Can Japan Burn Flammable Ice For Energy? (cnn.com) 153
dryriver writes: Japan is a country that currently has to import 90% of its fuels for energy generation, having very little in the way of oil, coal or natural gas reserves in the country. Since the Fukushima disaster, its 50-plus nuclear reactors have been mostly idle. This makes Japan one of the least self-sufficient countries in terms of energy generation in the developed world. But there is an untapped energy resource that Japan has in abundance: ice that has large quantities of methane trapped in it. These ice crystals hold a remarkable quantity of natural methane gas. It is estimated that one cubic meter of frozen gas hydrate contains 164 cubic meters of methane. Japan has so far spent over $1 billion on research and development efforts in order to find a way to efficiently extract the methane from the ice. Where is this methane rich ice located? Engineers have so far focused on Nankai Trough, a long, narrow depression 50 kilometers off the coast of central Japan, which had been extensively surveyed over many years. Analysis of extracted core samples and seismic data has revealed that 1.1 trillion cubic meters of methane -- enough to meet Japan's gas needs for more than a decade -- lies below the floor of the trough. Some experts think that if an efficient method is found to extract methane from flammable ice, it could change the energy map of the entire world. Flammable ice has either been found, or is suspected to be present in large quantities, off the coastlines of all 5 continents in the world (the linked article has a map showing the currently known locations). Ten years from now the price of energy around the world may thus not be set by how much oil, coal or natural gas costs at that point in time, but rather by how much methane extraction from flammable ice costs.
The cost is going drop even further (Score:2)
Re: The cost is going drop even further (Score:1)
methane is an excellent âoefeedstockâ gas for many useful compounds. Burning it may not be on the menu, but there are plenty of highly useful things we can do with it.
Iâ(TM)m a lot more comfortable converting the methane to plastic & immediately dump it in the ocean than let the methane ice melt. Iâ(TM)m sure there are considerably better options than that.
That's called the 'Clathrate Gun Hypothesis' (Score:5, Interesting)
The Clathrate Gun Hypothesis [wikipedia.org] is the scary climate change idea, that we will heat up the planet until methane trapped in arctic soils and clathrates will start to be released, and, as methane is a really bad greenhouse gas, results in more warming, triggering the release of more methane, and forming a fast, tight positive feedback loop.
It's a really scary prospect.
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Since the human race has proven to be absolutely incapable and unwilling to deal with climate change, it is to be expected that this effect will happen. The bad thing is that those that will get killed will be the ones that are the least to blame.
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Nice. Exactly the incompetence and stupidity I am talking about. Could not have confirmed my words better myself. (No, I am not that AC.)
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The Clathrate Gun Hypothesis [wikipedia.org] is the scary climate change idea, that we will heat up the planet until methane trapped in arctic soils and clathrates will start to be released, and, as methane is a really bad greenhouse gas, results in more warming, triggering the release of more methane, and forming a fast, tight positive feedback loop.
It's a really scary prospect.
Sounds like we should burn it then.
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Actually, it sounds more like if it ever gets to the point where warming causes it to be released into the atmosphere - we've lost, and burning it won't help.
I suppose burning some of it now - as opposed to burning coal or methane extracted by fracking - is better than just continuing to burn coal and oil. But if we don't prevent the natural release of the frozen stuff, we're in serious trouble. And this isn't going to be nearly enough to stop that.
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What's even more scary is the resulting ocean acidification killing ocean life which then rots and releases toxic gases which kill most land life. It's happened before, and it very much looks like it's about to happen again right now.
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And we passed that point in 2004
Re:That's called the 'Clathrate Gun Hypothesis' (Score:5, Informative)
Are they something that survived the previous interglacial periods
Some methane was released at the end of the last ice age, but not enough to trigger a feedback loop. But current temperatures have exceeded interglacial temps, so we don't know what could happen. There is evidence for a runaway methane release [www.cbc.ca] about 110M years ago.
The arctic contains about 1400 Giga-Tonnes of methane. A release of 50 GT would be equivalent to a doubling of current atmospheric CO2 levels.
The Clathrate Gun [wikipedia.org] is possibly the biggest danger in delaying agressive action on global warming.
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NO (x) removes methane from the atmosphere, and you result in more nitrates in the soil. So there is a response, and its quite a good one.
