The de facto German embassy says its researchers have tapped similar hydrates around Japan.
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"Sweating super-hydrates the skin and makes athletes more likely to develop blisters, " Adams says.
Methane (a.k.a. natural gas) hydrates are an efficient (in theory manufacturable) way to store gas.
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By some estimates, methane hydrates contain more energy content than all other known fossil fuels combined.
However, methane from undersea hydrates has an even bigger 13C deficit than that from surface bacteria.
Some researchers have raised concern that release of gas hydrates could contribute to present-day global warming.
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Perhaps more interesting though is the potential for natural hydrates that abundantly litter the shallow ocean floors.
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"Up to 700, 000 tcf of methane hydrates lie beneath the ocean floor and the Arctic, " Mulva said.
Using hot water to manage hydrates could mean a lot more water to deal with on the surface.
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The paradox is that while gas can be extracted from methane hydrates, doing so poses potentially catastrophic risks.
Industry insiders describe the commercialization of gas hydrates as similar to the development of coal bed gas resources.
Ironically, rising sea levels and temperatures appear to be causing methane releases from hydrates with or without drilling.
This 2004 article from World Oil is a seemingly exhaustive overview of how the industry deals with hydrates.
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As we explained previously, those methane hydrates clogging the uptake pipe need water and low temperatures to form.
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To date, Japan has made the biggest bet on methane hydrates and appears to be the closest to commercial production.
Methane hydrates are frozen water molecules that trap methane gas molecules in a crystalline, lattice-like structure known as a hydrate.
Needless to say, the potential value of gas hydrates as a less-polluting and more secure supply of energy is immense.
The cap will be lowered in slowly to ensure that the hydrates problem that we encountered with previous attempts you minimize.
Throughout the system there would be ways of warming things up and injecting antifreeze to stave off the formation of icelike methane hydrates.
He said ConocoPhillips is already looking beyond shale gas, and is at the early stages of researching so-called methane hydrates, a frozen form of gas.
If hydrates remain a problem, the smaller size will be easier for BP to circulate antifreeze-like methanol through the system, keeping the hydrates from forming.
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Meet methane hydrates, the world's most promising and perilous energy resource.
However, the study warned that further research is needed to determine the long-term impacts of the natural gas hydrates -- essentially methane gas trapped in ice.
In other words, the extraction process, if done improperly, could cause sudden disruptions on the ocean floor, reducing ocean pressure rates and releasing methane gas from hydrates.
In the past two months, the U.S. Department of Energy has completed bilateral agreements with Japan, Korea and India that will increase collaboration on methane hydrates research.
The seawater down there is so cold that when natural gas bubbles out of the well into the water it forms methane hydrates, which clog the uptake pipe.
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In 2003, an international consortium that included Japan, Canada, the U.S., India and Germany produced natural gas from methane hydrates in the Mackenzie Delta in Canada's Northwest Territories.
In the study released Wednesday, researchers suggest extracting the natural gas hydrates with "depressurization" -- a method that involves changing the ice into gas and water at the surface.
"The assessment points to a truly significant potential for natural gas hydrates to contribute to the energy mix of the United States and the world, " said Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.
"In coal bed technology, they kept at it until they found the key that unlocked the door and things started happening, which is likely the way methane hydrates will develop, " says Rose.
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