EXPLOITING THE DEEP SEAS Exploiting the Deep Seas for Energy Resources and for Carbon Burial



Exploiting the deep seas for energy resources and carbon burial

Methane [density and structure]

Natural gas, which is predominantly methane (CH4), is recognized as clean burning. It is an important bridge fuel to a future where renewable energy sources are common. Methane hydrate, molecules of natural gas trapped in an ice-like cage of water molecules, represent a potentially vast methane resource for both the United States and the world. Recent discoveries of methane hydrate in arctic and deep-water marine environments have highlighted the need for a better understanding of this substance as a natural storehouse of carbon and a potential energy resource. METHANE (CH4) is one of the important greenhouse gases (GHGs) that affect the earth's energy balance and global climate change due to its radiation forcing properties. CH4 produced from enteric fermentation of feed/fodder or diet by ruminant animals is one of the principal sources (Senn, 2007).Carbon Dioxide Hydrates [density and structure]

The capture of CO 2 is a proposed technique to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or, commonly, prevent it from reaching it. The process chemistry of CO 2 capture is energetically costly and probably CO 2 occurs during it. This process only delays the release of CO 2, which cannot be stored indefinitely. However, this CO 2 could be used in various forms. The CO 2 would be the subsequent greenhouse gas emissions the most important to the atmosphere after water vapor, contributing respectively 26% and 60% for this phenomenon. If the reality, of global warming observed globally over the last century, is now hardly challenged a scientific point of view, the exact magnitude of carbon dioxide in this process remains to clarified. The reduction of anthropogenic emissions is covered with the Kyoto Protocol and the Directive 2003/87/EC, and its sequestration in the long term is the subject of ongoing research.Methane Hydrates

Hydrate extraction from seafloor mounds is problematic, because the mounds are of limited extent, and there is potential for disruption of sensitive sea-floor ecosystems that depend on these deposits. Production of methane hydrate from low- permeability muds has a different set of challenges and would require an entirely new subsea development approach. Methane hydrate will most likely be produced first from deposits where the following conditions are met: 1) the hydrate occurs in high concentrations; 2) it occurs in a high-permeability host rock that has excellent reservoir quality; and 3) the deposit is located in an area with existing infrastructure. (Ausubel, 1998).Clathrate

A clathrate is a chemical compound in which molecules of one material (the “host”) form a solid lattice that encloses molecules of another material (the “guest”). Methane hydrate is a naturally occurring clathrate in which a host lattice of water ice encloses guest molecules of methane. Methane, made of one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms, is the simplest hydrocarbon molecule and the primary component of natural gas. In methane hydrate, the gas molecules are not chemically bound to the water molecules but instead are trapped within their crystalline ...