Interesting post Hill. You were right in making that question (in the title). After reading the links you gave I have my personal conclusion about this. I have to ignore some things �scientist� said in those pages like global warming it�s a fake and it�s actually cooling, or that people that talk about warming are �scholars� but let�s try to answer the title.

About using methane to produce energy

-They recognize that they don�t know how to produce energy without freeing methane to the air. So we could be polluting with a 10 times worst element than carbon.
-They say that coastlines could develop this �industry�, new dasalinezed sea water plants could be made for this, and produce electricity also (like the one in Aruba). All this develop to use a non-renewable energy, like oil.
-US Congress gave u$s 47.5 million to be used from 1999 to 2004 in this research. ( I would like to know how much money gave the Congress for Solar Energy research.)
-Wich is the industry that knows a lot of this kind of possible new energy? The Oil Industry. They find it when they drill the sea. All the information & data about methane comes from them. They have the technology to make business with it in a near future. So, guess where are those people �research� dollars going to.

We are in the Oil Industry hands (by now). And there must be changes about this. One possibility is that this industry invest in solar energy, so they could be earning money with something different from oil; of course less money than today as the solar energy comes from the sky and there�s no need to explore, or drill anything to find it.

And we also must require our governments to improve Solar Energy research and stop spending our money in a specific industry business like oil.