{"id":38996,"date":"2014-10-23T10:39:48","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T15:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=38996"},"modified":"2014-10-27T10:06:38","modified_gmt":"2014-10-27T15:06:38","slug":"what-it-would-take-to-tap-the-gulfs-frozen-methane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/10\/23\/what-it-would-take-to-tap-the-gulfs-frozen-methane\/","title":{"rendered":"What it Would Take to Tap the Gulf&#8217;s Frozen Methane"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_rQkTBC0Rzo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>According to University of Texas researchers, trillions of cubic feet of methane are trapped under the Gulf of Mexico, frozen.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Department of Energy gave Texas over $40 million to research this frozen gas \u2013 methane hydrate. As part of a four-year program, researchers will study methane hydrate and evaluate its potential as a new energy source. Combined with funds from other donors, the program has a total value of $58 million.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ig.utexas.edu\/people\/staff\/flemings\/\">Dr. Peter Flemings<\/a>, the program\u2019s lead investigator and a UT geophysics professor, says methane hydrate is one of the most fascinating materials on the planet.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>We sat down with Fleming to ask him about this frozen gas and research program:<\/p>\n<p class=\"question\"><span class=\"abbr\">Q: <\/span><strong>So why is it you find methane hydrate so fascinating?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\"><span class=\"abbr\">A: <\/span>It\u2019s sort of amazing stuff! This material, which is water and methane, combines to form an ice-like substance from high pressure and temperature. This solid has a completely different property than the methane or the water individually. And it also has a high energy density.<\/p>\n<p class=\"question\"><span class=\"abbr\">Q: <\/span>At the moment, I understand that producing energy from methane isn\u2019t a feasible option. Is this program here to change that?<\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\"><span class=\"abbr\">A: <\/span>I\u2019m going to break that into two answers:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>If you look at the prices of natural gas today, it\u2019s extremely inexpensive [to produce]. It is extremely hard to imagine how we could economically produce these hydrates in the offshore. But then, some countries have no natural hydrocarbon resource; but they do have a significant hydrate resource. Some examples are India, South Korea or Japan. For these countries, energy security is very important \u2013 that they have access to some type of energy even if it\u2019s not as cheap as what\u2019s available on the open market.<\/li>\n<li>In the seventies, when we looked at shales, nobody thought we were going to ever produce gas or oil from them. Now, it\u2019s a huge fraction of the energy that\u2019s produced in the U.S. Maybe, 30 years from now, hydrates will provide a natural gas resource.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p class=\"question\"><span class=\"abbr\">Q: <\/span>Would this natural gas resource be sustainable?<\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\"><span class=\"abbr\">A: <\/span>My answer is a little bit careful \u2013 I think one of the remarkable things that has happened in the United States is that we\u2019ve actually decreased our carbon footprint; and we\u2019ve largely decreased it because natural gas has been replacing coal. So in that sense, methane is a much cleaner, healthier fuel than burning coal. Down the road, I think we\u2019re going to have to do carbon sequestration or switch to other fuels; but these things take a long time \u2013 to come up with that technology. So, &#8216;We gotta get there,&#8217; is the short answer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"question\"><span class=\"abbr\">Q: <\/span>With ocean temperature rising, is there evidence these ice beds are melting and releasing methane into the environment?<\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\"><span class=\"abbr\">A: <\/span>People have argued that the warming ocean will lead to the dissociation of methane hydrate \u2013 meaning you take it from water and gas together, to just water and free gas. Then, that gas might enter in the atmosphere. Then, it could be a greenhouse gas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"question\"><span class=\"abbr\">Q: <\/span>Then should we be concerned about methane ice\u2019s rate of dissociation?<\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\"><span class=\"abbr\">A: <\/span>We don\u2019t think, at this point, that we are seeing the melting of hydrates from the most recent human-induced climate change.<br \/>\nThe reason for that is this thermal pulse hasn\u2019t had the chance to get deep enough in the earth to melt the hydrates.<br \/>\nBut I think what is clear is that one of the places where we really see the effects of climate change is up in the Arctic. You know the examples \u2013 that polar bears don\u2019t have ice to sit on &#8230;\u00a0In that environment, if you had hydrates buried near the surface, they could dissociate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"question\"><span class=\"abbr\">Q: <\/span>I kind of imagined there was a sense of urgency behind the project, to find out what to do with this methane ice before it threatens the environment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\"><span class=\"abbr\">A: <\/span>Keep in mind, particularly in the offshore realm in the areas we\u2019ll be drilling, that methane hydrate is on the order of 2,000 to 3,000 feet below the sea floor. It takes a long time to heat something that\u2019s 3,000 feet away from you.<\/p>\n<p class=\"question\"><span class=\"abbr\">Q: <\/span>When do things get rolling?<\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\"><span class=\"abbr\">A: <\/span>We started October 1st.<br \/>\nWe\u2019ll be targeting specific locations and analyzing them this year. Then next year, we\u2019ll do a preliminary drilling experiment to make sure our technology works. And then either a year after or early in the fourth year, we\u2019ll have a full-scale drilling project.<\/p>\n<p class=\"question\"><span class=\"abbr\">Q: <\/span>When will the public be able to see results from the study?<\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\"><span class=\"abbr\">A: <\/span>The first significant public information will be in that year-two offshore test, in which, hopefully, we\u2019ll document the presence hydrate and our ability to retrieve it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to University of Texas researchers, trillions of cubic feet of methane are trapped under the Gulf of Mexico, frozen. The U.S. Department of Energy gave Texas over $40 million to research this frozen gas \u2013 methane hydrate. As part of a four-year program, researchers will study methane hydrate and evaluate its potential as a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":175,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[59],"tags":[22,144],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38996"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38996"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39013,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38996\/revisions\/39013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}