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Page added on August 12, 2016
Methane Hydrates, The Next Shale Gas?
The talk a few years ago about an imminent peak in oil and gas production was proven incorrect by the technological strides made to access shale oil and gas resources. It seems that governments, exploration companies, and even the United Nations are striving to make the next technological leap – this time into accessing the gas resources available in methane hydrates. These are frozen combinations of gas and water that are stable at high pressures and low temperatures, found in Polar Regions and on the seabed (mostly shallow waters near continents and on continental slopes).
The most easily exploitable concentrated methane hydrates are in places like the Alaskan North Slope, North West Canada, the Gulf of Mexico and in the waters around Japan. These can be exploited using “adaptations of conventional hydrocarbon recovery methods”, and may contain over 1,200 trillion cubic metres of gas, which is only 5% of the estimated overall amount of gas hydrates globally[1]. As some of these areas already have extensive exploration and production infrastructures in place, it may become feasible to cost effectively utilize at least some of this resource. Given that British Petroleum estimates current proven natural gas reserves at less than 200 trillion cubic feet[2], the scale of the methane hydrate resource is quite incredible. Even if a little over 10% of the most easily accessible hydrates can be successfully exploited, the result would be a doubling of proven reserves.
When methane is burnt it results in significantly less carbon dioxide emissions than coal, and slightly less than oil. The problem is that it is a very light gas which easily escapes into the atmosphere, and its global warming impact is over 80 times that of carbon dioxide in the first two decades after release. For a world rapidly approaching climate change tipping points any significant increases in atmospheric methane may therefore seal humanity’s fate. As Bill McKibben has pointed out, the general leakiness of natural gas (which is predominantly methane) production and transportation facilities renders it at least as bad, if not worse than, coal once the methane leaks are taken into account[3]. As he puts it “our leaders thought fracking would save the planet, they were wrong, very wrong”. Natural gas, whether from shale gas deposits or methane hydrates is not a lower climate changing bridge fuel, it is simply a bridge to nowhere but climate catastrophe.
Some of the more apocalyptic scenarios for climate change rest upon the sudden release of only a tiny portion of the global methane hydrates into the atmosphere, as with the possibility of a methane release from the Arctic Ocean proposed by Peter Wadhams[4]. So why would we want to risk such a thing by drilling directly into the stuff, when there is no available carbon budget to burn the stuff anyway? This is where the drive to support continued growth clashes with the drive to manage climate change, in effect our governments and societies are not facing up to the irreconcilable clash between the two. It is like an addict that has promised to get off the drugs, but keeps trying to find new supplies. We need to keep this stuff under the ground and under the oceans, which means not drilling for it and making sure global temperatures don’t rise far enough for it to defrost and escape directly into the atmosphere.
Unfortunately, this message does not seem to be getting through to governments around the world. A 2016 U.S. Department of Energy task force on research into how to exploit methane hydrates came to the conclusion that such research “should remain a DOE priority” and that “methane hydrates are presently a sizable potential energy resource and present a significant option as a long-term energy resource.”[5] Japan is gearing up for a second wave of offshore methane production tests[6]. Japan and South Korea are proposing to help the Philippines explore its hydrate resources[7], Japan and the U.S. have helped India identify possibly exploitable methane hydrates in the Indian Ocean[8], and China has carried out multiple hydrate drilling expeditions[9]. Given Japan’s increased dependence on imported natural gas after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and China and India’s insatiable appetite for energy to fuel their continued growth, all of these could be highly motivated to access such resources. If the shale gas revolution in the U.S. proves to be as short-lived as individuals such as Bill Powers predict[10], that country could also be highly motivated to exploit its hydrate resources in the Gulf Of Mexico and Alaska. Possibly good for energy security, but not good news for climate security. If any of these countries are serious about climate change, gas hydrates should not even be under consideration.
23 Comments on "Methane Hydrates, The Next Shale Gas?"
rockman on Fri, 12th Aug 2016 4:47 pm
“…by the technological strides made to access shale oil and gas resources.” The tech that allowed the shales to boom existed a decade before the boom. In fact horizontal drilling allowed the oil/NG boom of the fractured Austin Chalk carbonate shale in Texas 20 years ago.
