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Science

Gas Goes Solid 154

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i'd-like-a-bucket-of-gas-please dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "This innovation from Japanese researchers can potentially revolutionize the energy distribution sector. Instead of transporting liquid gas, they changed gas into a solid material which is easier, safer and cheaper to distribute. Technology Review has the story. "Rather than extracting methane from hydrates, they want to turn methane into hydrates -- essentially, transforming the colorless and odorless gas into small pellets that can be easily stored, transported, and eventually turned back into natural gas. A few months ago Mitsui, in partnership with Osaka University, opened a demonstration plant near Tokyo to promote the concept and show that it works." Check this column for an analysis."
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Gas Goes Solid More

Gas Goes Solid

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  • . . . was too good to be true:

    Because hydrates are still a mysterious substance, there are many scientific and engineering obstacles that could make the process cost prohibitive.

  • One problem (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Zanek ( 546281 )
    There is one fundamental problem with this great idea. That is, how do they go about converting
    the millions of cars in the world to be able to use this !
    • I assume that a pellet stove could be used with the resulting pellets.

    • Re:One problem (Score:3, Informative)

      by TheAntiCrust ( 620345 )
      Ugh. First off, they are talking about natural gas, not gasoline.
      Secondly, they arent expecting the consumer to recieve these pellets, the pellets are just a intermediary to ship and store the gas easier before it gets to the customer. This should have been EXETREMELY obvious since it specifically states that the pellets are harder to ignite then regular gas, you shouldnt have even had to RTFA for this one.
      And thirdly, you wouldnt convert all the cars on the road to a new fuel source, you would just produ
    • Actualy, you don't have to conver cars to be able to use natural gas. Using the Fisher- Tropsch process you can convert natural gas into "crude oil" and then the resulting refined products you know. It is cheaper to produce clean gasoline out of synthetic crude oil than regular crude oil.
      Another thing you might be intrested in is that you can convert COAL into natural gas, and of course then turn it into oil ect. If we are willing to spend the cash then we won't have a "oil shortage".
  • Don't rabbits and deer already produce small pellets that emit methane?

    Cows produce large methane generating chips too.

    Certainly helps with the energy company PR problems, who can argue with a fluffy little cute bunny? Will Greenpeace dare break out the holy hand grenade?

  • What is gas? (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Original Yama ( 454111 ) <lists,sridhar&dhanapalan,com> on Sunday April 13, 2003 @08:21AM (#5720817) Homepage
    In Japan, gas is solid.

    In the USA, gas is liquid (i.e. petrol).

    In Soviet Russia, gas is ... ?

  • Been there. Done that. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Boss, Pointy Haired ( 537010 ) on Sunday April 13, 2003 @08:22AM (#5720821)
    Tried to produce gas, came out solid.

    Shit happens.

  • Freaky (Score:4, Funny)

    by Rhinobird ( 151521 ) on Sunday April 13, 2003 @08:26AM (#5720833) Homepage
    Whoa...the ice is burning.

  • How many miles per? (Score:4, Funny)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Sunday April 13, 2003 @08:27AM (#5720835)
    Miles per Gram?
    Miles per Pound?
    Miles per Pellet?
    Miles per Block?

    Heck with this we might as well switch to metric.
  • The server is roasted but it seems like having the ability to buy "fuel pellets" would be a huge advance for the automotive industry. I know a few youngens that regularly run out of fuel, so a pellet or two in the glovebox would be sensational.

    A few questions though -

    • What is the cost compared with gas?
    • How much would cars cost to be converted?
    • Would they have to be converted?
    • Would the pellets be safe for the elderly to use or do they have to be handled with care?

    Maybe some of you who got to the artic

    • article (Score:3, Informative)

      by abhisarda ( 638576 )
      Gas Goes Solid
      Japanese researchers may have found the secret to exploiting the world's untapped natural gas reserves.

      By David Wolman
      April 11, 2003

      Nearly 95 percent of the known gas fields in the world are too small to justify the costs required pipe the gas to a plant, turn it into a liquid, and then transport it on specially equipped tankers.

