Scientists find vast supplies of alternative energy trapped in ice deep in the earth.
Oil prices recently reached a 30-year high, prompting former President Clinton to tap our national reserves and reviving the debate about drilling in places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But some scientists believe the most promising source of energy in the future is not petroleum, but natural gas locked in ice. Inside a particular type of ice crystals called hydrates are trapped molecules of methane, the key constituent of natural gas.
Hydrates are crystal structures similar to ice; inside which molecules of gas are held in a natural state. If the methane can be extracted from its "cage," it could be burned just like natural gas -- a much cleaner form of fuel than coal or petroleum. As USGS Menlo Park researcher Keith Kvenvolden explains, methane hydrates are what you get when you have water and methane together under certain conditions. It is sometimes called "flammable ice" because it is a highly combustible solid material that only exists at extremely low temperatures and high pressures. But because it can only exist in such conditions, researching it can be extremely difficult.
Hydrate deposits are known to exist deep beneath the ocean floor and closer to the Earth's surface in permafrost Arctic regions. The size of the deposits around the world, from the Gulf of Mexico to Siberia, is enormous, says Kvenvolden, who estimates the amount of gas hydrates on Earth to be more than twice the amount of all other fossil fuels combined. According to the Department of Energy, if only one percent of the existing deposits could be exploited for domestic consumption, the U.S. could more than double its natural resource supply.
Last year Congress appropriated more than $47 million over the next five years to investigate the feasibility of this future resource. It is important to note, however, that no commercial exploitation of this material is currently underway anywhere on the planet. Research efforts are growing rapidly, but the technology to efficiently extract the gas in a usable form has not been developed. Extraction is extremely difficult because the deposits are in such challenging locations, and because these reservoirs do not exist in pure form, but are mixed together with other geologic sediments. Finding and accessing deposits is one thing, but converting the solid hydrates into usable gas and extracting it is another. In addition, some scientists, including Charles Paull a researcher with the Monterey Bay Aquarium, say extracting gas hydrates is risky because it could disrupt sea floor stability.
Copyright 2002 American Communications Foundation