“The most easily exploitable concentrated methane hydrates are in places like the Alaskan North Slope, North West Canada, the Gulf of Mexico and in the waters around Japan.” A rather ridiculous statement given that no one has developed an extremely difficult commercial method to exploit the hydrates.
Never did see how the UN was getting into hydrate development. LOL.
We’ve gone over it before so I skip all but the most important details. There are no huge reservoirs of “frozen NG” under the seas. The hydrates are huge masses of FROZEN ICE which contain a very low concentration of NG. And even that methane doesn’t exist as a free gas but is part of a molecular structure of the ice. There is one methane molecule for each water molecule. IOW the methane can only be released by breaking down (thawing) the ice crystals. Thus it should be obvious that if the hydrates are ever exploited it won’t be done “using adaptations of conventional hydrocarbon recovery methods”.
Given this seems to be written by tyhe anti-methane crowd perhaps they are just setting themselves up to claim victory for stopping hydrate development. Just as the anti-oil sands folks claimed victory for interfering with development by halting the border cross permit despite the fact that the lack of that one pipeline did not prerprervent the production or importation of a single bbl of the Canadian oil sands.
sparky on Fri, 12th Aug 2016 5:05 pm
.
Anything seaborne is an engineering problem in its own
I suppose some largish pilot project will eventually be run ,
good luck with that , the energy cost of pumping the mud, separating and thawing the deposits will be close to the cost beak point,
the maximum extraction rate will be interesting to observe.
This make exploiting extra heavies look like a breeze
eugene on Fri, 12th Aug 2016 6:33 pm
We’ll do many “solve the problem” experiments with little or no merit. We need a bit more panic which will only be brought about by high gas prices. In my old age, I have come to the conclusion we’re a simple, relatively stupid people who are easily entertained by the thing called mass media. I live in northern Minnesota where the hot topic is always “how many grandkids do you have”. Things like energy and climate change are considered figments of somebody’s imagination.
From what I understand, the explosive capability of methane hydrates will make the experiment most interesting.
JGav on Fri, 12th Aug 2016 6:33 pm
Expensive and dangerous shit. Period.
Truth Has A Liberal Bias on Fri, 12th Aug 2016 9:52 pm
Uhhhh global C+C production peaked in November 2015. So far global C+C production is decreasing at an annualized rate of 4.2%
How you fuckng retards failed to notice this fact is a good indication of how absolutely fucking stunned you all are.
Anonymous on Fri, 12th Aug 2016 10:07 pm
Sorry Rockman, neither hydrates or tar-sands, shale, wtf-ever, could be characterized as ‘development’. Maybe de-volution, or destruction, but development? Not really. However, you rightly point out that methane-from-sea-ice is not going to save shop and drive till you drop civilization. My own suspicion is it would be so expensive and return so little new net energy it will make corn-eth and algae bio-fools look good by comparison.
rockman on Fri, 12th Aug 2016 11:36 pm
A – “My own suspicion is it would be so expensive and return so little new net energy it will make corn-eth and algae bio-fools look good by comparison.” I guess I was to subtle for some of you folks. So let’s dumb it down: exactly how are they going to remove hundreds of cubic miles of ICE from undersea so they can extract the methane? Again each single MOLECULE of methane is locked inside a single MOLECULE ICE. From the numbers I found the methane makes up 12% of the volume of the ice MOLECULE. IOW it takes extracting about 7X the volume of ice as the volume of methane released. We are not talking about a drilling project: they have to either physical move the entire ice mass to the surface (many BILLIONS of cubic yards) or melt the ice below the sea floor, capture the released methane and transfer it to the surface. And all the time not collapse the sea floor as they liquify what was once a solid mass.
That’s the problem with folks fantasizing any of these theoretical “solutions”: they don’t tend to have any grasp of the physical system they are dealing with. So if one wants to fantasize about retrieving huge amounts of methane from the oceans just suck it out of the sea water. Methane is contained in all the oceans around 15 to 25 nmoles/I. After all there are 300 MILLION CUBIC MILES of sea water on the planet. I’ll let some chemistry wizard out there calculate how much methane is dissolved in the ocean but my guess is hundreds of times as much as exists in the hydrates.
