CouldTappingUnderseaMethaneLeadToANewGasBoom.docVIP

Could Tapping Undersea Methane Lead To A New Gas Boom? by? HYPERLINK /people/2100689/christopher-joyce CHRISTOPHER JOYCE March 15, 2013?5:00 AM  HYPERLINK /2013/03/15/174336812/could-tapping-undersea-methane-lead-to-a-new-gas-boom \o Enlarge Enlarge image This photo from a Kyodo News helicopter shows a flame of natural gas from a Japanese deep-sea drilling ship on Tuesday. This successful extraction of methane from the seafloor was a world first. Kyodo/Landov The new boom in natural gas from shale has changed the energy economy of the United States. But theres another giant reservoir of natural gas that lies under the ocean floor that, theoretically, could dwarf the shale boom. No one had tapped this gas from the seabed until this week, when Japanese engineers pulled some up through a well from under the Pacific. The gas at issue here is called methane hydrate. Methane is natural gas; hydrate means theres water in it. In this case, the molecules of gas are trapped inside a sort of cage of water molecules. Few people have actually seen methane hydrates, but Ann Cook, a geophysicist at Ohio State University, is one of the few.  HYPERLINK /2013/03/15/174336812/could-tapping-undersea-methane-lead-to-a-new-gas-boom \o Enlarge Enlarge image Methane hydrates, like this sample extracted from the floor of the Sea of Japan, are potentially a huge new source of natural gas. The methane molecules are trapped inside a cage of water molecules. Kyodo/Landov If you think about snow freezing in mud, thats what it would look like, says Cook, who spends weeks at a time looking for methane hydrates aboard drilling ships. You would think, Oh, its not so interesting, she says. But then if you decided to light it on fire, it would burn right in front of you. You can find methane hydrates underground in the Arctic, in frozen soil called permafrost. But most of the stuff lies under the seafloor, cold and under high pressure. It took millions of years for it to form, mostly from oc