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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
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.
That's a common misconception shared by journalist who write about shale gas and oil, etc.
The real question is not "how many dollars does it cost to produce a barrel", since dollar cost is an arbitrary value set by humans, but rather "how much energy does it cost to produce a barrel"?
This methane ice (clathrates, a trapping of methane in a crystalline structure of water) is only stable at pressure. So, if pulled to the surface - not difficult, because it is lighter than water is - it breaks down and releases the methane.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
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.
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.
You've vastly underestimated the energy density of methane.
164m3 of methane is about 6GJ of energy (55MJ per kg, 0.656kg per m3, 164m3. 55 * 0.656 * 164 = 5.9GJ)
1 cubie metre of ice, minus the ~100kg of methne is 900kg.
Melting 1kg ice takes 333.5kJ of energy. Melting 900kg of ice takes 300MJ, so there's an excess of about 5.6GJ of energy per cubic metre. That assumes the ice is already at 0 degrees. Add on 3.6MJ per degree below zero to heat up 900kg of ice and 200kJ per degree to heat up 100kg of methane.
Assuming the ice is at -20 degrees, that's another 76MJ, still insignificant compared to the 5.9GJ of energy in the methane.
However, you don't need to burn anything to melt ice. It would take a while, but you can use the energy in the atmosphere to melt it, effectively for free. You can use a heat pump to speed it up, without using as much energy.
>> 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.
I'm probably being dumb here, but what does this mean, from the OP: "It is estimated that one cubic meter of frozen gas hydrate contains 164 cubic meters of methane". How does 1 contain 164?
Great! We can cool the atmosphere by using ambient heat to melt methane ice! And then burn the methane, and then, um...
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 .. ..
Don't have the batteries that can do this. Too expensive. We don't yet know how to build the magic battery. The magic battery is cheap and high capacity and cheap and quickly chargeable and cheap and efficient in its charge and discharge cycle and cheap and easily recyclable / renewable and cheap. And most of all, it has to be cheap so people can afford it, otherwise they can't use it and the concept falls flat. Right now, falling flat is the only thing that solar / battery combinations can do. We just don't have that battery. We may never find that battery. That battery may not actually be possible. We don't know. We may never know. Counting on batteries for solar / wind viabilitiy is very risky.
Yes, because that has happened in the previous interglacial periods as well... no?
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...–iron_battery
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Great, Slashdot also destroys URLs now.
/wiki/Nickel–iron_battery
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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.
iOS 9.3? That's luxury. My iPhone 4 has been stuck on iOS 7.1.2 for years now.
#DeleteFacebook
It's like if you had 1 cubic meter of dry ice. If you let it warm up and sublimate you might wind up with 164 cubic meters of CO2 gas.
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
"It is estimated that one cubic meter of frozen gas hydrate contains 164 cubic meters of methane". How does 1 contain 164?
Don't be dense.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Not to mention the other new one - go on, give it a try ;)
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...
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.
B.S.
Battery capacity has been rising about 5% a year for the last decade while battery cost has been dropping about 5% per year for the last decade.
Projections for just 2022 are for under half the price in 2015 ($50/kWH) and a third more power density than in 2015.
That's only 7 years away. It's not science fiction or magic.
Source: US Department of Energy.
Charts here.
https://cleantechnica.com/2016...
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Projections for just 2022 [...] That's only 7 years away. It's not science fiction or magic.
How are you posting from 2015? Is it science or magic? Want stock tips?
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
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.
We know how to make artificial lakes that we can use for pumped storage hydroelectric, but the environmentalists get (justifiably) nervous when we talk mass-scale rearrangement of waterways in the hills/mountains above sensitive ecosystems.
That's as good a battery as you'll ever get -- 75% efficiency, scales into GW. It doesn't help the teenaged libertarian fantasies about a fully decentralized power system, though. So depending on your political slant, it might not be the right option.
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
ooh... and you could melt your ice by blowing air over the enclosure you keep it in. The air would be cooled, and so you could duct it up the polar ice caps to help them freeze a bit more during the winter and stay frozen during the summer ;-)
Neil deGrasse Tyson demoted them.
Have gnu, will travel.
Almost everything we use these days has a built-in battery. It's not even clear that, for residential purposes, we even need continuous electricity. If I had power 50% of the time in my house, I wouldn't even notice. Plug the phone in at night and instead of charging up by midnight, it's done at 2am. How would I know? My heater/AC don't run constantly. They're only on about 50% of the time. Computer? That has a big battery too. Car? As long as it is charged by morning. Clothes dryer? Well, I guess if I'm in a hurry. Lights. Well those would be trivial to add a tiny battery. Sure for hospitals and other such safety-critical infrastructure we need 100% continuous electricity, but I don't think I'd even notice if mine were off half the time.
But if they do release it, it will contribute to global warming.
They won't just release the methane, they will burn it to generate power. The by-products are water and carbon dioxide. In climate terms, this is effectively comparable to fossil fuels, except cleaner due to the absence of particulates. This is most noticeably an improvement over coal.
Per the EIA, natural gas gives off about 1/2 the carbon dioxide of coal for the same amount of energy:
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs...
Since natural gas is basically methane with some miscellaneous natural contaminants, methane should be approximately the same as natural gas---or slightly better. While it won't eliminate greenhouse gases entirely, methane is preferable to coal, oil, and gasoline.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
Except water is denser than ice.
It's magic.
Or it's mixed grammar of posting today but using 2015 data.
So it's only 5 years away from now but 7 years away from the data.
And obviously 2017 data won't be available until late in 2018.
So the data around these discussions is always a couple years outdated.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
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.
Melting 1kg ice takes 333.5kJ of energy.
However, you don't need to burn anything to melt ice.
Um, no. Clathrates are not (water) ice; they are crystalline structures of water and methane (or other hydrate formers -- typically hydrocarbons). They are not stable at typical conditions at the surface of the earth (which is why they typically form at depth under the ocean floor -- or in the wellbores of gas-producing wells). They decompose readily, releasing methane, when exposed to reduced pressure ... something any drilling engineer with northern/offshore experience can tell you.
To get clathrates to melt, you can reduce the pressure and/or hit them with a slug of methanol. Either measure would be something that any gas producer would be familiar with. It wouldn't be too hard to implement a production scheme along these lines and there has already been academic work published which considered a pilot scheme for Alaskan off-shore hydrate zones.
licet differant, aequabitur
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.
It goes without saying that they would release it for the purpose of burning it to generate power.
I want to stress that its only good in as much as it is better than coal (and some other very bad ways to generate power). Once we heavily invest it, we will likely use it for a very long time.
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.
This is one of the reasons why sugar-produced ethanol as fuel doesn't make much sense.