Fire Ice! Wow!

[KILLERGUN]

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-03/13/japan-methane-hydrate

 

It looks like Japan may have a reprieve in its energy plight, after claiming it's the first country to extract methane hydrate "fire ice" from its seabed. Officials say the plan is to have viable production technologies in place by 2018/19.

The state-run Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (Jogmec) made the announcement 11 March, revealing that a year-long expedition to the watery depths had finally paid off.

"It is the world's first offshore experiment producing gas from methane hydrate," an economy, trade and industry ministry official said to AFP, thoughother tests have been carried out before. Jogmec began drilling the seabed in January, and has just begun a so far successful two-week long extraction and production experiment to prove that the tricky substance's potential can be tapped into. The methane hydrate has been extracted from depths of about 300 metres below the seabed, with the team lowering the naturally high pressure present at those depths to separate the gas from its icy surrounds. The free gas was then piped to the surface.

The successful extraction has massive potential for Japan.

It's estimated that 1.1 trillion cubic metres of natural gas are trapped within the methane hydrate off Shikoku island. To separate methane from the icy, solid clathrate that forms under the sea is to release an estimated 11-year's worth of gas supply for Japan, which has been struggling under the pressure of soaring energy prices since the 2011 Fukushima disaster. After the event, most of the nation's nuclear reactors were forced to shutdown until July 2012. Public support for the nuclear power sector plummeted in the interim, and the government made the announcement in September 2012 that it would shift to other fuel sources by 2040, closing all 50 functioning nuclear reactors. But what it intended on replacing that energy source with remained vague.

Until March 2011, a third of Japan's energy supply came from its nuclear reactors -- only two of which are now currently in operation -- and it had planned to increase that ratio to 50 percent. Its reliance on importing gas since the 2011 meltdown has been a financial strain; it is already the world's largest buyer of liquid natural gas and the second largest importer of coal. A few weeks ago, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appealed to Obama to allow exports of its shale gas to the fuel-hungry country. So turning methane hydrate extraction into a viable business could mean independence for Japan -- "Japan could finally have an energy source to call its own," Takami Kawamoto of Jogmec said. But why then, hasn't anyone done it before?

Methane hydrate was first discovered in the 1800s, and by the 30s it was still known only as that annoying ice that clogs up pipelines in the cold. It was only when the substance was discovered to occur naturally in Siberia that energy scientsits realised it was not something to consider an irritant, but an opportunity. Large deposits have since been found in Alaska, Canada and the Nankai Trough off Japan. According to William Dillon of the US Geological Survey organic carbon present in gas hydrates is about twice as much as in all other fossil fuels, and the methane present is 3,000 times as much as is in the atmosphere (one cubic metre of methane hydrate equals about 160 to 170 cubic metres of gas).

But conducting extraction experiments on a substance that resides a kilometre below sea level was never going to be easy. Once there, deposits are still usually uncovered hundreds of metres below the seabed and found in areas where the seabed begins to drop away from the shelf, making it difficult to line pipes up. Making matters more difficult is the fact that the methane has to be separated from the clathrate at the point of extraction -- otherwise, the gas is likely to escape when brought to the surface as the pressure changes.

Jogmec also needs to confirm it can achieve stable extraction, not just production. Removing large surface areas from the seabed could cause a shift in sediments where the substance is trapped. The worse case scenario would be if removal caused an underwater landslide that triggered a tsunami. In a piece warning about the dangers of methane hydrate extraction, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Lehigh University Tae Sup Yun alsowarned that accidentally releasing methane into the atmosphere could be a huge danger, considering its aforementioned concentration in gas hydrates.

Like any new extraction process, it's likely to take plenty of time before the full go-ahead is given. Fracking continues to cause controversy but has been embraced, a fact economy, trade and industry minister Toshimitsu Motegi pointed to at a press conference. "Shale gas was considered technologically difficult to extract but is now produced on a large scale," the New York Timesreports him as saying. "By tackling these challenges one by one, we could soon start tapping the resources that surround Japan."

[Catface =^..^=]

I live about 40 miles from the Eagle Ford Shale site here in Texas... I have heard concerns about the possiblity of fracking causing techtonic shifts in geolicical sub structures possibly leading to eathquakes...  I am not convinced this is the case... Granted, I have little understanding of the nuances of plate techtonic theory. however.. just basically crunching the numbers... it seems to me it would take a large impact over a very long number of years to even have a minumal effect on techtonic shifting... I mean, correct me if Im wrong, but isn't plate techtonic shifting or "earhquakes" caused by a sudden realease of tension between continental plates, or the release of potential energy between these plates and the earths mantle? given the scale of this type of event, I think we are  literally just scratching the surface. The studies I have seem regarding this, have either been funded by large fuel companies, or radical environmental organizations.. are there any good third party studies available? I know it sounds wierd but I was thinking about this the other day when I was driving my car to the grocery store... But Im all for new energy sources... and Im still convinced that Hydrogen fuel cell technology is our best source... It is after all, the most abundent element in the Universe...

[KILLERGUN]

Yeah i agree.. Hydrogen fuel source i feel will change a lot of things including but not limited to space travel. Also the other tech i am interested in the Fusion.. Thats like from one drop of water you produces obscenely huge amounts of energy..

[MoRB!d:.]

i am extremely interested but i do not understand enough to say much , the only thing dwelling on my mind is if they mess up the extraction can it release the whole pocket (1.1 trillion cubic meters) of 'methane hydrate' i mean is it stable enough to be extracted, and is this enough to create diverse effect on our atmophere or to us?