ALBERT

Description: How risks are regulated can affect domestic outcomes, such as the benefits and costs of protecting consumers, health and environment, and it can also foster or limit opportunities for international trade. A question addressed in this report is whether different approaches to risk regulation lead to different levels of protection.Based on a study commissioned by the European Parliament in 2016, this report offers a descriptive transatlantic comparison of regulatory standards in four key sectors: Food, automobiles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals. It shows that EU risk regulation is not always or generally more stringent than US regulation. The reality is a complex mix of parity and particularity between EU and US risk regulation.The reality of transatlantic regulation is not a simple dichotomy of a European approach versus an American approach. It is not EU precaution versus US reaction, or ex-ante versus ex-post legal systems, or civil law versus common law, or uncertainty-based versus evidence-based regulatory systems. Rather, the reality is overall EU-US parity as well as some particular variation in policies on both sides of the Atlantic. This includes both cases of greater European stringency and cases of greater US stringency.On the other hand, regulatory variation can also be the basis for learning to improve future regulatory design, both by comparing outcomes across regulations in different jurisdictions, and by planning adaptive regulation over time. International regulatory cooperation involves collaboration to review existing regulations and design new approaches that improve outcomes for all. The EU and US can learn from this variation, and from evolving understanding, to improve regulatory standards through monitoring, evaluation, impact assessment, and planned adaptive regulation.

Description: Detailed knowledge about the thermal properties of rocks containing gas hydrate is required in order to quantify processes involving the formation and decomposition of gas hydrate in nature. This work investigates the influence of methane hydrate on the transport of heat in hydrate-bearing rocks. Both the thermal conductivity of gashydrate bearing sediments and the thermal effects of phase transitions are analyzed. In the framework of the Mallik 2002 program three wells penetrating a continental gas hydrate occurrence under permafrost were successfully equipped with permanent fiberoptic distributed temperature sensing cables. Temperature data were collected over a period of 21 months after completion of the wells. The analysis of the disturbed well temperatures after drilling revealed a strong effect of phase transitions on temperature changes. For the first time, the effects of induced temperature changes within a gas hydrate deposit were monitored in-situ. The resulting temperature gradient anomalies could be successfully utilized to determine the base of the gas hydrate occurrences and the permafrost layer at about 1103-1104±3.5 m and 599-604±3.5 m below ground level respectively. At the end of the 21-month observation period, the well temperature returned close to equilibrium with the formation temperature. At the base of the gas hydrate occurrences a temperature of 12.3 ◦C was measured, which is about 0.7 K below the stability temperature predicted by thermodynamic calculations considering a pressure gradient of 10.12 kPa m〈sup〉−1〈/sup〉 and a sea-water salinity of 35 ppt. Under the stated conditions, the base of the stability zone of methane hydrate at Mallik would lie at about 1140 m below ground level. Thermal conductivity profiles were calculated from the geothermal data as well as from a petrophysical model derived from the available logging data and application of mixing-law models. The results indicate, that variations of thermal conductivity are mainly lithologically controlled with a minor influence from hydrate saturation. The results of the geometric mean model showed the best agreement to the thermal conductivity profiles derived from geothermal data. Average thermal conductivity values of the hydrate-bearing intervals range between 2.35 W m〈sup〉−1〈/sup〉 K〈sup〉−1〈/sup〉 and 2.77 W m〈sup〉−1〈/sup〉 K〈sup〉−1〈/sup〉 . A simplified numerical model of conductive heat flow was set up in order to assess the temperature effect of phase transitions within the gas hydrate bearing strata. Within the model the mobilization of latent heat during the phase transition was considered (enthalpy method), taking into account the stability conditions for methane hydrate at Mallik (pressure, temperature, pore fluid and gas phase composition) as well as effects of hydrate decomposition on the thermal rock properties. The modelling results indicate, that the regeneration of hydrate after the recovery of stability conditions is inhibited.

Description: thesis