Posted 10/26/2004 06:47:00 PM by Douglas

Methane Hydrates and you. Providing energy for you and things you care about.

Lorie Langley, who is leading ORNL’s Gas Hydrate program for the Fossil Energy Program, believes ORNL can contribute significantly to DOE’s and Congress’s research agenda. Last month President Clinton signed the Methane Hydrate Research and Development Act, which authorizes approximately $50 million over five years to develop an understanding of the nature, behavior and abundance of this clean-burning energy resource.

I've never heard of this, don't understand anything about its availability, nor its feasibility. I will say that this sounds exactly like the sort of thing that Clinton would have given $50 Million of our money towards. Do we need research for alternative energy sources? Yes, but $50 Million for a gas mine at the bottom of the arctic ocean? Let's hear the pitch:

Explains Langley, “Gas hydrates are clathrate compounds. A clathrate is simply a structure in which water molecules under certain conditions bond to form an ice-like cage that encapsulates a gas molecule, known as a guest molecule. When that guest is a methane molecule, you have methane hydrate.”

OK, maybe. Shit, what do I know? Sounds like it might happen, but then again I believed that the Astros might win the World Series. But what's the bottom line here? Even if this methane exists, even if it can be retrieved and utilized, is it really worth the trouble?

Although some research has been carried out in the past, little is known about the location, formation, decomposition, or actual quantities of methane hydrates.

Well, I guess that's why we need $50 Million in research. But how 'bout a ballpark figure?

“Estimates on how much energy is stored in methane hydrates range from 350 years’ supply to 3500 years’ supply based on current energy consumption. That reflects both the potential as a resource and how little we really know about the resource,” Langley says.

Really? 350 years to 3,500 years? Let's not be hyperbolic, here, three and a half millennia is the number you wanna stick with? Ok, fine. Ya know, there's about a kazillion-bazillion years of fuel available on the Sun, just waiting for a $50 Million grant.