NOx is a powerful oxidizer, a neurotoxin, and destroys ozone. Also we don't have gigatonnes lying around. So not so good.
atmospheric methane levels have at times be MUCH higher than today (which is why there is so much trapped methane)
Nonsense. Methane clathrates form from methane from localized organic decay, not from the atmosphere. They can also form when NG leaks into the deep ocean. The only time atmospheric methane levels have been high is when clathrates were degrading, not forming.
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In the meantime, melting the clathrates would involve heating them (or, improperly phrased, "releasing their cold") and _cooling_ the environment.
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Burning it for power will use up 0.000000000001% of it. That'll make a huge difference.
Oh, wait...
A fantstic way to fast forward the climate change (Score:2)
Once we cross certain threshold, all the remaining "flamable ice" will melt, and since methane is one of the most efficient greenhouse gas, we will turn Earth into second Venus.
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second venus is unlikely as that requires over 3000ppm.
But unpleasant with a lower carrying capacity than our current population due to lower food production - sure.
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The previous interglacial periods haven't had as much CO2 in the air as we're putting in there.
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Sorry, but we were at 280ppm before the Industrial Revolution. We're currently at a bit over 400ppm now. So, yes, I'm saying we've brought CO2 concentrations well over 300ppm.
Why shut down nuclear? (Score:5, Insightful)
The 2011 Thoku tsunami killed some 16,000 people. Dead now.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear "disaster" killed Zero people directly. Maybe a dozen will die eventually. Maybe.
So you would think that the focus would be on tsunami protection. Better walls, better alerts etc.
But instead, it is on the nuclear "disaster". Which only happened as a result of a freak event. And lessons learned meant that the same would not happen again.
But they close down 50 nuclear plants. At huge cost.
Knee jerk reaction based on political perceptions and column inches of news print rather than any rational analysis.
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Nuclear power is definitely the answer to our current power problems. Fusion is hopefully eventually the answer but regular old fission is orders of magnitude more safe and more efficient than anything else we have. A "person" is smart, "people" are just absolutely dumbfuckery stupid.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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That's great to use that kind of fusion power but it has a nasty habit of "going down for maintenance" every day.
If you can figure out how to keep that energy flowing 24/7 then you might have an argument. Otherwise it's more of a novelty.
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Using it will likely cause it to kill less people in the long run, as we allow our thin anti-fusion shield to heal itself.
Lots of people fall of rooves (Score:2)
One of the biggest work place accidents is falling. Nobody keeps statistics for the number of deaths due to solar installation, but it must be in the thousands world wide. Not because solar is particularly dangerous, but working on individual rooves is moderately dangerous, and there are lots and lots of them.
Contrast with nuclear where, excluding the Soviet Union, every death is a "Disaster" and there have been very, very few.
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Nobody keeps statistics for the number of deaths due to solar installation,
Apparently "nobody" are a lot of people.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=solar+con... [lmgtfy.com]
You get your facts from Fox? ;)
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So, you cannot find a single source of statistics either. Just safety waffle.
Like I said,
Nobody keeps statistics for the number of deaths due to solar installation,
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You know those underlined things in Google can be clicked on, right?
Some of those take you right to reports with statistics.
Do you just pull random bullshit statements out of your ass in hopes of somebody else not just handing you all the counter evidence but reading it to you as well?
This goes one step beyond mere ignorance, it's willfull denial of even attempting to find facts.
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Batteries are only needed if you want to store energy in electric form.
Also, not all types of batteries need rare earth minerals.
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Batteries are only needed if you want to store energy in electric form.
Also, not all types of batteries need rare earth minerals.
I won't dispute either claim. I will say that if someone what's an electric vehicle, where the batteries need to be light, small, energy dense, and inexpensive, then it's going to take some materials that are rare. Maybe not technically rare earth elements, but elements that are less common than perhaps aluminum and iron.
The only reason we are discussing the storage of energy is because we have some strange desire to run our cars on sunlight. Let's run our cars on petroleum, natural gas, or synthetic fue
Because the cost is completely unjustifiable (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe you're getting figures from the same people who say drones have only killed 100 civilians. But putting the issue of deaths aside completely, nuclear power is unjustifiable based on cost alone.
It simply costs too much to build, to maintain, to secure, to decommission, and that's before getting to storing the waste for thousands of years. For the same startup cost you can build out wind and solar generation in a fraction of the time with none of the long term liabilities, and that's including pumped storage facilities [wikipedia.org] to neutralize the baseline canard that is invariably brought up when discussing wind and solar.
