Lehigh University: Global Warming
Buried treasure Proceed with caution - 03/25/08
Locked beneath the world's ocean floors, sealed off by low temperatures and high pressure, lies a frozen reservoir of natural gas that could one day help satisfy the world's ever-growing demand for energy.
These untapped deposits of methane hydrate, which are encased in icy sediments, have attracted the attention of scientists in China, India, South Korea, Russia, Japan, the United States and other countries.
Methane hydrates are so abundant that the U.S. Geological Survey believes they contain more organic carbon than the world's stores of coal, oil and non-hydrate natural gas combined.
Moreover, the hydrates are an equal-opportunity energy source. Unlike coal, oil and natural gas, methane hydrates are omnipresent, distributed evenly in the sediments beneath ocean and sea floors, and found under the arctic tundra of Alaska and Siberia.
But environmental and economical challenges must be overcome, says Tae Sup Yun, before methane hydrates can realize their potential as a new energy source.
"When you extract methane hydrates," says Yun, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, "the methane gas begins to dissociate from the sediment in which it is trapped, encased in ice and under great pressure. This dissociation may cause the sediment to collapse."
