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Can Japan Burn Flammable Ice For Energy? (cnn.com)
dryriver writes: Japan is a country that currently has to import 90% of its fuels for energy generation, having very little in the way of oil, coal or natural gas reserves in the country. Since the Fukushima disaster, its 50-plus nuclear reactors have been mostly idle. This makes Japan one of the least self-sufficient countries in terms of energy generation in the developed world. But there is an untapped energy resource that Japan has in abundance: ice that has large quantities of methane trapped in it. These ice crystals hold a remarkable quantity of natural methane gas. It is estimated that one cubic meter of frozen gas hydrate contains 164 cubic meters of methane. Japan has so far spent over $1 billion on research and development efforts in order to find a way to efficiently extract the methane from the ice. Where is this methane rich ice located? Engineers have so far focused on Nankai Trough, a long, narrow depression 50 kilometers off the coast of central Japan, which had been extensively surveyed over many years. Analysis of extracted core samples and seismic data has revealed that 1.1 trillion cubic meters of methane -- enough to meet Japan's gas needs for more than a decade -- lies below the floor of the trough. Some experts think that if an efficient method is found to extract methane from flammable ice, it could change the energy map of the entire world. Flammable ice has either been found, or is suspected to be present in large quantities, off the coastlines of all 5 continents in the world (the linked article has a map showing the currently known locations). Ten years from now the price of energy around the world may thus not be set by how much oil, coal or natural gas costs at that point in time, but rather by how much methane extraction from flammable ice costs.
It is all frozen, burn methane, more global warming easier to melt those ices ... wow
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Ice is cold, really cold, and you have to heat it to extract the methane. This costs energy. Do you extract more energy than it takes to get it? In most cases, no. This is a technological efficiency problem that most normal people can't understand (ie. "a potato can power a clock, lets power the world with potatoes!!!!" morons...).
Once we cross certain threshold, all the remaining "flamable ice" will melt, and since methane is one of the most efficient greenhouse gas, we will turn Earth into second Venus.
The 2011 Thoku tsunami killed some 16,000 people. Dead now.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear "disaster" killed Zero people directly. Maybe a dozen will die eventually. Maybe.
So you would think that the focus would be on tsunami protection. Better walls, better alerts etc.
But instead, it is on the nuclear "disaster". Which only happened as a result of a freak event. And lessons learned meant that the same would not happen again.
But they close down 50 nuclear plants. At huge cost.
Knee jerk reaction based on political perceptions and column inches of news print rather than any rational analysis.
solar and batteries noobs
That is what I was thinking too. But they signed the Paris Accord so that would mean they are being dishonest about their commitment to reducing greenhouse gasses. We all know that signatories to the accord have cut their greenhouse gas emissions already. Except for the US, which didn't sign the accord and has been increasing their greenhouse gas output every year. Oh wait, it is the opposite? Carry on.
The Clathrate Gun Hypothesis is the scary climate change idea, that we will heat up the planet until methane trapped in arctic soils and clathrates will start to be released, and, as methane is a really bad greenhouse gas, results in more warming, triggering the release of more methane, and forming a fast, tight positive feedback loop.
It's a really scary prospect.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
second venus is unlikely as that requires over 3000ppm.
But unpleasant with a lower carrying capacity than our current population due to lower food production - sure.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
>> Ten years from now the price of energy around the world may be set by how much methane extraction costs.
This is a very naive statement. The cost of energy (or anything else) has never been set by how much it costs to produce, it's only ever set by how much they can get away with charging for it.
With my aging iPad that won't upgrade past iOS 9.3 ... While reading TFA, I had 6, yes SIX "there was an error and the page was reloaded ". Does no one support older devices anymore?
What happened to the other 2 continents?
Eurasia treated as one content and Australia not considered as a continent?
Maybe you're getting figures from the same people who say drones have only killed 100 civilians. But putting the issue of deaths aside completely, nuclear power is unjustifiable based on cost alone.
It simply costs too much to build, to maintain, to secure, to decommission, and that's before getting to storing the waste for thousands of years. For the same startup cost you can build out wind and solar generation in a fraction of the time with none of the long term liabilities, and that's including pumped storage facilities to neutralize the baseline canard that is invariably brought up when discussing wind and solar.
... that even in the winter we don't need to use any energy to keep up the temperature... .. win win .. ..
Yes, because that has happened in the previous interglacial periods as well... no?
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
If only Japan were a chunk of land, conveniently surrounded by some sort of... fluid that has considerable mass, and is in constant motion, flowing around, and around, undulating and oscillating back, and forth, in response to inconceivably immense forces, such as those of the effects of the combined gravitational pulls of the Earth itself, the moon, and the sun, which could be... harvested somehow...
Oh, wait... they are. Why is it that they are not harnessing the energy they HAVE again? That kind, or any of several others?
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
Yeah, when the US and the country that you've outsourced all your manufacturing to (China) makes 40% of the world's total emissions already, reducing the output to something slightly less ridiculous is pretty easy.
"You will however want to ignore the fact that atmospheric methane levels have at times be MUCH higher than today (which is why there is so much trapped methane), but we dont want to talk about that, because, you know, thats denier talk."
Was the earth a nice place to live, for the current population needs, at the time?
"X was worse before, so therefore X worst is OK" is flawed logic if it ignores liveability.
NO (x) removes methane from the atmosphere, and you result in more nitrates in the soil. So there is a response, and its quite a good one.