      But a handful of researchers have an idea that could make these fields worth mining: rather than figure out cheaper ways to transport this cleaner-burning energy so
    • The server is roasted but it seems like having the ability to buy "fuel pellets" would be a huge advance for the automotive industry.

      You can thank Slashdot for another useless article summary and title. The process is actually talking about Natural Gas, not Gasoline. The primary goal of this is not to make "fuel pellets" for cars (although that would be cool), rather it's to find an alternative method of transporting Liquified Natural Gas (LNG). LNG tankers have to maintain a very cold env

      • You can thank Slashdot for another useless article summary and title. The process is actually talking about Natural Gas, not Gasoline.

        Just because when you say gas, you mean gasoline, doesn't mean the rest of the English-speaking world sees it that way. In Australia at least, the word gas refers to natural gas or LPG (which used to be quite popular as a car fuel until the price difference between it and ordinary unleaded dropped), and the stuff inside your car is called fuel or petrol.

  • A new Metal Gear Solid??? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Cool... Cool.. where is it...???? ...

    Oh, just a crap article :(

  • Interesting... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by WegianWarrior ( 649800 ) on Sunday April 13, 2003 @08:40AM (#5720874) Journal

    Assuming that all the hurdles around the process can be overcome, and it turns out to be finacialy sound, this may very well be the start of a revelution as far as energy distribution goes. Something needing just -10C to distrebute... heck, I could store a pile outside in the winter and just carry 'natural gas' inside in a bucket. Come summer, whatever remains there was would just evaporate away (I assume) safely. Methane - which is the main component of natural gas - is a quite efficient fuel for a properly designed internal combustonengine, or you could feed it to a fuelcell.

    I missed a few details however... just how do you go from solifed gas and back to gaseous gas? Is it just a matter of heating them above -10C, or? Can anyone offer any inisght on this? Because if it's a realtively easy process, I can easily imagine these pellets beeing used for energydelivery in cars, homes, cabins, laptops (well, maybe not for a few years) etc etc ad nasaum.

    ...and then there is the 'other uses' this stuff can have... If you built a bomshell much like a thermos, you could just fill it up with pellets, add a bustercharge and get yourself a nice FAE-bomb...

    Oh, gotta qoute this bit of the article (emphasis mine);
    Norwegian petroleum engineers first proposed the idea after comparing the transport economics of liquid natural gas to natural gas hydrates, knowing that hydrates could store large amounts of natural gas in a small space.

    • Re:Interesting... (Score:2, Informative)

      by SimJockey ( 13967 )
      Yep, I'm thinking that a bit of heat would be all you need. Then some separators to do the bulk water-gas separation and some dryers to get it to pipeline spec. No real technology show stoppers on the other end.
      • Idea - use the methane-water mix to fuel a gasturbine. The water will help cool the turbineblades, as well as add mass to the mix. And as we all know (don't we?), several kinds of turbojets have utilised waterinjection in the past to increase thrust...
    • To convert the hydrate into a gas, all you need to do is raise the temp. Natural gas hydrates are very similar to dry ice, something you may be familiar with.

      I work with LNG, and yes you could build a a fuel air bomb out of this. However, the tempature of the material makes this hard. Look at the pictures of burning hydrate being held by peoples hands, until it is a gas it isn't dangerous. LNG is very similar. The tempature of the liquid will snuff out most flames ect.
  • I mean, isn't there tons of methane Hydrates at the bottom of various lakes etc? Haven't we known about this forever?

  • Can anyone speak (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Drakin ( 415182 ) on Sunday April 13, 2003 @08:43AM (#5720883)
    On the quality of minds that work at the U.S. of the sense of people who work at the Department of Energy? Sheesh. this guy's quote is just funny...
    Another major advantage: "transporting natural gas as hydrates can be done at lower temperature and pressure than liquid natural gas, and the risk of ignition in transport is much lower,"
    The transportation of it will be done at a lower pressure, yes, but at a higher temprature... not a lower one. You need to cool and/or pressurise a gas to form a liquid. Cool and pressurise it more, and you can get a solid... simple changes in the state that the matter is in. Creating hydrates is a chemical reaction... which has differnt prerequsits for happening, and the result is more stable (I assume) where the temprature and pressure don't need to be as strictly monitored.

