An Energy Coup for Japan: ‘Flammable Ice’

[jimmy olsen]

Isn't methane even worse for globabl warming than carbon? 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/business/global/japan-says-it-is-first-to-tap-methane-hydrate-deposit.html?pagewanted=all

By HIROKO TABUCHI
Published: March 12, 2013

TOKYO — Japan said Tuesday that it had extracted gas from offshore deposits of methane hydrate — sometimes called "flammable ice" — a breakthrough that officials and experts said could be a step toward tapping a promising but still little-understood energy source.

The gas, whose extraction from the undersea hydrate reservoir was thought to be a world first, could provide an alternative source of energy to known oil and gas reserves. That could be crucial especially for Japan, which is the world's biggest importer of liquefied natural gas and is engaged in a public debate about whether to resume the country's heavy reliance on nuclear power.

Experts estimate that the carbon found in gas hydrates worldwide totals at least twice the amount of carbon in all of the earth's other fossil fuels, making it a potential game-changer for energy-poor countries like Japan. Researchers had already successfully extracted gas from onshore methane hydrate reservoirs, but not from beneath the seabed, where much of the world's deposits are thought to lie.

The exact properties of undersea hydrates and how they might affect the environment are still poorly understood, given that methane is a greenhouse gas. Japan has invested hundreds of millions of dollars since the early 2000s to explore offshore methane hydrate reserves in both the Pacific and the Sea of Japan.

That task has become all the more pressing after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis, which has all but halted Japan's nuclear energy program and caused a sharp increase in the country's fossil fuel imports. Japan's rising energy bill has weighed heavily on its economy, helping to push it to a trade deficit and reducing the benefits of the recently weaker yen to Japanese exporters.

The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said a team aboard the scientific drilling ship Chikyu had started a trial extraction of gas from a layer of methane hydrates about 300 meters, or 1,000 feet, below the seabed Tuesday morning. The ship has been drilling since January in an area of the Pacific about 1,000 meters deep and 80 kilometers, or 50 miles, south of the Atsumi Peninsula in central Japan.

With specialized equipment, the team drilled into and then lowered the pressure in the undersea methane hydrate reserve, causing the methane and ice to separate. It then piped the natural gas to the surface, the ministry said in a statement.

Hours later, a flare on the ship's stern showed that gas was being produced, the ministry said.

"Japan could finally have an energy source to call its own," said Takami Kawamoto, a spokesman for the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation, or Jogmec, the state-run company leading the trial extraction.

The team will continue the trial extraction for about two weeks before analyzing how much gas has been produced, Jogmec said. Japan hopes to make the extraction technology commercially viable in about five years.

"This is the world's first trial production of gas from oceanic methane hydrates, and I hope we will be able to confirm stable gas production," Toshimitsu Motegi, the Japanese trade minister, said at a news conference in Tokyo. He acknowledged that the extraction process would still face technical hurdles and other problems.

Still, "shale gas was considered technologically difficult to extract but is now produced on a large scale," he said. "By tackling these challenges one by one, we could soon start tapping the resources that surround Japan."

It is unclear how much the tapping of methane hydrate would affect Japan's emissions or global warming. On one hand, natural gas would provide a cleaner alternative to coal, which still provides Japan with a fifth of its primary energy needs. But new energy sources could also prompt Japan to slow its development of renewable energies or green technologies, hurting its emissions in the long run. Any accidental release of large amounts of methane during the extraction process would also be harmful.

Jogmec estimates that the surrounding area in the Nankai submarine trough holds at least 1.1 trillion cubic meters, or 39 trillion cubic feet, of methane hydrate, enough to meet 11 years' worth of gas imports to Japan.

A separate rough estimate by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology has put the total amount of methane hydrate in the waters surrounding Japan at more than 7 trillion cubic meters, or what researchers have long said is closer to 100 years' worth of Japan's natural gas needs.

"Now we know that extraction is possible," said Mikio Satoh, a senior researcher in marine geology at the institute who was not involved in the Nankai trough expedition. "The next step is to see how far Japan can get costs down to make the technology economically viable."

Methane hydrate is a sherbetlike substance that can form when methane gas is trapped in ice below the seabed or underground. Though it looks like ice, it burns when it is heated.

Experts say there are abundant deposits of gas hydrates in the seabed and in some Arctic regions. Japan, together with Canada, has already succeeded in extracting gas from methane hydrate trapped in permafrost soil. American researchers are carrying out similar test projects on the North Slope of Alaska.

The difficulty had long been how to extract gas from the methane hydrate far below the seabed, where much of the deposits lie.

In onshore tests, Japanese researchers explored using hot water to warm the methane hydrate, and tried lowering pressure to free the methane molecules. Japan decided to use depressurization, partly because pumping warm water under the seabed would itself require a lot of energy.

"Gas hydrates have always been seen as a potentially vast energy source, but the question was, how do we extract gas from under the ocean?" said Ryo Matsumoto, a professor in geology at Meiji University in Tokyo who has led research into Japan's hydrate deposits. "Now we've cleared one big hurdle."

According to the United States Geological Survey, recent mapping off the North Carolina and South Carolina coasts shows large offshore accumulations of methane hydrates. Canada, China, Norway and the United States are also exploring hydrate deposits.

