China: Huge methane reservoir discovered under ice

China: Huge methane reservoir discovered under ice

www.asianews.it

It could provide energy independence for China. But the methane hydrates, also known as "ice that burns", are also one of the most polluting agents in the world

According to the ministry, this is the most important geological discovery to have been made in China since 1959, when they found some oil deposits. The energy value of the estimated new supply of "ice that burns" is equivalent to 255.5 billion barrels of crude oil; approximately, 200 times the domestic production of oil

(visit the link for the full news article)

wow,

very interesting that it says how when burned this stuff can release pollution 25 times that of Carbon dioxide, but it also says a couple of time in the article how its a "clean" energy!

will be interesting to see how long it takes china to start burning this stuff.

maybe it could even be used as a bargaining chip to get itself a nice cheap supply of oil. who knows.

be good to hear some of your thoughts on this, and the possible implications it could have.

cheers, g.

www.asianews.it
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by grantbeed


From what I understand methane hydrates are a clean source of energy like natural gas, when they are burned. But if they are simply released into the atmosphere ie melted then released as a gas but not burned they are many many times worse than co2.

the newly found source of energy is useless to china at this time...

there's no infrastructure to develop, transport or use the stuff that's both mixed in and trapped under ice.

their electric generating plants are 'coal fired', they burn gasoline as fuel,
the 'savings' they theoretically have with this 255 billion barrel equivelent of energy would be spent in developing drill rigs & storage facilities, pipelines to distribute the gaseous energy, the massive cost of any conversion of existing facilities or autos/buses/etc.

and China most likely will not allow a foreign nation in their homeland to develop this resource.


so, it's a big bust, sitting underground like a time bomb
(whoa...did i spill the beans of a 'target' or a 'ground zero' for a retalitory missile - if China ever did a first strike on Russia or the USA?))

[edit on 18-10-2009 by St Udio]