  • Things to remember (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Sunday April 13, 2003 @08:47AM (#5720895) Homepage Journal
    1) Hydrates are not stable at room temperature and pressure - you still have to keep them cold (-10 C). Granted, -10C is better than -100C, but you will still have to have a refrigeration unit or a pressurized tank.

    2) When you break the hydrate down, you have methane and water. You have to do something with the water - dump it on the ground, feed it into the engine to be vaporized, something.

    3) While hydrates may store more methane than storing the methane as a gas, I don't think hydrates store more methane per unit volume than storing the methane as a liquid.

    4) You are storing methane and water - you will have more mass per unit methane than storing just methane.

    Those things said, this could be a good thing, in that anything that allows better storage and transport of methane makes it a more viable fuel source.

    • Re:Things to remember (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      IAAAE - I am a automotive engineer

      The water might not be so unwanted as you suggest.
      There are some concepts of internal combustion
      engines which use a mixture of fuel and water.
      The water will be evaporized during combustion
      and the produced steam will provide an added force
      to the piston. Think of an additional steam-engine
      you get for free.

      johnboy
      • The water will be evaporized during combustion
        and the produced steam will provide an added force
        to the piston

        Sweet! I thought water in gas was bad, but now I know better. ::puts garden hose in tank:: This is a lot cheaper than *BUYING* gas! Oh.. you mean I need a special engine. Crap - anyone know a good autorepair shop?

        Seriously - it sounds like a good plan, but IANAAE
      • Yep. IIRC water injection was used on certain models of B-52s (B-52G ?) to provide additional thrust. The general effect was F = ma. Here's a link [vectorsite.net] that explains it quite well.

    • 2) When you break the hydrate down, you have methane and water. You have to do something with the water - dump it on the ground, feed it into the engine to be vaporized, something.

      Along these grounds, why not recycle the water to a) cool the engine itself and b) drive a small turbine for added electrical power generation. Perhaps, this additional energy can be applied to a fly-wheel assembly for quicker accelleration.

      • It could do "a) cool the engine" and might obliterate the need to recycle coolant. As to "b) drive a small turbine" - huh? Standing water does not drive turbines AFAIK. It needs to have kinetic (waterjet) or potential (waterfall) energy.

    • Re:Things to remember (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Portent ( 106482 ) on Sunday April 13, 2003 @11:00AM (#5721499)
      Actually methane hydrate is much better for transportation than liquid methane for two reasons.

      First, it actually contains more energy per unit volume than liquid methane.

      And second, it is much more difficult to liquiefy methane than to form the hydrate phase. Liquid form requires very very low temperatures, and very high pressure, while the hydrate phase can be attained at around the freezing point at much lower pressures.

      Transporting methane in the hydrate phase is very attractive for countries that don't have their own power sources (southeast Asia). 1 cubic metre of methane hydrate holds 160 cubic metres of gaseous methane.

      However, the infrastructure to use it efficiently is still under heavy development so it'll be a while before we see methane hydrate being used on a large scale.
      • I just did some quick figuring with what I have at hand, but I think LNG has a higher energy density than these hydrates. I get something on the order of 600 cubic metres of gaseous methane per cubic metre of liquid natural gas, using a molal volume for liquid methane of 37.7 cm^3/g-mol. (Reid, Prausnitz & Sherwood, 1977) Didn't use any compressibility, just ideal gas, but the difference is big enough that it shouldn't make enough difference to go the other way.

    • Re:Things to remember (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      1) Hydrates are not stable at room temperature and pressure - you still have to keep them cold (-10 C). Granted, -10C is better than -100C, but you will still have to have a refrigeration unit or a pressurized tank.

      energy conservation: >90%

      standard technology (cooling trucks) sufficient.