And they can pay for it by extracting some of the millions of ounces of GOLD also dissolved in the oceans. LOL.
rockman on Fri, 12th Aug 2016 11:36 pm
A – “My own suspicion is it would be so expensive and return so little new net energy it will make corn-eth and algae bio-fools look good by comparison.” I guess I was to subtle for some of you folks. So let’s dumb it down: exactly how are they going to remove hundreds of cubic miles of ICE from undersea so they can extract the methane? Again each single MOLECULE of methane is locked inside a single MOLECULE ICE. From the numbers I found the methane makes up 12% of the volume of the ice MOLECULE. IOW it takes extracting about 7X the volume of ice as the volume of methane released. We are not talking about a drilling project: they have to either physical move the entire ice mass to the surface (many BILLIONS of cubic yards) or melt the ice below the sea floor, capture the released methane and transfer it to the surface. And all the time not collapse the sea floor as they liquify what was once a solid mass.
That’s the problem with folks fantasizing any of these theoretical “solutions”: they don’t tend to have any grasp of the physical system they are dealing with. So if one wants to fantasize about retrieving huge amounts of methane from the oceans just suck it out of the sea water. Methane is contained in all the oceans around 15 to 25 nmoles/I. After all there are 300 MILLION CUBIC MILES of sea water on the planet. I’ll let some chemistry wizard out there calculate how much methane is dissolved in the ocean but my guess is hundreds of times as much as exists in the hydrates.
And they can pay for it by extracting some of the millions of ounces of GOLD also dissolved in the oceans. LOL.
theedrich on Sat, 13th Aug 2016 1:32 am
¡Unicorns exist! Who knew? It never ceases to amaze one. Maybe it is the effect of all of the sci-fi movies and video games that portray a monstrous threat to the entire earth/human population/liberal policies, where salvation arrives at the last minute due to some puerile “superhero.” Or maybe it is due to the fact that serious science and math are subtly diminished and dismissed by the political types eager to ingratiate themselves with the intellectually lazy masses who make up the majority of a democracy in which, supposedly, “all men are created equal.” In such a culture, meth is better than math, and the study of chemistry is less important than cocaine.
Simplistic solutions seem to be especially popular among the snowflakes now populating and graduating from the public universities and influencing the MSM. “Greenery” and hitherto undiscovered magic such as Methane Hydrates will solve all our problems, including overpopulation, not to mention the threat of war, pandemics, and massive corruption. But maybe this is the way nature prepares us for annihilation: by stimulating a lust for ignorance in the majority.
Go Speed Racer on Sat, 13th Aug 2016 2:45 am
Rockman, tell me about the ounces of gold in the ocean again. What do I gotta do?
Maybe an old Sears battery charger, I drop the cables into the ocean and electroplate the gold into nuggets?
Let’s get going on this.
Anonymous on Sat, 13th Aug 2016 3:50 am
Extracting methane from the ocean is not too far removed the idea some present we can extract ‘limitless’ fuel, in the form of deuterium to use in as yet non-existent fusion power stations. Same mentality at work. The way proponents of extracting DT fuel from the world’s oceans would have us believe, all we need to do is stick a straw into the ocean and out comes clean and green fusion fuel forever-lol.
These methane from the sea articles, do all seem to have one common feature. They all give the impression sea-methane is pretty much settled engineering and the only reason its not being done today is…well..reasons. Fusion fuel from the sea is exactly the same. Proponents there, never mention that that their limitless-fuel-from-the-oceans process has never been demonstrated either, except on paper.
While sea-methane may not be viable, my research uncovered a community that was able to utilize methane extracted via…other means to power its expansionist, consumerist lifestyle. In this clip I found, some of the towns senior executives explain their methane extraction process to a visiting consultant. Needless to say, their method sounds much easier than mining icy mud from the bottom of the ocean, and the feedstock is much more readily available and easy to obtain.
