Colonising the Arctic: Ample Fuels Under the Ice

EES.LANL.GOV
Methane hydrates are found worldwide in large quantities -- under the seabed, under the arctic tundra, and in other parts unknown. Intensive research has led to increasingly feasible methods of harvesting these frozen methane hydrates -- which when added to huge new terrestrial natural gas finds will increase methane supplies worldwide significantly.

the U.S. Department of Energy's Methane Hydrate Research and Development Program has made considerable progress in the past five years toward understanding and developing methane hydrate as a possible energy resource.

"DOE's program and programs in the national and international research community provide increasing confidence from a technical standpoint that some commercial production of methane from methane hydrate could be achieved in the United States before 2025," said Charles Paull, chair of the committee that wrote the report, and senior scientist, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California. "With global energy demand projected to increase, unconventional resources such as methane hydrate become important to consider as part of the future U.S. energy portfolio and could help provide more energy security for the United States."

Methane hydrate, a solid composed of methane and water, occurs in abundance on the world's continental margins and in permafrost regions, such as in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska's North Slope. Although the total global volume of methane in methane hydrate is still debated, estimates yield s that are significant compared with the global supplies of conventional natural gas. The existence of such a large and untapped energy resource has provided a strong global incentive to determine how methane might be produced from methane hydrate safely, economically, and in an environmentally sensible way. _SD

Significant challenges to safe harvesting of frozen methane hydrates remain, and must be overcome before economic use of these massive deposits can become commonplace.

Significant challenges to the use of algal fuels also remain to be tackled, but that doesn't stop some researchers from predicting that algal fuels will be available commercially within 5 years! University of Arizona researchers believe that their new photobioreactor -- dubbed "Accordion" -- will help to accelerate commercial development of algal fuels significantly.

Above cross-posted to Al Fin Energy

Which brings us to the topic of colonising the Arctic (and perhaps the Antarctic?). In the frozen wastelands of the great north, one finds ample supplies of oxygen, nitrogen, and water (frozen and thawed alternatively). Carbon sources are typically scarce, as are energy sources. But if viable methods of harvesting methane hydrates are developed, both carbon and energy may suddenly become plentiful. Power, heat, and carbon for synthesis of materials is suddenly available, which opens the door to long term settlement.

Global warming catastrophe is not in the cards, so predictions of a sudden warming of the Arctic appear to be par for the course for climate hysterics. That being the case, it is up to cold climate pioneers to open the vast "wasteland" of the north (and south?).

Conditions in the far north and far south are near-equivalent of ice age conditions. It might be good practise for the not so distant future, to learn survival in a glacial age.