The Siren Call of Methane Hydrates

[KingM34]

There is a major source of hydrocarbon energy that humans have yet to tap in methane hydrates. These are ice-like structures containing water and methane gas crystals. They form under high pressure and are abundant in deep-water deposits and beneath the arctic permafrost.

Nobody knows how much energy is locked in methane hydrates worldwide, as we are only starting to map this important resource. What is known is that the existing reserves are enormous. A single deposit in Alaska may contain the equivalent of eighty billion barrels of oil. Worldwide there may be trillions of barrels equivalent trapped in methane hydrates. The highest estimates would dwarf the energy contained in all other fossil fuels combined.

It is less clear how easy it will be to tap these resources. Like conventional natural gas, the methods for liquifying natural gas is well known. However, methane hydrates are dispersed in difficult to tap formations deep beneath the ocean or in polar regions. The equipment does not yet exist to extract this resource, let alone to transport it to population centers.

read the rest: http://theopinionator.com/energy/methanehydrates1.html

[Richard D]

1. Super green house gas.

If this stuff starts getting released, we're in way deeper shit than we are now.

[Xipe Totec]

2. They are a nuisance for natural gas transport

Methane near the critical point will form hydrates with any water present. They form inside long distance high pressure gas lines and have to be dissolved using alcohol drips.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. This is why your mother told you

not to fart in the bathtub.

[Xipe Totec]

8. Dude, my dishes are in there!

[skids]

3. Methane hydrates...

This is the stuff that, the last time they were airborne, may have caused the Permian-Triassic extinction event and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. So the bright idea? Burn it as fuel -- then it will be only 1/20th as potent a greenhouse gas. :eyes:

(That is assuming we could get enough of it before we warmed the globe enough for the rest to start releasing in methane form)

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. Can't convert it to clean diesel??? One would think that a Fischer

Troppes method could be developed to do such a thing....

[skids]

9. And then what?

And after it's converted to clean diesel, it gets burned, adding more CO2 to the atmosphere, acidifying the oceans, and warming the globe more. At some point the oceans cannot hold any more CO2 (and by that time many calcium-dependent varieties of sea life are dead like the corals are dying right now), and as the globe warms up further, the oceans spew the CO2 that they've been absorbing back into the atmosphere. Then that causes more warming, and at some point, the rest of the methane clathrates that we haven't managed to find and or extract yet decide they don't like being methane clathrates anymore. That's the point at which the ocean stops fizzing like soda pop and starts bubbling like a swamp, releasing that methane into the atmosphere where it warms the globe yet further. Since the plant life is taking its time, as organisms that are rooted in the ground are want to, migrating from places where it used to like the environment to some other places where the environment used to be too cold for them, it won't be especially effective at absorbing either the CO2, nor sustaining the microorganisms that are what's keeping our methane levels level at the moment in spite of our factory agriculture.

Try sustaining billions of people on a world that consists of mostly dead oceans, deserts, and a few fertile bands wracked by violent weather.

But at least you got your diesel.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

10. Since it is made from a gas, it will contain no heavy metals, no

sulphur.... pass it through fuel cells, you get water, heat and "some" Co2.... it's a much cleaner option than burning it for horsepower.... however, clean diesel fuels do pollute much much less than traditional diesel fuels made from crude.

[Dead_Parrot]

11. That's a better idea...

I've no idea what sort of power/weight ratio you get for a methane fuel cell - AFAIK, all the current versions are fixed, so it may not be terrific for transport (yet). But mitigating hydrate releases by turning some of it into water first (and cutting down on fossil use) might well be worth a look...

"Clean" diesels produce less particulates, which is good for people nearby, but just as much CO₂. It's like losing a dollar and finding a dime.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

12. A link for you....

www.rentechinc.com

[Dead_Parrot]

13. OK, now I'm confused...

You're back on liquifaction. That's a bad idea, you just end up burning a load of shit. Turning hydrates into diesel might mitigate peak oil, but enviromentally it's pretty fucked up.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

14. The other forte of this company is that they have a pretty trick way of

turning methane/natural gas and others into clean liquid fuels... I'm thinking about the wasted flare gas, and the ease of transportation of stable liquids over compressed refrigerated gasses.