See clips here for technical details
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu79ghchX3E
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVALzD7WT5w
Cloggie on Sat, 13th Aug 2016 5:17 am
The ASPO-2000 crowd and Heinberg presented a model called “peak oil” that in hindsight is irrelevant for accurately predicting the future of fossil fuel consumption. That idea of sucking sound from a bathtube running on empty is NOT what likely will happen, not any time soon.
Heinberg is the typical American romanticist and ecologist who wants to return to nature while playing his fiddle in his backyard filled with tomatoes and beans and smoking the peace pipe with advanturous substances with Chief Blackfoot.
That’s a valid and even sympathetic personal choice but not illustrative for the potential of fossil fuel exploitation.
It is meanwhile obvious that the earth’s crust is overloaded with fossil fuel of all sorts, enough for centuries to come, ignoring the consequences for the biosphere and climate for a moment.
Heinberg can talk about “low hanging fruit” all he wants, but if you get yourself a ladder you can have access to all the other fruit as well. All professional fruit farmers operate with ladders, low hanging fruit is for amateurs.
In the realm of fossil fuel exploitation, that ladder is technology, for which ecologist Heinberg has no feelers. He doesn’t want to even consider that possibility, for good ecological reason.
Technology is a highly dynamic and unpredictable factor, that can turn the former fossil fuel dreggs into economic viable commodities. Methane from sea beds is an example, endless amounts of subsea coal reserves that in theory could be burned under ground another.
Should we pursue this road for centuries to come? Of course not. We should instead move as rapidly as we can into renewable energy, combined with energy saving and a war on (conventional) cars, if necessary using temporarily these hazardous new fossil fuel technologies.
But the bottom line is, I lost interest in the ASPO-Heinberg peak oil story. The real interesting concept is Peak Fossil and that point in time is simply too far away. There is enough to fry us all.
makati1 on Sat, 13th Aug 2016 6:07 am
Ah yes. Just what we need! Another heat source! Turn up the thermostat so that winter disappears and the oceans rise faster. Maybe the super storms will dump even more rain in selected spots like is happening in the Gulf States now.
Lets jack it up to two feet per hour for days and see what happens. The Midwest could use some rain. How about a few feet in a day or so there? Good for the crops right? Four feet of rain in LA. Bring it on! Six feet in New York City? The subway needs flushed.
Pure insanity. LOL
Cloggie on Sat, 13th Aug 2016 6:12 am
That is NOT what I am saying. What I do say is that the depletion side of the peak oil problem cluster has moved to the background.
Davy on Sat, 13th Aug 2016 7:10 am
Clog, what’s wrong with that? In a world that is full to the brim with dysfunction and the bizarre a little back to nature and romanticism is pretty harmless. Clog, you are the typical European romanticist and techno-optimist who wants to return to the 20th century of progress while flitting around your Europe living your “dolce vita” and dreaming about keeping that way of life going by other means. Sipping your port and gazing out over the Cote Azur you fantasize about wind and solar power combined with EV’s and high speed trains boldly taking you through the shit storm called the 21st century. The ladder of technology is your Jacobs ladder to a false god of death and destruction. Technology is the handmaiden of collapse and you worship her as a god no different from the Cathedrals you pass by at 200KM in your stylish European sports car.
Technology is what has brought us to this point. Human technology is a combination of science, engineering, and psychology. We know the science and engineering but we rarely reflect on the psychology of why humans choose more technology over ecology. True ecology is not a green techi thing. True ecology is living harmoniously with nature connected and placed properly. A human ecology that is sustainable and resilient in consumption and population because humans self-reflected on themselves and nature and have spiritually humbled themselves before that greater power. This humility produces respect that rejects separation and embraces connection to that which sustains us.
Modern human techno psychology most of which is the destructive European variety choses separation and conquest over harmony and connection. BTW, Americans are little more than transplanted Europeans. Americans have taken this process to the extreme and now the Chinese are even going further with it. This is a monster and a malignant cancer of a false civilization. The European colonialization and conquest of nature, humans, and abstract of progress is alive and well. It has been embraced by all people globally today either by choice or by default. You can’t fight the European narrative of competitive cooperation. If you do you are marginalized and starved. Technology is the god of this way of life. We chose more technology to even get closer to nature. We must have the latest high tech gear and fine auto to get out there into her beauty. Technology with her associated free markets is the driving force of progress. Their daughters of efficiency, innovation, and creative substitution all drive us further from our mother who is Nature.