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Sorry, but bullshit. That wind and solar cannot provide base power isn't a canard - it's a cold hard fact. What's a canard is the nonsensical belief that pumped storage is a magic wand and a universal solution that solves this problem. It isn't. It's very expensive, causes significant ecological damage, limited in applicability, and it's limited in total capacity
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It's not a fact if you spread the wind turbines over a large enough area, something that the north America, Europe and China should all be able to do.
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https://skepticalscience.com/r... [skepticalscience.com]
FYI The baseload power argument has been wrong for over a decade now. Those who still make it are either horribly out of touch, shills, or just in denial.
Based on the other things you've said, you might belong in the "shill" bin.
=Smidge=
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FTFY
All you have to do with wind and solar is space out generating capacity across the grid - exactly as you would do with nuclear power. And excess wind and solar power can be transmitted hundreds of miles over power lines or pumped into artificial reservoirs to be used for hydroelectric power as needed - exactly as you would for nuclear power.
Or did you miss the fact that the Ludington Pumped Storage Power Plan
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Without arguing over your statement about whether it's justifiable to build a nuclear power plant, it is absolutely bonkers to idle an already constructed and operational nuclear power plant.
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If you're bonkers enough to ignore the billions in operational & security costs, insurance & disaster preparedness, and decomissioning before even broaching the subject of where you're going to store the waste for the next hundred generations...
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It simply costs too much to build
If only there were 50 built reactors somewhere.
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Uh, we are.
Uh, because hundreds of billions have been thrown to subsidize coal and nuclear power, which have a decades-long head start on wind and solar power.
Of course you can. Even in desert environments, simply pair an underground storage tank with a water tower. Do you take this one-size-must-fit-all approac
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Thorium's untested. I'd expect unforeseen problems to arise.
That said, I'd love to see it tested on a realistic scale.
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FTFY. Even if thorium reactors become a thing, they're never going to make nuclear power cost-effective compared to alternatives. Sorry.
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Because it's totally safe to build nuclear power in regiouns that are prone to earthquakes, tsunamis, forest fires, tornadoes, hurricanes....
...or maybe you're just engaging in selective reasoning.
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If only Japan were near the ring of fire [wikipedia.org] and could tap into geothermal energy. If only Japan were a nation with a large amount of coastline and able to easily tap into on and offshore [qz.com] wind energy a la Scotland.
If only.
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Knee jerk reaction based on political perceptions and column inches of news print rather than any rational analysis.
Welcome to Earth. You must be new here. How does your planet solve this?
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It must be fun to comfortably pontificate from your armchair.
I believe there were some deaths or sicknesses in the people who were cleaning up the plutonium that was lying on the ground, which is an utterly horrifying thought.
There were a lot of deaths due to the tsunami itself. You can't feasibly build walls against them.
However the actual leakage of nuclear fuel into the environment is so scarily toxic that you have no way to know if you are correct about minimizing the danger.
As it happens the freak even
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"Maybe"? Several workers doing the cleanup were killed.
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Citation please. Wikipedia says Zero.
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https://news.vice.com/article/... [vice.com]
Oh, by the way
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... [telegraph.co.uk]
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Someone falling into a water tank, or getting buried in gravel, are industrial accidents. They were doing cleanup from damage after an earthquake and tsunami. Things like that happen at any power plant or other industrial site, had it been a coal plant or wind farm we'd still see things like that happen.
The diagnosis of leukemia is not a death, the guy is still alive. He's also got risk factors for leukemia, such as being male, over 40, and of Asian ancestry. No doubt working at a nuclear power plant is
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https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
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Knee jerk reaction based on political perceptions
Unlike the knee jerk reaction to post "what about nuclear power" to any article that even hints at the word "energy" due to one's own fanboy perception?
Not telling anyone to stop. . . just calling it what it is. . .
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The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear "disaster" killed Zero people directly.
Sure... if we pretend to ignore the fact that rad-detectors were being taken offline while that shit circled the globe. You're either a paid shill or a naive, gullible idiot but either way, you can take your "official narrative," fold it so it's all corners and shove it up your ass.
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The 2011 Thoku tsunami
That's what you get for trying to be all fancy with Unicode, when using the original Japanese "ou" spelling works more than well enough. People who insist on using o-macron are just too smug for their own good.
