Methane Hydrate, Our Long-Term Energy SolutionIn the 1970s, Russian scientists first reported finding a miraculous form of ice in the Black Sea that burned with an intense orange flame. Then, in the 1980s, researchers from other countries began drilling into the ocean and started finding the magic ice everywhere they looked.
When they analyzed it, they found that it was methane hydrate, a pure white crystalline lattice of water ice that has methane molecules trapped in it. Each methane molecule has six water molecules holding it in place. And, a single unit of methane hydrate, when heated and depressurized, releases 160 times its volume in natural gas.
Methane hydrate is formed under great pressure, at temperatures near freezing, beneath the ocean floor as one tectonic plate is forced under another. It has now been found virtually everywhere anyone has bothered to drill deep enough beneath the continental shelf.
Methane burns much cleaner than coal or oil, and is therefore preferable as a fuel. Methane, or natural gas, is composed of one carbon atom bonded with four hydrogen atoms. The total amount of energy trapped in methane hydrate is believed to far exceed all the energy stored in the conventional natural gas, oil, and coal deposits now known to exist in the world. And, new reserves of methane hydrate are now being found almost weekly.
So it¡¯s quite possible that this discovery holds the key to the world¡¯s energy future. Deposits off the coast of the U.S. alone are so big that if just 1 percent could be recovered, it would double our natural gas reserves, according to a report in the US Fed News.1 And, according to an article published earlier this year in the Nikkei Report,2 a team of researchers from the University of Tokyo recently found a huge, and much shallower, deposit of methane hydrate off the coast of Japan.
Computer simulations indicate that thermal recovery methods, such as the use of hot water or steam flooding, could make hydrates a technically recoverable resource. Alternatively, methods that dissociate the gas by reducing the reservoir pressure may be possible. Chemical injection to decrease the stability of the hydrate lattice could be another approach.
Japan has been at the forefront of the effort to mine methane hydrate, having established a comprehensive program of test drilling in the mid-¡®90s, according to The
Oil and Gas Journal.3 In 2004 alone, the Japanese drilled 16 new methane hydrate wells. According to Natural Gas Week,4 Russia and India also have methane hydrate projects underway.
In 2002, the Canadians began exploring methane hydrate, conducting on-shore test drilling in what they called the Gas Hydrate Production Well Program.5 The work involved scientific expeditions to the Mackenzie Delta, as well as in the Beaufort Sea off the Northwest Territories. The Canadians believe that commercial methane hydrate production is as close as the year 2020, and that it will take place first in the North American Arctic, where reserves are closer to the surface and can be extracted using traditional natural gas technology.
In light of this trend, we offer five forecasts for your consideration:
First, methane hydrate is going to become a big business in the next 20 to 25 years. Japan is leading the way, but the U.S. and Canada are going to catch up. However, this is probably going to require a shift in priorities. Out of the $1.7 billion committed to enabling the so-called ¡°hydrogen economy,¡± the U.S. Department of Energy has earmarked just $3.3 million so far to methane hydrate research.
Second, within 10 years, all the major oil companies will be involved in methane hydrate recovery and will be competing to be the most efficient at extracting it and distributing it. Chevron Texaco is at the head of an international consortium that is surveying the most promising methane hydrate sites in the Gulf of Mexico. Test wells have already been sunk, and progress continues. Since the U.S. has been producing the same amount of natural gas for 30 years, even as consumption has soared, this couldn¡¯t come at a better time.
Third, exploiting methane hydrate will reduce our vulnerability to the politics of the volatile Middle East. Like oil sand, oil shale, and ultra-deep offshore oil drilling, methane hydrate is an energy resource controlled by the world¡¯s industrialized nations. Increasingly, national security interests will force the United States, Japan, and China to exploit these resources.
