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Bill provides money for hydrate gas research Basic research to make recovery more commercially viable to be financed with $45 million appropriation Petroleum News Alaska
Alaska Sen. Frank Murkowski welcomed a decision by President Bill Clinton May 2 to sign a bill to fund research into the recovery of methane hydrates — so-called frozen natural gas. Murkowski’s office said the bill is important for Alaska since the state holds major reserves of trillions of cubic feet of the hydrates that release pure natural gas when melted or depressurized.
Murkowski steered through the Senate legislation to authorize up to $45 million in new funding for research into the capture and conversion of methane hydrates. While methane hydrates are detected all over the world and off the Carolinas, Louisiana, Texas, California and Oregon, Alaska has major deposits under coastal sediments and also from permafrost throughout the state, the senator’s office said.
America has an estimated 320,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that could be extracted from methane hydrate, compared to proven reserves of just 1,300 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
One percent recovery would be a major energy source “Even if we can learn to recover just 1 percent of our methane hydrate reserves, we will more than triple our available natural gas reserves and guarantee a source of cheap, secure and clean energy for the next century and well beyond,” said Murkowski after the President signed the bill (H.R. 1753).
Murkowski said fundamental research is needed to understand how hydrates form, how the gas can be released so it can be collected and used and to determine how to handle the hazards that hydrates pose. When hydrates destabilize, often during conventional oil and gas recovery, the resulting gas can undermine oil platforms, sink drilling ships and cause considerable damage, since methane hydrates release 160 volumes of gas for each volume of hydrate affected.
Murkowski noted that an Oklahoma company, Syntroleum, recently acquired a patent for a gas hydrate recovery system. The new bill will fund basic research to help make the process more commercially viable.
“We may well look back years from now on this day as the day we broke free of our dependence on foreign oil and guaranteed ourselves a clean energy source for centuries to come. While the Administration may talk about an energy policy, Congress is actually advancing one,” said Murkowski after the bill’s approval.
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