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10 years from now (Score:4, Interesting)
>> Ten years from now the price of energy around the world may be set by how much methane extraction costs.
This is a very naive statement. The cost of energy (or anything else) has never been set by how much it costs to produce, it's only ever set by how much they can get away with charging for it.
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>> if there is another producer who has lower production costs, they will undercut your price
Nope that isn't how it works either. Most usually, the few large competitors all agree to not gouge each other beyond a certain point, and then group together to squeeze new players out. That way they deny their customers any real choice by complicit agreement, and they all get away with charging too much.
Just look at the cable companies and phone companies for perfect examples.
Seriously? (Score:3)
one cubic meter of frozen gas hydrate contains 164 cubic meters of methane
Sounds like Americans have some problems working with the metric units.
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Sounds like you failed basic high school chemistry/physics. Specifically the part about states of matter.
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Sounds like you failed basic chemistry and physics and reading comprehension, too, because the phases of matter involved were mentioned, directly in the fucking summary.
"These ice crystals hold a remarkable quantity of natural methane gas."
Anyone with a brain knows ice is a solid. Gas is already mentioned.
Take your ass back to school.
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What could possibly go wrong? (Score:3)
Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas. I already foresee an accident involving this stuff that causes a huge release of methane. Plus, isn't this just more of the same? Burning fossil fuels? Turn the nukes back on, build out solar/wind/whatever else then phase out the nukes.
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I already foresee an accident involving this stuff that causes a huge release of methane.
Which naturally resolves itself in 12 years anyway. Speaking of this one-off accident, will it release more or less than 8 Gigatonne CO2 equivalent that we already produce every year?
Because man if that much methane was released in one go, I'm more concerned about another mushroom cloud being visible over Japan when someone lights up a cigarette.
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They won't be dumping it directly into the atmosphere, at least not intentionally. When they burn it, it releases carbon dioxide (and water).
Bear in mind that natural gas is predominantly methane, and it is already cleaner than coal and oil. Being virtually pure methane, this should be slightly better than natural gas. This is definitely better than another mine or oil well.
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Methane is a hydrocarbon, four atoms of hydrogen and one of carbon. It burns to H2O and CO2. It gets much of its energy from the hydrogen burning, so it supplies more energy for a given amount of CO2. It is a fossil fuel, but it's lots better than coal.
Please change the title (Score:2)
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Pretty sure they figured out that they should burn it if they can get it. The alternatives are to keep importing coal or build new nuclear. Also, it's not like this is an all or nothing choice here, they can mine this clathrate while also building new nuclear. Importing coal is very hard on their economy, and probably not all that helpful to their air quality.
In the article it looks like they are running into some very real engineering problems in collecting this gas. There is still the question on if t
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The major issue with seabed methane hydrates is that in the course of mining and production most profitably, much methane will be leaked.
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What's wrong with wind and solar?
Lot's of things. They are both expensive, unreliable, and take a lot of land area. Sure, they might be able to cover rooftops with solar panels, and put windmills out in the sea, but that adds to the cost.
A common suggestion to the unreliability problem is spreading out the wind and solar over an area, including underwater cables to friendly nations if that's what it takes. Go look at a map, and read the newspapers, do you see any friendly nations nearby that Japan would want to rely upon for it's energy
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What's wrong with wind and solar?
Japan is aggressively expanding wind and solar, but it looks like they need to do more than that. Especially if they want to keep their nuclear reactors idle without relying on imports of foreign fossil fuels.
In addition to that, natural gas power plants are already widely established. Natural gas is primarily methane, so the distribution and production technology is already very mature. They only have to worry about the extraction technology, and there is robust infrastructure for everything after that poi
Lots of Gas in Ice? Uses? (Score:2)
Only one prerequisite (Score:2)
I can only see one reason why Japan should possibly extract and burn methane ice:
Methane ice should be extracted only if it meant that the methane would be released into the atmosphere faster if it was not extracted. The process must also not leak excess amounts of methane.
In other words, the total carbon-equivalent emission of the system must be equal or better than doing nothing at all.
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Methane contains carbon (CH4), and its combustion produces carbon dioxide and water.
We already burn methane---that's what natural gas is made of, mostly.
And methane is a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2, so if this is an area where the methane might be released due to rising sea temperatures, it will be better to burn it for energy before that happens.
Scales or scale? (Score:2)
Re:As usual you have to determine cost/benefit (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a common misconception shared by journalist who write about shale gas and oil, etc.