      2) When you break the hydrate down, you have methane and water. You have to do something with the water - dump it on the ground, feed it into the engine to be vaporized, something.


      mass water to mass methane: 2:1, ie

  • One problem from the world of ice cream (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Shoten ( 260439 ) on Sunday April 13, 2003 @08:50AM (#5720904)
    Heat shock, it's called. When the temperature of your freezer goes up by even a fraction of a degree (and it need not go anywhere near as high as 0 degrees celsius), some of the ice melts. When the temperature drops again, it re-freezes, but in a slightly different location. That's why ice cream (especially the really expensive stuff, that doesn't have many or any stabilizers like guar gum in it) will develop that coating of ice crystals after it sits in the freezer a while. The ice is migrating from inside the ice cream to the surface.

    Now, what I have GOT to wonder is this...what effect might this have on ice pellets that contain lots and lots of tiny bubbles of methane??

    • Re:One problem from the world of ice cream (Score:4, Informative)

      by Duke ( 23059 ) on Sunday April 13, 2003 @09:35AM (#5721110)
      When the temperature of your freezer goes up by even a fraction of a degree (and it need not go anywhere near as high as 0 degrees celsius), some of the ice melts. When the temperature drops again, it re-freezes, but in a slightly different location.

      Bzzt. No. But thanks for playing.

      Whether a liquid or a solid, water is has a vapor pressure. If a system of ice and air is at the same temperature, there will be water vapor in the the air. The system will be (once there is enought water vapor in the air) in equilibrium - there will be no net movment of water from its ice form to its vapor form. But this is dynamic equilibrium, ice will be moving to vapor at the same rate that vapor is moving to ice. (Both processes - solid to gas and gas to solid - are called sublimation.)

      If there is a temperature difference in your freezer, the ice will move from the (even slightly) warmer spot to a colder one. However, the process, for instance, of having all your ice cubes smoothing their edges and attaching themselves to each other would occur even if the contents of the freezer were all at the same temperature. The ice is trying to get itself into its minimum energy configuration, where it would be one big sphere.

      If the top of the ice cream container is cooler than the rest of it, water will migrate to the top. The migration just requires a spatial temperature gradient, not a temporal temperature change.

  • ....Taco Bell has already perfected this technology....Eat their bean burritos(small pellet sized mashy burritos)and 'instantaneously' produce 'natural gas'.....
  • Ugh, I can't stand gasoline from concentrate. The taste is horrible. Tropicana all the way!

  • I'll say this much... (Score:3, Funny)

    by KC7GR ( 473279 ) on Sunday April 13, 2003 @09:04AM (#5720955) Homepage Journal
    It certainly adds new meaning to the phrase "It gives me gas." I can just picture future parents of a teen on his/her first night out driving the family vehicle...

    "Dear, did you remember to give our son gas?"

    "Yes, I did. His trunk is full of it..."

    Etc.

  • It's great they're beginning to research hydrates (Score:3, Insightful)

    by stuph ( 664902 ) on Sunday April 13, 2003 @09:12AM (#5720981)
    There are literally thousands of tons of methane hydrates all bundled up nicely on the ocean floor next to small cracks and fissures that leak methane. Now that people are actually beginning to do real research into transporting them and extracting methane from the hydrates, perhaps it will be possible to mine these methane fields, where there is enough energy to last hundreds of years
    • The United States Minerals Management Service (MMS) has done an extensive amount of investigation and research on this topic. Since they regulate federal offshore waters, this has been a topic of interest to them. You can find out what is going on in hydrate research at MMS from these links: http://www.mms.gov/eppd/sciences/esp/hydrates/res e arch.htm
      http://www.mms.gov/tarprojects/

      Of course Japan would be pushing this technology because they have the largest know reserve of hydrates off their coast. In
    • Make that 11,000 gigatons [wesleyan.edu]. There is also a significant amount of Clathrate [wesleyan.edu] locked up in the Permafrost. The cited article says there is more than twice as much energy locked up in Clathrates than in all other fossil fuels put together.

  • Methane hydrates (Score:5, Interesting)

    by panurge ( 573432 ) on Sunday April 13, 2003 @09:20AM (#5721027)
    It's true that there are vast reservoirs on the continental shelf- and a big fear of global warming is that it will cause the hydrates to start dissociating, filling the atmosphere with methane (=powerful greenhouse gas) and accelerating the warming process. It's the speed of warming, not the actual temperature, that is considered to be the biggest problem.