Scientists at the geological survey note, however, that there is still a limited understanding of how drilling for hydrates might affect the environment, particularly the possible release of methane into the atmosphere, and are calling for continued research and monitoring.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 12, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of a spokesman for Jogmec. He is Takami Kawamoto, not Kawatomo.

[Eddie Teach]

Isn't methane even worse for globabl warming than carbon? 

Uh, what do you think the C stands for in CH4? 

[jimmy olsen]

Isn't methane even worse for globabl warming than carbon? 

Uh, what do you think the C stands for in CH4? 

I haven't taken chemistry in 14 years.

Still, a shameful lapse.

Correction: I thought methane was worse for global warming than traditional fossil fuels.

[11B4V]

Isn't methane even worse for globabl warming than carbon? 

Uh, what do you think the C stands for in CH4? 

I haven't taken chemistry in 14 years.

Still, a shameful lapse.

Correction: I thought methane was worse for global warming than traditional fossil fuels.

That's OK Tim, I never took chemistry and feel it's not a shameful lapse.

[Liep]

Isn't methane even worse for globabl warming than carbon? 

Uh, what do you think the C stands for in CH4? 

I haven't taken chemistry in 14 years.

Still, a shameful lapse.

Correction: I thought methane was worse for global warming than traditional fossil fuels.

Its a worse greenhouse gas than CO2, but when you burn it it develops CO2 like oil.

[Neil]

Correction: I thought methane was worse for global warming than traditional fossil fuels.

Methane is a more powerful, but shorter-lived greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.  However, we wouldn't be releasing the methane into the atmosphere, but burning it and releasing the carbon dioxide.

Still, when this goes bad, it will result in a very intense spike in heat as all that methane erupts into the atmosphere, followed by a slow burn as things return to normal over the centuries.  The clathrate gun is part of the model for the PT mass extinction.

[The Larch]

Natural gas is mostly methane as well. This is basically another form in which it is present in nature.

[Viking]

Isn't methane even worse for globabl warming than carbon? 

Uh, what do you think the C stands for in CH4? 

CH4 + 2 O2 -> CO2 + 2 H2O

This process is usually called burning natural gas. Methane has a greater greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide. In terms of energy per unit carbon emitted then Methane is the best of all the fossil fuels. It emits the least amount of CO2 per unit energy generated. So comparing methane to carbon dioxide is a bit pointless since the methane gets burned if humans can gather it.

Natural gas as found in nature is usually 99% Methane.

What is special here is the natural gas hydrates in which form the gas is found. Like Shale Gas there is obnoxiously huge amounts of the stuff in the world. The process described (or rather not described, just alluded to) apparently reduces the pressure of on the hydrates releasing the methane. Methane Hydrates are stable at a certain range of temperature and pressure they are stable below -4 deg C at room pressure (I did university work on hydrates, making them in a lab). And contain 150 SCM (Standard cubic meters of gas/room temp room pressure) per cubic meter (basically 150 times compression).

The main problem with getting methane out of the ground is that at the point where the gas is released from the hydrate the water doesn't remain frozen, rather it melts and immediately re-freezes sealing up the formation (probably requiring fracking). At that point the volume is reduced not only by the gas but also by the reduced volume of water, the whole formation subsides (sinks). The japanese have had substantial problems working on these fields for some time now.

Unlike shale gas, getting methane out is HARD. I wish them luck. As for the green house effect?

[Cecil]

Correction: I thought methane was worse for global warming than traditional fossil fuels.

Methane is a more powerful, but shorter-lived greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.  However, we wouldn't be releasing the methane into the atmosphere, but burning it and releasing the carbon dioxide.

Still, when this goes bad, it will result in a very intense spike in heat as all that methane erupts into the atmosphere, followed by a slow burn as things return to normal over the centuries.  The clathrate gun is part of the model for the PT mass extinction.

For a while they even thought it was partly responsible for the spike at the end of the iceage but as I understand its now thought to be unlikely. Still with a 96% deathrate for marine spieces I can understand why climate scientists are a bit worried about that siberian tundra thawing.

Its been a while since I read about this but Methane is about 20 times more powerful than Co2 yeah? Or was it 40?

[jimmy olsen]

Unlike shale gas, getting methane out is HARD. I wish them luck. As for the green house effect?

???

[Eddie Teach]

Unlike shale gas, getting methane out is HARD. I wish them luck. As for the green house effect?

???

!!!!!!

[Viking]

Unlike shale gas, getting methane out is HARD. I wish them luck. As for the green house effect?

???

Yes, hard. It's basically ice and to get the gas out of the ice you need to melt the ice. How the hell do you do that 2000 meters under the ground at the end of 3000 meters of pipe? The reason conventional gas and oil is easy is that the whole underground reservoir is held in place by permeable rock (rock that oil can flow through like sandstone or chalk). Fracking works because it takes normally non-permeable rock (shale) and makes it permeable. With underground hydrates the medium is normally permeable rock which is filled with non-permeable ice. Melting the ice down there is actually much much harder that it sounds on paper and keeping the geological bits from moving once you melt the ice is also hard and keeping the ice from re-freezing plugging the well is also hard.

[Eddie Teach]

As for the greenhouse effect?

[Viking]

Unlike shale gas, getting methane out is HARD. I wish them luck. As for the green house effect?

???

sorry, getting methane out of hydrates is hard when they are in the ground.

[Admiral Yi]

Puff, nobody is getting what you mean by "as for the green house effect?" 

The end??