Posted on 05/25/2017 11:12:37 AM PDT by Hojczyk
China is talking up its achievement of mining flammable ice for the first time from underneath the South China Sea.
Estimates of the South China Seas methane hydrate potential now range as high as 150 billion cubic meters of natural gas equivalent. Thats sufficient to satisfy Chinas entire equivalent oil consumption for 50 years.
The worlds resources of flammable ice in which gas is stored in cages of water molecules are vast. Gas hydrates are estimated to hold more carbon than all the worlds other fossil fuels combined, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
And its densely packed: one cubic foot of flammable ice holds 164 cubic feet of regular natural gas, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
If there is a real breakthrough, they wrote, it could be as significant as the shale revolution in the United States. Under such a bull case scenario, wed expect a significant increase in offshore exploration and production activities.
(Excerpt) Read more at thegwpf.com ...
I agree that burning carbon makes much more sense today, but I’m still fascinated by the power in a single lightening bolt. And when I think of all the heat poured on the earth daily by the sun, I can’t help but think someday someone will figure it out.
Conoco Phillips already did it on the North slope five years ago.
Melt the ice and the oceans will warm and temperatures will rise.
And our gardens will grow.
Just watched a science channel report on the Bermuda Triangle which happened to show vast fields of methane hydrate on the ocean floor, just lying on the surface ready for harvest. And it show how if the methane is disturbed from the bottom and begins to rise it changes its form from a solid to a gas.
This was in reference to a theory that some ships disappeared in the Triangle because they may have been enveloped by a giant methane gas bubble which would not only kill their sailors, but sink the ship by displacing water under their keels with gas.
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