    Methane hydrates are not particularly high-energy-density fuels- wouldn't be suitable for automotives, for example-but the bigger a store the easier it is to keep cold (lower surface area to volume ratio) so I guess they could actually be useful as a way of storing large amounts of gas economically and safely, the role they are basically playing on the seabed right now.

    Basically, I just don't get the Japanese argument. Is it really going to be cheaper to transport several ordinary refrigerated trucks of methane hydrate than one very cold truck of liquid methane? It looks as if the technology might be more of a way to stockpile large reserves of gas. As electricity generation in many parts of the world is increasingly gas-fired using turbine generators, perhaps this is a way to protect fuel reserves and generator capacity better from terrorists.

    • Re:Methane hydrates (Score:3, Interesting)

      by stuph ( 664902 )
      with regards to the transportation, there are a couple of big bonuses, really

      the first is safety.. if a truck full of methane hydrates wrecks, so what, you've got these not-very-harmful rocks slowly melting and releasing methane into the air.. not a big deal..
      on the other hand, a tank full of pure, liquid methane would tend to ignite w/ the sparks of any sort of tank cracking.. not good

      also, it probably is cheaper to use regular, everyday refrigerated trucks and train boxes rather than getting a tank

      • Re:Methane hydrates (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Alyeska ( 611286 ) on Sunday April 13, 2003 @10:09AM (#5721270) Homepage
        First, safety: The safest method of shipping gas (liquified or not) is by pipeline. If turned to a solid, and overland transportation (train/truck) is necessary, risk goes up tremedously -- compare pipeline accidents to car accidents in the US to get an idea of what you're looking forward to... just because they "melt slowly" doesn't mean it's not an environmental catastrophe if they spill in a neighborhood or highway. With pipelines, you have control.

        But there's also the issue of "White Crude," not mentioned here. In Alaska, we have enough gas to fuel the world for years, but can't get it to market because it's so much cheaper to do so elsewhere. We and others are working on a chemical process that creates "White Crude," a room-temperature liquid, from NG. White Crude can be shipped within existing oil pipelines, separated easily at the terminus, and loaded into existing oil tankers. Once at port, white crude can be turned back into NG and distributed through pipelines to consumers.

        • Re:Methane hydrates (Score:2, Insightful)

          by SimJockey ( 13967 )
          OK, I did a Google search and couldn't come up with anything on White Crude. Are you talking about GTL or gas-to-liquids technology? Reacting C1's to C5+ molecules to make them stable at room temperatures for shipping etc.

          • Re:Methane hydrates (Score:3, Informative)

            by Alyeska ( 611286 )
            Not sure the C1 to C5+ is the exact method, but yes, GTL at room temp = White Crude. (GTL is still term used for condensation as well, we're told to say white crude to differentiate...)
        • just because they "melt slowly" doesn't mean it's not an environmental catastrophe if they spill in a neighborhood or highway. With pipelines, you have control.

          There are regular pipeline accidents. I remember one(I think gasoline pipeline?) levelled a neighborhood. Levelled. For about a two block radius.

          With a tanker, you only have to worry about what's in the tanker. Pipelines? There are MILES between control valves(ie, dozens of tanker-truck's worth.)

          In the particular accident I'm thinking of,

          • Okay. That's one big incident -- kind of like looking at a jet crash with 300 victims and stating, "It is safer to travel by car than by air, as only a handful can die in a car accident."

            Look for how many hazardous chemical spills we had in the US by trucking or train in the last couple of years...

            When you use overland transportation, the variables increase -- thousands of potential collisions, more human error capable (as there are now thousands of drivers instead of a few pipeline controllers), weather

            • I'd say piping gas is safer than trucking it, unless your pipelines are very exposed to trucks ;).

              As for car vs plane safety- depends on whether you are measuring per distance, trip, travel time etc.

              http://www.teemings.com/issue07/safety.html

        • I found your comment interesting enough to do some research on. Using google I found a number of interesting articles/papers.

