America's future energy source?

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@ix.netcom.com>]

An interesting topic .. will probably surface as an alternative to 
nuclear generated power ... in discussions from those who are pushing 
for a viable alternative. As with wind and solar power, the viability 
is daunted by cost and associated envirnmental factors as well. The 
article is provided for interest and discussion.
-----------------------------

  LONDON, Jan 29  - American scientists said 
on  Wednesday that they had found a tantalising new energy source in 
vast stores of methane locked beneath the ocean floor. 
  Writing in the science journal Nature, the scientists said  
they had found a reservoir of methane in the form of a solid gas
hydrate equivalent to around 15 billion tonnes of carbon at Blake
ridge in the Western Atlantic. 
  Underneath that, to their surprise, they found the same  
amount or even more methane in the form of gas bubbles amid the 
sediment. 
  ``The 35 billion tonnes of methane carbon on the Blake ridge  
is a quantity of methane that could meet the 1996 United States'
natural gas consumption rate for the next 105 years,'' said Gerald
Dickens of the University of Michigan. 
  Theoretically, methane in hydrate form could be used as  
natural gas. Unfortunately, the scientists have not yet found a 
way of getting the methane out of the earth in a useable form. 
  At the low temperatures and high pressure under the surface  
of the earth, the methane stays in solid hydrate form, which 
looks much like ice. 
  But when it is raised to the surface, the higher temperature  
and lower pressure make the hydrates melt. 
  Dickens said he and his team probably lost about 99 percent  
of the hydrate from the sediment cores they drilled out in their
investigations at Blake ridge. 
  ``It will take some technological advances before hydrate can  be
recovered economically,'' he told Reuters. 
  Nevertheless, he said the team's investigations indicated  
that methane reserves could make up the earth's biggest store of
fossil fuel. 
  Previous surveys had concentrated on the amount of methane  
stored in hydrate deposits, but the team's findings suggest that there
is at least as much again stored in free gas beneath the hydrate zone.

 ``The distribution of methane in a hydrate reservoir can be  
enormous...we had assumed that most of the methane was as 
hydrate and not as bubbles,'' said Dickens. 

Sandy Perle
Technical Director
ICN Dosimetry Division
Office: (800) 548-5100 x2306 
Fax: (714) 668-3149

E-Mail: sandyfl@ix.netcom.com    

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