Technology’s psychological component is more with less and faster with easier. We choose leisure over hard work. We want tasty over bland. We want comfort over stoicism. It is the psychological component of technology that is the problem. Humans can’t control their psychology because they are a guilt ridden ape lost in doubt and insecurity. Humans live a denial of death not just a fear of death. Technology is our god who will save us and offer the redemption of a semi-immortality.
Most modern men know we are mortal but technology allows us to approach a limited immortality by living longer and better. It is our depraved psychology wrapped up in destructive technology that allows conquest of all through the deprivation of nature in the quest for divinity that is wrong. Many a society of men who followed more natural spiritualism has been coopted and destroyed by the European variety. Globalism is an extended European creation driven by false techno progress and an intellectual enlightenment that is nothing more than denial and deception. The progress is a journey farther from our true nature and the enlightenment is a journey into our darkest and most cruel recesses of human fantasy.
We are now delving into the very essence of life. We are mixing DNA. We are combining substances that should not be combined. We are building great particle colliders in an attempt to see god when that god is all around us. We are truly a grotesque species and our extinction will be a benefit to all who survive. When I say our extinction I am referring to modern man. The one Clog’s Europe created and the rest of global man has embraced. And yes, I am European and all global people who embrace technology with its market driven consumptive disease are European by extension. There is something sick about us that makes us so destructive. The destructive sickness is a dysfunctional species psychology that combines with the unrestrained embrace of technology to destroy all in its path including ourselves.
Cloggie on Sat, 13th Aug 2016 7:52 am
Davy, if you reread my post you will verify that I say that Heinberg’s view is a valid personal choice. Nowhere do I suggest that we should embrace fusion reactors or thorium plants. I was talking about “rapidly moving into renewable energy”, meaning solar and wind, not methane, subsea coal, thorium or fusion.
Yes you are right, I am more positive about selective low-energy intensive application of technology. Technology is the difference between the cave and an agreable life. And so do you think and makati. You can rant all you want against the “sickness of the fruits of European culture”, but you still make long weekly car miles, you have at least one car, every now and then you fly a private plane. Makati is jetting between Philly and Manilla on a yearly basis, burning more fuel than the average Joe Sickpack does with his car in an entire year. This is not a new sustainable life style, this is desaster tourism.lol. Well at least you describe yourself as a European and that is exactly how I see you (take it as a compliment.lol) and precisely the only reason why it is so easy to communicate with you.
Nobody wants to be like Catweazle from the charming old British children series, depicting a medieval wizard accidently transplanted to modern Britain via some sort of time machine:
https://youtu.be/tR1GR49T6Sg
Everybody merely wants to watch Catweazle from the comfort of the living room at 21 C.
Davy, I do not think there is that much difference between you and me. I am now in my third year of vegetable growing, every time making great progress. Next season I will have every m2 utilized and a little greenhouse added to the mix so I can grow little plants on a smaller space before I replant them in scarce 100 m2 soil. This should be enough to grow the required 200 kg food/year, enough for basic survival. And I have solar panels.
I lost my car thanks to yet another breakdown of the gearbox while I was a “Croatian Holiday Maker” and gave it away to the first Zoran who wanted to have it. Since then I am without a car and not in a hurry to get a new one.
I rediscovered that you can cycle to remote destinations like Gothenburg-Sweden rather than drive to them, but I still value the ferries and trains that will transport me back, as well as the gadgets for near total information transparancy, like booking hotels or figuring out time tables of public transport… or read peakoil.com posts 🙂
Davy on Sat, 13th Aug 2016 9:20 am
Clog, this is not about you or me. This is about modern man. The difference between you and me in his debate is you are in existential denial and I am acknowledging my part in it. I live the passion of return but know I will likely not see it. You embrace process and technology with no interest in our return home. The difference is you will soon be faced with a reckoning with fate and destiny. I will too but mine will be in humility and acceptance.
