A Department of Energy scientist writes in this week's
Science magazine that a search is
underway for a potentially immense untapped energy resource that, given its
global distribution, has the potential to alter existing energy production and
supply paradigms.
In the article, “Is Gas Hydrate Energy Within Reach?,” Dr.
Ray Boswell, technology manager for the Office of Fossil Energy’s National
Energy Technology Laboratory methane hydrates program, discusses recent
findings and new research approaches that are clarifying gas hydrates energy
potential.
Driving the current interest in gas hydrate resource
appraisal is the focus on that subset of global gas hydrate resources that
appear to be the most favorable for production: those that exist at
high-concentrations within deeply buried sand-dominated reservoirs.
A recent expedition sponsored by the U.S. Department of
Energy (DOE)—conducted in partnership with a Chevron-led international
consortium, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Minerals Management Service, Columbia University,
and others—confirmed that such accumulations do exist in the Gulf
of Mexico. Furthermore, that expedition demonstrated the soundness
of the team’s research approach, which relied on application of the same
geological and geophysical methods that guide conventional hydrocarbon
exploration.
Looking forward, DOE will focus its efforts on further
confirmation of potential resource volumes through dedicated field programs in
the Gulf of Mexico and beyond, evaluation of
gas hydrates role in nature, including carbon cycling and global warming, and
the establishment of extended time production tests of gas-hydrate-bearing sand
reservoirs. Current research is focused on the depressurization method (akin to
the methods now used to produce coalbed methane resources). Another approach
involves the injection of carbon dioxide which could displace the methane,
leaving the carbon dioxide sequestered within the hydrate structure. This
method would not only provide methane as an energy source, but also provide a storage
sink for carbon dioxide.
Testing of extraction methods is in the planning stages for
sites in Alaska,
which will be needed to help prepare for marine production tests, still several
years away.
Science magazine is an international publication with the
largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general-science journal. It is
published by AAAS (the American
Association for the Advancement of Science), the world's largest
general-science society.
Original
release
SOURCE: U.S.
Dept. of Energy
