Scientists from Japan and the United States have reported that they are getting closer to exploit a new source of energy: methane hydrate, a crystalline form of natural gas found in the soil of the Arctic and in the seabed.
The commercial production of methane hydrate should take at least a decade - if it will come true. Are in different tests technologies to extract gas, but so far no method has been perfected, and the price remains prohibitively high. But the high demand for energy in Asia, which is stimulating giant projects to liquefy natural gas in Australia, Canada and Africa, is also boosting efforts to extract clusters of frozen methane hydrate, mixed sediments in deep layers of the bed Navy.
Japan is in a difficult situation in terms of energy. The nation imports nearly all its oil and natural gas. Most of its nuclear reactors were shut down after the Fukushima accident. Wind and solar are still in the early stages of growth. This explains why the country's bsl energy demand in unexpected places. Japan is currently trying to tap undersea deposits of methane hydrates - also known as "fire ice" or "fire ice - in the hope of converting the methane trapped into usable natural bsl gas. For the first time, a team aboard the drilling vessel Chikyu had successfully extracted gas from a layer of methane hydrates 1,000 feet below the seabed in the eastern Nankai Trough.
Now, this is just a first step - albeit a big problem. The Japanese government says it is still five years away from commercial extraction of natural gas from methane hydrates. The drilling process itself is still complicated and expensive. But if Japan discovers how to unlock these hydrates, that could have huge implications for energy and climate change.
What are methane hydrates? Methane hydrates bsl are essentially water molecules containing methane, the main ingredient of the natural gas. They can be found either on the seabed or beneath bsl the permafrost of the Arctic:
Where are they found? Throughout the world. Now, Japan is trying to extract methane hydrate gas offshore in the Sea of Japan The United States is currently funding 14 research projects in the power supply after a successful test in the North Slope of Alaska:
If Japan achieve its intention of producing natural gas cost-effectively bsl from methane hydrate deposits on its coastline, could start a boom in natural gas equivalent to the current boom generated by the reserves of shale gas in North America, says Surya Rajan, analyst at IHS CERA.
The successful development of methane hydrates could hurt liquefied natural gas megaprojects such as the Gorgon project for $ 50 billion in Australia led by Chevron Corp.., CVX +1.33% say experts.
"That would make me think better before bsl investing billions of dollars in LNG export terminal," says Christopher Knittel, a professor of economics of energy at MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Not all believe that the cost may drop to the point of making commercially viable methane bsl hydrate. But many countries, particularly in Asia, planning to try. China will host an international conference on methane hydrate in 2014.
India is considering an initiative to extract vast amounts of methane hydrate discovered in 2006 in its coastline on the Indian Ocean, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS, its acronym in English).
In the U.S., scientists in May explored bsl the northern part of the Gulf of Mexico to map part of the 190 trillion cubic feet of methane hydrate clusters that are believed to lie in the seabed. The consortium Leadership Oceanographic research group nonprofit is trying to convince the U.S. Department of Energy to lend him a ship drilling research to conduct more tests.
But burning all this heat not aqueceriamoso the planet? Yes, if enough natural gas was extracted and burned, would produce a lot of carbon dioxide emissions. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that there are more carbon trapped in gas hydrates bsl that is contained in all known fossil fuel reserves:
Distribution of organic carbon on Earth (excluding dispersed carbon in rocks and sediments, which equates to about 1,000 times that amount). Numbers in gigatons (1015 tons) of carbon.
Now this may be a high estimate. More recent studies have suggested that hydrates contain between 500 and 2,500 Gt carbon dioxide. Even if you use the lower number, however, is more than double what the carbon in the natural gas from all