You are a wonderful person like so many other Europeans and Americans but most of these wonderful people are part of a destructive system in decline and decay. They fail to take the much needed step into acceptance and rejection of denial. You cannot talk about it you must live it. That is a fundamental problems with humans. We can talk a good talk but have little ability to actually take the journey.
The journey now is rejection of modern life and the embrace of post modern man. Since society as a whole is incapable of this it must be done at the individual level at the same time one lives and works in the status quo. Most cannot do this because it takes extreme sacrifice and mental agility. It is so easy it is hard. To reject everything our life is based on and embrace that which the status quo rejects. That’s all clog. No blame and complain just the offer of redemption with our mother, Nature.
rockman on Sat, 13th Aug 2016 9:27 am
Racer – Yep…lots of gold in them there waves. LOL. The recovery tech is old…just takes a lot of electricity to get it to plate out. Unlike a recovery method for the hydrates for which no recovery tech, regardless of cost, has been developed.
“Ocean waters do hold gold – nearly 20 million tons of it. However, if you were hoping make your fortune mining the sea, consider this: Gold in the ocean is so dilute that its concentration is on the order of parts per trillion. Each liter of seawater contains, on average, about 13 billionths of a gram of gold.”
peakyeast on Sat, 13th Aug 2016 9:56 am
Rock: You forget the same liter of salt water contains: Platinum, Silver, and all other stuff you find.
… When you think about there is so many dissolved metals, molecules and what not that there is hardly any water left !
Uh uh – its going to be hard to squeeze through that osmosis filters !!
😀 lol
Apneaman on Sat, 13th Aug 2016 12:43 pm
Luckily for the humans all that methane, a super potent greenhouse, is locked up and stable and nothing could change that – like warming oceans.
Dissecting Paleoclimate Change
Using a core sample from the Santa Barbara Basin, UCSB researchers decipher the history of paleoclimate change with surprising results
“This particular episode of climate change is closely associated with instability that caused the release of methane from gas hydrates at the ocean floor,” Kennett said. “These frozen forms of methane melt when temperatures rise or pressure decreases. Changes in sea level affect the stability of gas hydrates and water temperature even more so.
“The clear synchronism of this rapid warming and the onset of the destabilization of gas hydrates is important,” Kennett concluded. “It suggests that methane hydrate instability and the warming are somehow linked, which is an interesting and potentially important observation. The beauty of these paleoclimate records from the Santa Barbara Basin is that you can actually determine these relationships at high fidelity.”
http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2015/016158/dissecting-paleoclimate-change
Apneaman on Sat, 13th Aug 2016 12:46 pm
The Arctic is leaking methane 200 times faster than usual: Massive release of gas is creating giant holes and ‘trembling tundras’
Russian scientists have measured the gas emitted by the mysterious bubbles on Belyy Island in the Kara Sea
The ‘trembling tundra’ also contains concentrations of carbon dioxide 20 times higher than usual levels
Add to mysterious behaviour in the vast region, including the sudden appearance of giant holes in northern Siberia
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3703458/The-Arctic-leaking-methane-200-times-faster-usual-Bizarre-gas-bubbles-create-trembling-tundras-speeding-global-warming.html
makati1 on Sat, 13th Aug 2016 6:21 pm
“That being said, the rapidly failing EROI will turn the U.S. and World on its knees within the decade…. if we agree with the analysis by the Hill’s Group. Folks, the 2008 collapse of the U.S. Investment Banking and Housing Industry was eight years ago. While it seems like it was yesterday, eight years have come and gone in a blink of an eye.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-13/breakdown-us-global-markets-explained-what-most-analysts-miss
This article started out about gold and silver, but is totally different as you get into it. Worth a read, I think.
makati1 on Sat, 13th Aug 2016 6:21 pm
BTW: With the difficulty I have getting PO to come up on my PC at times, and the long wait for a comment to post, I will be limiting my comments and visits to the site. I know that will make some here happy, but, just because I do not point out facts, doesn’t change them.