          Exerpts:

          Most processes for making white crude or its cousins involve three major stages.
          In the first, steam, oxygen and natural gas react to create a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide called ''syngas.''
          In the second stage, the syngas is converted to wax.
          In the final stage, the wax is converted to one or more liquids -- diesel, jet fuel or the clear, nearly odourless white cru

      • 'Fraid not - once the temperature rises or the pressure drops (at -4 C, the hydrate is only stable at ca. 20 atmospheres pressure, IIRC), yon solid would tend to degass quite violently, with a concomitant risk of explosion.

        At -10 C, of course, the hydrate is stable at a couple of atmospheres pressure, so if you don't crash, you're OK.

        It's mainly these problems that make mining the clathrates (old name for methane hydrates) from the ocean bed uneconomical.

        Damn physics, but there ya go...

    • "Is it really going to be cheaper to transport several ordinary refrigerated trucks of methane hydrate than one very cold truck of liquid methane?"

      It might not be cheaper to transport it by truck, but once necessary facilities are in place you could start using trains, resulting in the cost of transportation per ton dropping considerably. Not to mention that you could sure move thousands of tons of this stuff with a train rather easily.

  • net energy loss (Score:2, Insightful)

    by layyze ( 216392 )
    Assuming that the laws of thermodynamics still exist on this planet, I am curious if there would be some kind of net energy loss in this process. Factoring transportation, refrigeration, and changes in states it seems like a lot of energy is being used up in this process. Just a thought.
    Brazil had (has?) similar issues in using ethanol as a fuel. The machinery used to harvest and convert the sugar into ethanol used more fuel than was produced.
    • What the engineers are trying to do is reach that cost balance. There is also a net energy loss when you condense the gas into liquid for shipping, but that cost is recovered when the amount to ship a CF of gas is lowered.

      It's the same problem with White Crude (room-temp LNG by process) -- it works, but is currently too expensive to be viable.

  • Beans (Score:3, Funny)

    by cyber_rigger ( 527103 ) on Sunday April 13, 2003 @10:06AM (#5721255) Homepage Journal
    Beans, the ultimate solid gas pellet

  • A little thin on the details (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SimJockey ( 13967 ) on Sunday April 13, 2003 @10:23AM (#5721336) Homepage Journal
    If I was at work today, I'd fire up the LNG simulations to see exactly how many scf's of natural gas will fit in a cubic foot of LNG. I'm willing to bet it's more than 180. So you'd have to transport much more hydrate than LNG for an equivalent amount of natural gas.

    Also annoying that they mention nothing about pressure, as the fun way to get hydrates that I know about is to flash a high pressure stream of natural gas with a bit of water across a valve to lower pressure. Hydrates form and plug up the valve. Not a good thing, But the point is that pressure=compression costs. Nobody ever seems to give lifecycle energy costs for these new & improved technologies. And yes, I realize they are using a tank reactor, but I bet there are still some decent pressures involved to get reasonable yields.

    LNG has always been borderline on whether it makes economic sense. Places like Trinidad and Qatar are into it because they have such huge natural gas supplies in relation to their oil reserves that they can build huge plants and get some economy of scale. Customers are places like Japan (hence this bit of research) and the U.S. believe it or not. Latest numbers I heard are that LNG is competative with pipeline natural gas at about $4/MMSCF, depending on how far you have to ship it. With the strong prices of the last couple of years, the pace of projects is accelerating.

    • Re:A little thin on the details (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually it turns out that the methane density in sI (structure I, there are a bunch of different hydrate structures) hydrate is considerably higher than LNG at equal pres/temp. Assuming full occupancy of the "cages" in the hydrate structure. I doubt it is the 180x quoted in the article, but it is higher.

      I used to do research on hydrates and the density issue was really non-intuitive but turns out to be true. It has to do with thermodynamic stability inparted by the massive amount of hydrogen bonding in
  • Now they just need to make it in a brick form, and I will be happy knowing that at least something from Transformers is in the real world...

  • Uhm... How many molecules of water do you need to turn one molecule of methane into its hydrate?

