Posted on 06/23/2007 10:01:41 PM PDT by saganite
SEOUL, June 24 (Yonhap) -- South Korean engineers have obtained chunks of gas hydrate in the East Sea and successfully separated gas from them, the government said Sunday, a move that may give the resources-scarce country a new source of energy.
"The discovery is important because it shows for certain that a pool of gas hydrate is there," said Lee Seung-woo, head of an oil field development team in the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy.
Lee said the 2,000-ton South Korean oil drilling ship Tamhae 2 has recently found a pool of gas hydrate 100 kilometers south of Ulleung Island and 135 kilometers northeast of the industrial city of Pohang.
The area is within South Korea's 200-mile exclusive economic zone in the East Sea.
"The drill hit the sea bottom at 2.072 meters and found a gas hydrate deposit after digging several more meters," Lee said, disclosing that the gas pool appeared 6.5 meters below the sea bed.
Gas hydrate is a mixture of gas and water molecules as an integral part of the crystal. Gas can be extracted by combustion, or heating. It is usually found deep underwater where cold temperatures and extreme pressure cause natural gas to condense into semisolid form. When brought to the surface it can be used as liquid natural gas.
Lee said the gas hydrate extracted from the East Sea proved to be of top quality, comparable to 99 percent methane gas.
It was South Korea's first discovery of a gas hydrate pool in its waters since it launched the project in July 2005. Only the United States, Japan, India and China have reported finding such deep-sea gas pools.
South Korea has earmarked 225.7 billion won in a three-stage gas hydrate project that runs from 2005 to 2014. In the first stage that ends this year, 66.7 billion won will be spent.
Lee said that after a series of surveys in the East Sea in 2005-2006, South Korean engineers have picked 14 locations for drilling.
"A more detailed size of the deposit found in this location is expected to be available later in the year after more drillings," he said, adding that it would take some time before gas hydrate found in the area can be commercially used.
According to scientists, there are about 10 trillion tons of gas hydrate in the world, an amount enough for use for 5,000 years. The deposit in South Korea's East Sea, estimated at 600 million tons, can meet South Korea's natural gas needs for roughly 30 years, they said.
South Korea imported 2.7 million tons of liquefied natural gas in 2005 to meet its domestic consumption.
There isn’t a way to commercially exploit it yet, there is just a huge amount of it.
The gas can be extracted by heating. When you take natural gas and condense it (make LNG) you have waste heat that can be used for extraction.
Further, a properly balnced system would use the “quality cold” (for refrigeration,food processing etc.) on the receiving end.
Couldn’t say. This has huge potential but the technology for extacting it is still being developed. Also, mehtane is a significant greenhouse gas so you can expect to see the environmentalists objecting to it as a source of energy if it ever comes to the point we start exploiting it (and we will).
I think I saw or read something that implied the substance was unstable to the point that it regularly spontaneously releases itself from the ocean depths. Drilling a hole of that length would seem like a daunting task for exploratory purposes to begin with. To chase that source would seem nearly impossible at our current level of technology.
The drilling of the “Mt. Elbert prospect” within the Milne Point Unit (MPU) on the Alaskan North Slope represents an important milestone in an ongoing evaluation of Alaskan Arctic methane hydrate potential. This evaluation, a joint effort of DOE, USGS, BP Exploration Alaska (BPXA), and several university and technology company partners, is a multi-year effort that builds on previous work carried out by industry and the USGS.
The primary objective of the Gulf of Mexico Hydrates Joint Industry Project (JIP) is to develop technology and data to assist in the characterization of naturally occurring gas hydrates in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.
Estimates range anywhere from 7,000 Tcf to over 73,000 Tcf! In fact, the USGS estimates that methane hydrates may contain more organic carbon than the world’s coal, oil, and conventional natural gas - combined!
http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/classactivities/methanehydrates_sec.html
As far as I know the only cost (once you’ve obtained the crystals) is to simply let them melt and the gas is released.
Correct, there is lots of it....but how do you bring it up?
I was trying to find a map with Sea of Japan territorial claims but couldn't. I'm thinking anything "100 kilometers south of Ulleung Island and 135 kilometers northeast of the industrial city of Pohang" is probably going to be disputed by Japan considering the status of Liancourt Rocks/Takeshima/Dokdo (whatever your choice).
Pohang is that big indentation on the Korean coast about a third of the way up from the bottom.
You may have to warm it first. One technique we are applying on the North Slope is to bring warm water from a deep reservoir (~7,000 ft) and inject it into a shallow, cold oil field laying closer to the permafrost. This injected water warms the oil reservoir enough to let us pump it out.
If you can really get the gas up in a controlled manner that
will be a huge boost for energy supplies ...wow.
Even recovering 1% is a huge amount.
How bad will the revolution be when the world runs out of energy?
it won’t unless the sun stops shining.
The future will be different - it always is. I don’t work the farm or ride a horse into town.
I have no idea what my grandkids will face.
Methane hydrate is currently a nusiance material that oil drillers try to avoid. It is created by methane, water and pressure and collects on the drilling equipment.
Isn’t Methane Hydrate effectively an “ice” eg; frozen crystals? I’d think it would sublimate > go directly to vapor at normal temps & pressures.
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