Marine Gas Hydrates: Future Energy or Environmental Killer?

Gas hydrates: past and future geohazard?

Gas hydrates are ice-like deposits containing a mixture of water and gas; the most common gas is methane. Gas hydrates are stable under high pressures and relatively low temperatures and are found underneath the oceans and in permafrost regions. Estimates range from 500 to 10,000 giga tonnes of carbon (best current estimate 1600-2000 GtC) stored in ocean sediments and 400 GtC in Arctic permafro...

Energy From Gas Hydrates: Assessing the Opportunities & Challenges for Canada

Gas hydrates form when water and natural gas combine at low temperatures and high pressures — for example, in regions of permafrost and in marine subseafloor sediments. They exist in abundance worldwide and some estimates suggest that the total amount of natural gas bound in hydrate form may exceed all conventional gas resources, or even the amount of all hydrocarbon energy — coal, oil and natu...

7 Natural Gas Hydrates

Natural Gas Hydrates

Sir Humphry Davy witnessed the first chlorine hydrate crystallizing in 1811. Couple of century later his discovery, natural gas hydrates has begun to play an important role in energy business. From being a mere chemical curiosity, they have proven to be a nuisance for the natural gas industry. The problem of hydrate induced blockage in “wet gas” flow systems has been widely reported and became ...

High-pressure gas hydrates.

It has long been known that crystalline hydrates are formed by many simple gases that do not interact strongly with water, and in most cases the gas molecules or atoms occupy 'cages' formed by a framework of water molecules. The majority of these gas hydrates adopt one of two cubic cage structures and are called clathrate hydrates. Notable exceptions are hydrogen and helium which form 'exotic' ...