticed additional information would have added impact to my slides. We lacked specific information that was needed to bolster points.

Also, the speaking roles demonstrated a lack of polish and professionalism, due mostly to a lack of practice. Through the procession of the presentation, during which I spoke last, I must have rolled my eyes at least a half-dozen times because I couldn’t believe the things being said. Typically this occurred by delving into small topics without any real understanding of them. “Potential accidental gas release is a big problem.” How big? The question was not answered. As an example, I started this post by referring to methane trapped in hydrates as an “enormous” energy source. By enormous I meant that old estimates predicted that global methane hydrate deposits accounted for more than 50% of global carbon-based energy forms. That’s a lot of potential energy. Accidental gas release, on the other hand, is maybe 50% of natural, global methane hydrate release (some postulations suggest that large methane hydrate destabilization is a major cause of global climate change), which is about 5% of global, natural methane release, which is maybe only about 2% of global, agricultural methane release. I stopped looking at numbers when I saw the estimated agricultural methane release. We’re looking at a fraction of a fraction of a fraction (.5 x .05 x .02 = 0.0005 = 0.05%). Even though there are numerous assumptions involved there, it at least provides a baseline. Looking back at this “big problem”, it looks significantly less big and not even much like a problem.

And fer crying out loud, by the time you are a senior at a respected institution like UVA, you should be able to stand in front of 40 people and give a presentation with confidence and without being visibly nervous. As one of my friends in the class pointed out, and I paraphrase, “you can easily tell grad students from undergrads.”

I’m being picky here not necessarily because I’m a prick, but instead because week-to-week I sit through presentations from very accomplished engineers from around world who simply cannot present adequately. In my mind, good presentational abilities can make up for a 50% lack of technical skill. In other words, and this should be common sense*, no one will buy your work if you can’t sell it. Engineers, or anyone really, don’t need to be great presenters; I’m certainly far from perfect. However, modest improvements can go a long way.

Apologies are owed to Dr. Gaddis. He taught me better. It remains instructive to note that where someone went to college is not nearly as important as what they learned while they were there.

*I think I’ll start prefacing the phrase “common sense” with “should be.” Far too often, common sense is inherently sensical while also inexeplicably distant from common.