    FYI, methane has a molecular weight of 16, while water has a molecular weight of 18.

    If, as the image on the web site seems to imply, it requires 20 molecules of water to encompass one molecule of methane, then we're talking 23 times the weight of the liquid methane. It would also take up around 20 times the space. Add on the refrigeration system that would be needed and it's just not practical, at least for
    • 20x?

      If you're transporting your methane one molecule at a time, this would be true.

      However, it's water in bulk, with methane dispersed throughout, and in more of a cubic structure than the dodecahedron shown, so the packing efficiency gives roughly a 2-2.5:1 weight ratio, and a 2:1 space ratio.

      Each molecule of water would play it's part in transporting about 1/2 as much methane, and the extra space taken up is less than the water volume.

      Having said all that, I'm not at all sure that the hydrates are as the

  • dehydrated water!
  • Them crazy Japanese. What will they think of next?

    Isn't innovation much cooler over in Japan?
    • It's not cooler, it's longer term. While US firms concentrate on innovations that pay off in 1 or 2 quarters, Japanese firms are looking out over decades or more. And regardless of what people might imply, R&D not altruistic but rather a long term survivability requirement.

  • More Than Meets The Eye? (Score:3, Funny)

    by edeloso ( 665632 ) <edhebert@sas.upe ... du minus painter> on Sunday April 13, 2003 @11:22AM (#5721596)
    Is the next phase of development the transformation of gas into a cube-like dynamic solid called "Energon"?...
  • I've read about solid Hydrogen/Oxygen storage for fuel cells and breathing respectively in Popular Science or somesuch magazine a long time ago(5-6 years?). That was however American researches. The fact that it makes news now, is probably because geeks think everything Japanese is cool. (Just joking). However, this is a damn cool technology and the ramifications are enormous. Fuel cells that run on hydrogen rods, anybody?
  • had a good show about these methane type pockets on the bottom of the ocean. I think they were trying to explain bermuda triangle stuff. anyway, They said the pressure and coldness down on the bottom of the ocean made the methane solid. For some reason, if some of this solid methane became a gas, it'd release soo many bubbles of methane that it if there was a ship above it, the ship would lose bouyancy and sink. They showed a test done on a model ship in a testing pool, and the ship sank almost immediat
  • ... if someone stole a bucket of gas would it be mist?

  • Hydrogen is often stored as a hydride (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Sunday April 13, 2003 @11:50AM (#5721745) Homepage
    It's common to store hydrogen in a tank of metal hydride chips. [fuelcellstore.com] The tank doesn't have to be as strong, and cyrogenic temperatures aren't required. It's also far safer; if damaged, the hydrogen comes out slowly as the hydrides outgas, so at worst you get a fire, not an explosion.

  • Often omitted in the discussion of alternative or modified energy sources is the concept of energy return on investment (EROI). It's defined as the ratio of energy provided for useful work divided by the energy required to extract and process the fuel source.

    If one expends energy overprocessesing the fuel, the net energy contributed to the system is reduced. For example, it's been published [mines.edu] that ethanol requires 70% more energy to produce than it provides.

    Given that the global economic system exists
  • Intresting I wonder how well the hydrates can be used as source for the well know water shift reaction which can produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen. It would be trivial to heat the hydrate in a closed reactor to get the pressures needed. You probably need to inject some extra hydrogen but this could be from a small hydride or the cool glass ball storage method. Also note CO2 forms hydrate to so the excess water can be used to sequester the C02 for later transformation back to methane. So the water pres
  • Ack ... so many ... jokes ... methane ... pellet form ... must ... hold back ... countless ... bad jokes...
  • I remember reading about a prototype car from Mazda called the HX-7 a few years ago. It had a rotary engine and was designed to burn hydrogen. The fuel delivery system used compressed hydrogen pellets, which were either theoretical at the time or undergoing development. The pellets would shoot into the tank and the tank would heat up, releasing the hydrogen under great pressure into the fuel lines.