[Dead_Parrot]

15. But you're still burning the stuff.

Liquifaction of gas for fuel is still a huge waste - If you turn methane into ethanol (the only liquid fuel I can even attempt the chem. of :dunce:), you'll be doing something like 2CH₄ + O₂ -> magic -> C₂H₆O + 2H₂O, which you then burn via C₂H₆O + 3O₂ -> bang -> 3H₂O + 2CO₂. IC engines run at something like 25% effeciency, so you're still producing loads of carbon (which is our main problem at the moment).

CH₄ + 2O₂ -> magic -> CO₂ + 2H₂O in a fuel cell at 70 or 80% efficiency has got to be prefereable (although chem isn't my strong point, so I'm open to corrections :))

As I mentioned, the fuel produced by liquifaction is only "clean" in terms of the other crud in it. It terms of greenhouse gasses, it's just as dirty as gasoline from crude.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

16. Examples.... LAST PARAGRAPH is the one that does it.

http://www.pakobserver.net/200605/16/news/business04.asp?txt=Methane%20gas%20to%20be%20converted%20into%20diesel,%20petrol

Methane gas to be converted into diesel, petrol

Sindh Govt, Ukraine-Canadian Consortium sign MoU

Karachi—Sindh Government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a Ukrain-Canadian Consortium, Cathay Oil and Gas, for extracting Methane gas alongwith water from under the coal layers in Thar Coal reserves.

“The consortium has the technology to pump out water alongwith Methane extraction”, said Sindh Minister for Mines and Mineral Development, Irfanullah Khan Marwat while talking to APP here on Monday.

He pointed out that Metghane is coal-based gas which can be converted into diesel, petrol, chemicals and plastic, pipeline gas and jet fuel and America, Canada and Chile are already processing this gas.

According to an estimate Marwat said, 21 trillion cuubic feet gas is available underneathy Thar coal and Consortium will start its exraction when exploration licence is issed to them.


http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?ch=&sc=&id=16713&pg=1&ch=biztech
Clean Diesel from Coal
A novel catalytic method could let you fill up your tank with coal-derived diesel, cutting U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

By Kevin Bullis

As the cost of oil soars and worries over the U.S. dependence on foreign petroleum escalate, coal is becoming an increasingly attractive alternative as a feedstock to make a range of fuels. Now chemists have invented a new catalytic process that could increase the yield of a clean form of diesel made from coal.

The method, described in the current issue of the journal Science, uses a pair of catalysts to improve the yield of diesel fuel from Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) synthesis, a nearly century-old chemical technique for reacting carbon monoxide and hydrogen to make hydrocarbons. The mixture of gases is produced by heating coal. Although Germany used the process during World War II to convert coal to fuel for its military vehicles, F-T synthesis has generally been too expensive to compete with oil.

Part of the problem with the F-T process is that it produces a mixture of hydrocarbons -- many of which are not useful as fuel. But in the recent research, Alan Goldman, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, and Maurice Brookhart, professor of chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, use catalysts to convert these undesirable hydrocarbons into diesel. The catalysts work by rearranging the carbon atoms, transforming six-carbon atom hydrocarbons, for example, into two- and ten-carbon atom hydrocarbons. The ten-carbon version can power diesel engines. The first catalyst removes hydrogen atoms, which allows the second catalyst to rearrange the carbon atoms. Then the first catalyst restores the hydrogen, to form fuel.

[Dead_Parrot]

17. You're still not getting it...

It's still adding chronic amounts of CO₂ to the atmosphere. As a means to keep the hummers rolling for another 100 years, yeah it's great. but the as skids pointed out, you've then got an unihabitable planet. So why the fuck would would anyone want to do it?

[benburch]

4. Are deep ocean hydrates being tapped AT ALL?

I was under the impression that this was maximally theoretical at present.

[Dead_Parrot]

6. Not yet...

But Norway's Statoil and a Japanese group are taking a very close look - if it's possible, I'd expect to see some some of production in about 5 years.

Assuming they don't fart us to oblivion in the meantime.