::) so 12-21 won't finish us off..but thinking about how they will handle this..is scary :(
Alaska's Methane Hydrate Resource Sparks Debate Over Energy And Climate Change
AP | By DAN JOLING Posted: 11/11/2012 11:29 am EST Updated: 11/11/2012 11:14 pm EST
entire article at this link
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/11/methane-hydrate-alaska-north-slope-climate-change_n_2113828.html
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A half mile (800 meters) below the ground at Prudhoe Bay, above the vast oil field that helped trigger construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline, a drill rig has tapped what might one day be the next big energy source.
The nearly $29 million science experiment on the North Slope produced 1 million cubic feet (30,000 cubic meters) of methane. Researchers have begun the complex task of analyzing how the reservoir responded to extraction.
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Japan is setting up for a production test on a gas hydrate accumulation in the Nankai Trough south of Honshu, its main island.
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The world has a lot of methane hydrate. A Minerals Management Service study in 2008 estimated methane hydrate resources in the northern Gulf of Mexico at 21,000 trillion cubic feet (595 trillion cubic meters), or 100 times current U.S. reserves of natural gas. The combined energy content of methane hydrate may exceed all other known fossil fuels, according to the DOE.
Not all is accessible, but high concentrations in permeable rock where there's existing drilling infrastructure would be among early candidates for development. The USGS in 2008 estimated 85 trillion cubic feet (2.41 trillion cubic meters) of undiscovered, technically recoverable gas within methane hydrate deposits on Alaska's North Slope.
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Methane could be extracted by lowering pressure or increasing temperature in an underground reservoir.
"One of the issues with that, though, is that you are melting the ice, and adding a lot of gas and water to the reservoir, which can compromise the reservoir's strength," Boswell said.
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Researchers are optimistic.
"From the lab data we had, it seemed like it was some strong evidence that it was not a lot of wholesale destruction of the solid hydrate," Boswell said.
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also at the bottom of the article picture blog of
?Oil Spills Since The Gulf Disaster