NOx is a powerful oxidizer, a neurotoxin, and destroys ozone. Also we don't have gigatonnes lying around. So not so good.
atmospheric methane levels have at times be MUCH higher than today (which is why there is so much trapped methane)
Nonsense. Methane clathrates form from methane from localized organic decay, not from the atmosphere. They can also form when NG leaks into the deep ocean. The only time atmospheric methane levels have been high is when clathrates were degrading, not forming.
one cubic meter of frozen gas hydrate contains 164 cubic meters of methane
Sounds like Americans have some problems working with the metric units.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
"Because natural gas is a cleaner source of energy..
Cleaner than what? Thorium salt nuclear reactor? Solar? Wind? Of course, you mean coal - there's a no brainer.
"These ice crystals hold a remarkable quantity of natural methane gas. It is estimated that one cubic meter of frozen gas hydrate contains 164 cubic meters of methane. "
Remarkable as compared to what? How does it compared to frozen water vapor compared to vapor? Frozen hydrogen gaz compared to hydrogen? Frozen gazoline... never mind.
Perhaps CNN's audience is presumed to know nothing about it. I get that they cannot address distinct audiences indivi dually so I will leave it at that.
The article does get more informative, specifically; they are targeting deposits 1000 meters under the sea, south of t he Japanese city of Nagoya.
So this is not methane that is going to be released because of global warming whether we harvest it or not. It is just fine where it is under deep sea pressure.
But if they do release it, it will contribute to global warming.
I am not saying that they should discount it entirely for the short term, mostly because of they way they are burning coal right now, but Japan, can do better. We can all do better.
" If natural gas could be extracted economically from gas hydrates, it would reshape the energy world," says Christoph er Knittel, professor... "
Yes indeed, it would professor Knittel - it would reshape the energy world and contribute into turning it into a burning hell.
Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas. I already foresee an accident involving this stuff that causes a huge release of methane. Plus, isn't this just more of the same? Burning fossil fuels? Turn the nukes back on, build out solar/wind/whatever else then phase out the nukes.
...a western side that was shielded from a tsunami, that would be a great place for a reactor.
once there's a mass die off and everything decomposes and makes more methane we may reach venus levels yet. dare to dream big!
What don't people get ???
Fecking ijots !!!
We've got to stop burning stuff and making CO2
Go well
to " Should Japan Burn Flammable Ice For Energy?"
Greed is the root of all evil.
What I'm thinking, is this the way we might have to power vehicles? Or power stations?...I'm going to assume that methane has become liquefied within the ice to produce that much methane from 1 cubic meter. Not to hard to believe since an English tinkerer used a methane powered car back in the 1960's. He was able to liquefy the gas by just by using a conventional compressor you can by at a store.
I can only see one reason why Japan should possibly extract and burn methane ice:
Methane ice should be extracted only if it meant that the methane would be released into the atmosphere faster if it was not extracted. The process must also not leak excess amounts of methane.
In other words, the total carbon-equivalent emission of the system must be equal or better than doing nothing at all.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
"It is estimated that one cubic meter of frozen gas hydrate contains 164 cubic meters of methane."
that is freaking amazing!
one: i hope how dirt, clay and overall gravity got to store all that energy without super-high-tech machinery is researched to figure out if it can be reproduced!
second: i do hope that just the release of above mentioned natural super compressor of volume will be put to
good use to extract energy even before it is burned into the global green house : ]
sniff. . .sniff . . . BUT WHAT ABOUT NUCLEAR??????????!!!!! (Posted to any article with even the remotest relevance. . .)
Fucking get a life. Your fanboy technology is dead, killed by the massive weight of $s it requires. RIP.
And still an American produces about twice as much CO2 as a Chinese person.
The previous interglacial periods haven't had as much CO2 in the air as we're putting in there.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
One of the biggest work place accidents is falling. Nobody keeps statistics for the number of deaths due to solar installation, but it must be in the thousands world wide. Not because solar is particularly dangerous, but working on individual rooves is moderately dangerous, and there are lots and lots of them.
Contrast with nuclear where, excluding the Soviet Union, every death is a "Disaster" and there have been very, very few.
We are now at a level of roughly 280 ppm, consistent with the long-term variations in CO2 vs global temperature. CO2 has been at 300 ppm roughly 320,000 years ago. Are you saying we ourselves are putting more than 300 ppm in the atmosphere?
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/pa...
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
As presented this is a colossal opportunity, it could also be a colossally BAD idea. Lets assume we can safely (without release) mine methane clathrates & that we can safely (without releasing CO2) burn same, then why not. But we would still be digging holes into something that has been safely sequestering vast quantities of greenhouse gasses for millennia. Can we be absolutely assured that the act of mining methane clathrates will not result in a destabilization at some point in the distant future that will result in a catastrophic positive feedback reaction that raises the temperature of the earth to levels that extinguishes a significant fraction of life? Even without our interference though there are reports that suggest this is already happening & we should be prepared for the hockey-stick climate curve to go practically vertical. So I say, why risk hastening the very thing most of us (excluding the US and Liberia) are desperately trying to avoid.
Sorry, but we were at 280ppm before the Industrial Revolution. We're currently at a bit over 400ppm now. So, yes, I'm saying we've brought CO2 concentrations well over 300ppm.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The previous interglacial periods haven't had as much CO2 in the air as we're putting in there.
Here you state that we are putting more CO2 into the atmosphere than existed in previous interglacial periods.
That was about 300 ppm as per the link https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/pa... I supplied and which you didn't dispute (yet).
Now you allege we are at 400. Minus 280 at pre-industrial revolution equals a contribution of 120 ppm.
120 is smaller than 300, so, no, we did not put in 'as much' (yet).
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.