There's a deposit off a part of North Carolina's coast which would supply US natural gas needs for more than a year. The total gas hydrate deposits on the ocean floors would run the entire civilization for thousands of years.
>> There's a deposit off a part of North Carolina's coast which would supply US natural gas needs for more than a year. The total gas hydrate deposits on the ocean floors would run the entire civilization for thousands of years.
Now all we need to do is get this past 40 rat Senators and a couple of hundred thousand environmentalist fanatics.
Start gathering twigs now if you want hot food in a decade, as these deposits will go unexploited until well after the lights here go out.
Ahh, but the problem lies in accesssing the stuff. If you do exploratory drilling via a vessel and have an escape, the vessel will sink. Same for any type of floating platform. If you were to use a stiff leg derrick, it would need near infinite jack-up cpapbility that can simultaneously handle collapses as the reserve is depleted/mined.
I suppose horizontal/directional drilling could work. I wonder if production would require 2-way pumping. Heat may be required to liberate the methane from the hydrate form.
Very interesting idea. However, the enviroweenies will likely never allow such a thing, as the won't even allow wind farms on subaqueous terra firma.