    Too bad it never got built, but who knows, if Wired's issue before last is right, we might have it in a deca
  • the European chapter of "Overeaters Anonymous" is still missing. The group was on its annual "Purge Fest" that served both as a reward for previous successful weight loss as well as a sort of "marti gras of eating" as the chaiman of this year's 500 member even told reporters. Apparently it was common practice to not just eat glutonous foods in general but to pick an assortment of foods that would result in discomfort, bloating and any of a number of specific "negative" side effects in order to psychologic

  • Researched these things (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 777333ddd ( 525062 ) on Sunday April 13, 2003 @03:33PM (#5722874)
    Hydrates are quite interesting.

    Right out of College about 13 years ago I joined one of those huge Oil Companies and the main thing I did there for 2 years was study gas hydrates. The reason we studied them was in order to *prevent* their formation which is the opposite of what this article talks about. The problem with hydrates in the oil business is that under high pressure and low temperature they form ... and guess what conditions predominate in undersea pipelines?

    When oil comes from the formation, it is almost always mixed with water and some varying amount of gas or other hydrate forming HCs. Everything is fine up the wellbore and near the wellhead, but not too far away from the wellhead the fluid starts getting cold and these solid particles form. They can clog a pipeline if you don't take countermeasures. One is to run a device called a "pig" through the pipeline to clean them out. Another is to install insulation, heated lines, or inject lots of chemicals like MeOH to suppress the hydrates. But all of these things start increasing the production cost and/or decreasing capacity.

    So our research looked into creating chemicals that you could inject in very small volumes near the wellhead to inhibit the formation of hydrates.

    Anyway, all this hydrate study did make people think about the application of hydrates in the transport of natural gas (NG). I think it's a very interesting idea. Currently to get NG from a remote place to market, you need lots of big expensive gas turbines driving massive refrigeration equipment to create Liquified NG (LNG). Then you need these huge, wild looking LNG tankers. Then you need special port facilities to handle the super-cold LNG. The up front capex is so massive (think 10 billion plus for many potential projects) that no one just pays that upfront hoping the customers will show up. No. You get agreements on paper stretching out 30 years with customers and only THEN do you give the green light to the project.

    Hydrates certainly wouldn't need near the compressor/turbine expense of LNG development, and there might be a sweet spot in terms of pressurization and temperature you might strike. However the rest of the economics I'm not too sure about. If most of the cost of a project is the tankers and you need a lot more of them for Hydrate, then you might be better off with LNG. The other huge thing in LNG's favor is that we know it works and can calculate a cost.

    One interesting idea I saw floated once was the creation of hydrate subs. Huge deepsea vessels that would be able to stay cold and high pressure just by virtue of being well below the sea surface where those conditions are natural. Now unlike a typical sub, these guys would never surface and so would not need thick walls to handle pressure differences inside and out.

    Imagine one of these things scooping up hydrate from the ocean floor and carting it off to a disassociation plant on the seabed (preferably in a subsea canyon as closs to the coast as possible) that evaporated the hydrate gas into a regular gas pipeline.

    dave
  • at it's Dallas MEPUS office. Just the cost to replace the infrastructure is/was too high.

  • Ocean Drilling Program (Score:2, Informative)

    by pk001i ( 649678 )
    ODP [tamu.edu] has been doing research into the area of gas hydrates for a while now. Not only can natural gas be turned into hydrate, but there are vast amounts of gas hydrate "stable" on the sea floor. Gas hydrates are also stable in certains areas of permafrost in the arctic [doe.gov]. On an environmental note, it is not known exactly how hydrate [wesleyan.edu]. influences global climate change. Methane is 10 times the the global warmer that CO2 is. A large hydrate landslide off the northern coast of norway coincides nicely with an wa

  • Liquid fuels, hydrocarbons, can be easily pumped from one container to another.

    Energy density is huge, too.

    They don't need to be kept under high pressure.

    A wise old professor educated me about just how indispensible liquid fuel hydrocarbons are to our modern economy about two decades ago.

    He also contrasted that heavy reliance on liquid hydrocarbons to the inevitability of their limited supply.

    I doubt solids or gases will displace liquid hydrocarbons soon. But I'm glad to see research into the alterna

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