Big 'Effin Deal
Plausible Technique to be Tested in Alaska to Exploit Methane Hydrate. [ArthurK]

Says here Conoco Phillips and the DOE will have a test project to extract Methane from Methane Clathrate in Alaska this winter.


Why is this important?


"the energy content of methane occurring in hydrate form is immense, possibly exceeding the combined energy content of all other known fossil fuels"

Methane Hydrate looks like ice. But there's gobs of Methane locked up in that ice - so much that you can set a block of it on fire! Problem is coming up with a practical way to grab hold of that sweet, sweet CH4. Besides the absurd amounds of Clathrate lying all over the ocean floor, there's gigatons of it under the tundra in the arctic areas of Alaska, Canada and Siberia. This new technique involves injecting CO2 which liberates and replaces the Methane in the ice. Yeah, that's right. It'll keep the greenies happy* because there's CO2 sequestration involved!

*Not really. They'll just bitch about something else.

This plausible Methane Hydrate exploitation is in addition to the stupidly humoungous amounts of shale Methane just starting to come on line. Too bad it's still expensive to fly a jet or drive a truck around...

What's this!? Royal Dutch Shell has a pilot project to convert Methane into jet fuel and diesel. Whee! Science and Free Enterprise work well together.

Thanks to the May 20th, 2011 edition of the CCNet newsletter. Here's the web page with most of the same info

posted by Open Blogger at 03:12 PM

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