Fossil fuels methane hydrate

Gas hydrates are an ice-like material which is constituted of methane molecules encaged in a cluster of water molecules and held together by hydrogen bonds. This material occurs in large underground deposits found beneath the ocean floor on continental margins and in places north of the arctic circle such as Siberia. It is estimated that gas hydrate deposits contain twice as much carbon as all other fossil fuels on earth. This source, if proven feasible for recovery, could be a future energy as well as chemical source for petrochemicals. 

Develop technologies for the improved extraction of conventional fossil fuels, including unconventional sources such as oil shale, tar sands, and deep-sea methane hydrates. 

Methane releases 25% less carbon dioxide per gram than coal, and it emits none of the oxides of nitrogen and sulfur that contribute to acid precipitation. Therefore, using methane in place of other fossil fuels is very desirable. Methane hydrates seem to be an ideal and plentiful pre-packaged source of natural gas. Estimates of the exact amount of methane stored in hydrates suggest there could be... 

Even the most conservative estimates of gas in hydrates in Table 7.1 indicate their enormous energy potential. Kvenvolden (1988) indicated that the 10,000 Gt (1 Gt = 1015 g) carbon or 1.8 x 1016 m3 of methane in hydrates may surpass the available, recoverable conventional methane by two orders of magnitude, or a factor of two larger than the methane equivalent of the total of all fossil fuel... 

Gas Hydrates Gas hydrates are solid particles of methane (which is normally found in gas form) and water molecules in a crystalline form. They are widely found in many parts of the world, including the U.S., South Korea, India and China, often offshore. Gas hydrates have immense potential as a source of energy and may possibly exist in much larger quantities than all other known forms of fossil fuels. Unfortunately, they are not stable except under high pressure. Gas hydrate reserves could be very expensive and difficult to develop as a commercial source of energy. Nonetheless, today s very high prices for oil and gas may eventually make them a viable energy source. 

The storage of methane as hydrates offers a potentially vast natural gas resource. As to the question of how much hydrate there is right now, there is no definitive answer. However, the worldwide amount of carbon bound in gas hydrates has been estimated to total twice the amount of carbon to be found in all known fossil fuels originally on Earth. Additionally, conventional gas resources appear to be trapped beneath methane hydrate layers in ocean sediments.22... 

Methane hydrates have attracted much attention as future energy resources because of the enormous amounts of those deposits. Because methane has fewer carbon atoms than all other fossil fuels and the amount of exhaust CO2 is relatively small when it bums, hydrates are considered to be cleaner energy resources. Various researchers have reported that they have accumulated extensively in permafrost regions and in sediments beneath the deep ocean floor. ... 

IVIethane is the simplest hydrocarbon, but it has some unusual behaviors. One of these is the ability to form a clathrate, which is an unusual type of matter in which molecules of one substance form a cage around molecules of another substance. For instance, water molecules can form a latticework around methane molecules to form frozen methane hydrate, possibly one of the biggest reservoirs of fossil fuel on earth. 

In the longer term, an oil shortage can be expected in 40 to 50 years, and this will result in increased use of natural gas. The fossil fuel with the longest future is coal, with reserves for more than 500 years. The question whether natural gas reserves in the form of methane hydrate, in which more carbon is stored than in other fossil raw materials, will be recoverable in the future cannot be answered at present, since these lie in geographically unfavorable areas (permafrost regions, continental shelves of the oceans, deep sea). 

Fossil fuels Coals, petroleums, natural gases, oils from shales and tar sands, methane hydrates, and any other supplies from which hydrocarbons for energy applications may be extracted. 

There are large unconventional gas resources, like methane hydrate or aquifer gas, that could increase the amount of gas resources by a factor of ten or more. Methane hydrate is a clathrate, a crystalline form in which methane molecules are trapped. Hydrates are stable at high pressure and low temperatures (e.g., 100 bar at T< 13 °C), and are found at ocean depths >500m as well as under permafrost conditions. Some experts argue that the quantities of methane hydrates exceed those of all other fossil fuels combined. However, technologies for extracting methane from hydrate deposits have not yet been developed. 

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