Fourth, the long-term outlook for energy will involve a mixture of technologies, in which methane hydrate plays an important role. For example, heating the methane hydrate to release the trapped gas might be a perfect application for next-generation nuclear technology. These new nuclear reactors could also provide the energy for transforming methane into hydrogen without generating carbon dioxide. For example, a new type of nuclear reactor is being built in China and South Africa that could make cheap, clean, safe nuclear power. It¡¯s called the pebble-bed modular reactor, or PBMR, and is radically different from today¡¯s giant nuclear piles with their hot uranium rods. The PBMRs employ small spheres of uranium encased in ceramic shells so that they resemble billiard balls. These balls interact to heat the helium gas, making them safer and 35 percent more efficient. China will build 30 of these reactors in the next two decades. An exploratory PBMR project is also underway in Idaho, sponsored by the Department of Energy.
Fifth, as methane hydrate comes on-line, people who panic over the depletion of the world¡¯s resources will once again be proven wrong. Methane hydrate will enable mankind to provide dramatically greater affluence to a growing population, without exceeding the Earth¡¯s physical limits. Validating this conclusion requires only a back-of-the-envelope examination of the facts we have before us:
The latest estimates of the worldwide natural gas potential of methane hydrate deposits average 425 quadrillion (4.25*1017) cubic feet, a staggering figure when compared to the 5 quadrillion cubic feet that make up the world¡¯s known reserves of conventional natural gas.
According to the United Nations, the world¡¯s population will plateau at about 8 billion around 2050. It¡¯s an empirical fact everywhere: As education and affluence rise, birth rates and death rates decline toward zero population growth.
Today, Americans have by far the highest material standard of living of any large nation at any time in history. To maintain this standard of living, we consume roughly 6.3 times the energy per capita of the average resident of this planet; this is the amount of energy in 320,000 cubic feet of natural gas per person per year.
Since 1970, America¡¯s GDP per unit of energy consumed has increased by 114 percent, and technological innovation should enable global energy efficiency to improve by at least another 100 percent by 2050. In fact, advances in infotech, biotech, and nanotech make this target almost laughably easy to achieve.
Assuming that the world population plateaus permanently at 8 billion people, that the average global GDP per capita rises to the level we see today in the United States, and that the energy efficiency of the economy doubles what we see today in the United States, commercializing the world¡¯s estimated methane hydrate potential would meet all of our energy needs for at least 315 years.
More realistically, if fission power, fusion power, solar power, wind power, tidal power, and geothermal power, coupled with dwindling supplies of conventional fossil fuels, are combined to supply half of the world¡¯s energy needs, we¡¯d have at least enough for 630 years at a level of affluence unimaginable to at least half the world¡¯s people today.
That¡¯s why the Trends editors confidently reject the sort of ¡°limits to growth¡± hysteria put forward every few years by a new generation of neo-Luddites.students in this new discipline. They¡¯ll be readying ethnologists not for the jungle but for the world of business. And, the top business schools will begin offering more anthropological education for tomorrow¡¯s executives so they can ¡°hit the ground running¡± in the real world. References List :1. US Fed News, November 7, 2005, ¡°D.O.E. Announces $2 Million for Methane Hydrate Projects.¡± ¨Ï Copyright 2005 by HT Media Ltd. All rights reserved. 2. Nikkei Report, February 21, 2006, ¡°Researchers Tap Methane Hydrate Deposit Off Coast of Japan.¡± ¨Ï Copyright 2006 by Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Inc. All rights reserved. 3. The Oil and Gas Journal, September 5, 2005, ¡°Japan Explores for Hydrates in the Nankai Trough,¡± by Hideaki Takahashi and Yoshihiro Tsuji. ¨Ï Copyright 2005 by PennWell Corporation. All rights reserved. 4. Natural Gas Week, May 16, 2005, ¡°Safety Key Factor Behind Need Seen for Methane Hydrate Study,¡± by John A. Sullivan. ¨Ï Copyright 2005 by Energy Intelligence Group. All rights reserved. 5. Gas Daily, May 31, 2005, ¡°Gas Hydrate Production Not Far Away.¡± ¨Ï Copyright 2005 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.