Officials seek key to unlock frozen gas

Anchorage Daily News ^ | February 20, 2007 | WESLEY LOY

[thackney]

[thackney]

Some estimates have put the volume of natural gas in methane hydrates in Northern Alaska at over 500 tcf.

http://www.petroleumnews.com/products/FearFactor2005.pdf
see "Gas Hydrates" in Chapter 1

[Nathan Zachary]

It's about time. They've known about this stuff for ages. One reason why it hasn't been tapped is because of the enviro wienies and drilling bans in those areas.

[rellimpank]

-ping--

[Fairview]

450 trillion cubic feet

You cannot persuade me that all this comes from the compressed bodies of little prehistoric creatures.

[thackney]

Sediment from 100's of millions of years of organics adds up after a while.

[Rb ver. 2.0]

I'll gladly trade a few seals and a heard of Caribou for steady supply of natural gas.

[mrmargaritaville]

Good thing Hillary is going to rip the profits out of the hands of big oil-wouldn't want that money to get spent on ways to develop additional sources of fossil fuel now would we.
Someone needs to tell her highness that BP is one of the largest suppliers of PV systems in the world.

[Enterprise]

"You cannot persuade me that all this comes from the compressed bodies of little prehistoric creatures."

Indeed. And just how does a little creature travel on a cubic foot and how many toes would it have?

[thackney]

More Hydrates information

http://www.mms.gov/offshore/MMShydrateLinks.htm

http://www.mms.gov/offshore/OtherAgencyHydrateLinks.htm

[proud_yank]

One reason why it hasn't been tapped is because of the enviro wienies and drilling bans in those areas.

There are more reasons than that. For a long time, the market simply was not there for natural gas, and it was injected down-hole to lift oil, or used as fuel for N. Slope operations.

Bringing gas online from a place like Milne Pt. would present lots of challenges due to its location (it is almost an island in the Arctic Ocean, i.e. fairly small/compressed processing facilities).

[proud_yank]

I'll gladly trade a few seals and a heard of Caribou for steady supply of natural gas.

I don't know what there are for seals up there, but they likely wouldn't be affected by bringing gas online. Caribou love the pipelines.

[dennisw]

You cannot persuade me that all this comes from the compressed bodies of little prehistoric creatures............

It doesn't. It comes from vegetation, mostly aquatic vegetation. Eons of it

[Lazamataz]

I'll gladly trade a few seals and a heard of Caribou for steady supply of natural gas.

I have herd about those Caribou heards.

[Rb ver. 2.0]

yeah, sometimes I just don't give a damn.

[ASOC]

" would present lots of challenges

I would think that extraction of the ice would cause huge voids underground. Would this mean the North Slope fields would start to look like Manual Noreaga's face?

[thackney]

Why do you believe it would be done differently than the extraction of oil?

[Desron13]

"Sediment from 100's of millions of years of organics adds up after a while."

From what I've read recently, oil and gas are probably formed by both the compacting of organic material on the surface of the earth and natural chemical reactions in the Earth's crust. I have read accounts of some depleted wells in the Gulf of Mexico replenishing themselves over time from the bottom up. I would really like to see some more research on this phenomenon.

[ASOC]

The removal of that much water/ice would have to have some effect - the photos showed ice chucks as big as the drill core. I think this shows ice removal would cause collapse of the sandstone and thus we would see the resulting voids.

I know this is different that the underwater gas hydrates, these pockets collapse and its Johny bar the door.

[thackney]

I would expect we would bring in sea water to replace the volume just as we do for the oil today.