The real question is not "how many dollars does it cost to produce a barrel", since dollar cost is an arbitrary value set by humans, but rather "how much energy does it cost to produce a barrel"?
Re:As usual you have to determine cost/benefit (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:As usual you have to determine cost/benefit (Score:5, Informative)
You've vastly underestimated the energy density of methane.
164m3 of methane is about 6GJ of energy (55MJ per kg, 0.656kg per m3, 164m3. 55 * 0.656 * 164 = 5.9GJ)
1 cubie metre of ice, minus the ~100kg of methne is 900kg.
Melting 1kg ice takes 333.5kJ of energy. Melting 900kg of ice takes 300MJ, so there's an excess of about 5.6GJ of energy per cubic metre. That assumes the ice is already at 0 degrees. Add on 3.6MJ per degree below zero to heat up 900kg of ice and 200kJ per degree to heat up 100kg of methane.
Assuming the ice is at -20 degrees, that's another 76MJ, still insignificant compared to the 5.9GJ of energy in the methane.
However, you don't need to burn anything to melt ice. It would take a while, but you can use the energy in the atmosphere to melt it, effectively for free. You can use a heat pump to speed it up, without using as much energy.
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I'm probably being dumb here, but what does this mean, from the OP: "It is estimated that one cubic meter of frozen gas hydrate contains 164 cubic meters of methane". How does 1 contain 164?
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Re:As usual you have to determine cost/benefit (Score:5, Funny)
"It is estimated that one cubic meter of frozen gas hydrate contains 164 cubic meters of methane". How does 1 contain 164?
Don't be dense.
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Except water is denser than ice.
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Great! We can cool the atmosphere by using ambient heat to melt methane ice! And then burn the methane, and then, um...
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ooh... and you could melt your ice by blowing air over the enclosure you keep it in. The air would be cooled, and so you could duct it up the polar ice caps to help them freeze a bit more during the winter and stay frozen during the summer ;-)
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Melting 1kg ice takes 333.5kJ of energy.
However, you don't need to burn anything to melt ice.
Um, no. Clathrates are not (water) ice; they are crystalline structures of water and methane (or other hydrate formers -- typically hydrocarbons). They are not stable at typical conditions at the surface of the earth (which is why they typically form at depth under the ocean floor -- or in the wellbores of gas-producing wells). They decompose readily, releasing methane, when exposed to reduced pressure ... something any drilling engineer with northern/offshore experience can tell you.
To get clathrates to
Re:solar and batteries noobs (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't have the batteries that can do this. Too expensive. We don't yet know how to build the magic battery. The magic battery is cheap and high capacity and cheap and quickly chargeable and cheap and efficient in its charge and discharge cycle and cheap and easily recyclable / renewable and cheap. And most of all, it has to be cheap so people can afford it, otherwise they can't use it and the concept falls flat. Right now, falling flat is the only thing that solar / battery combinations can do. We just don't have that battery. We may never find that battery. That battery may not actually be possible. We don't know. We may never know. Counting on batteries for solar / wind viabilitiy is very risky.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]–iron_battery
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Great, Slashdot also destroys URLs now.
/wiki/Nickel–iron_battery
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B.S.
Battery capacity has been rising about 5% a year for the last decade while battery cost has been dropping about 5% per year for the last decade.
Projections for just 2022 are for under half the price in 2015 ($50/kWH) and a third more power density than in 2015.
That's only 7 years away. It's not science fiction or magic.
Source: US Department of Energy.
Charts here.
https://cleantechnica.com/2016... [cleantechnica.com]
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Projections for just 2022 [...] That's only 7 years away. It's not science fiction or magic.
How are you posting from 2015? Is it science or magic? Want stock tips?
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We know how to make artificial lakes that we can use for pumped storage hydroelectric, but the environmentalists get (justifiably) nervous when we talk mass-scale rearrangement of waterways in the hills/mountains above sensitive ecosystems.
That's as good a battery as you'll ever get -- 75% efficiency, scales into GW. It doesn't help the teenaged libertarian fantasies about a fully decentralized power system, though. So depending on your political slant, it might not be the right option.
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iOS 9.3? That's luxury. My iPhone 4 has been stuck on iOS 7.1.2 for years now.
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Not to mention the other new one - go on, give it a try ;)
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Neil deGrasse Tyson demoted them.
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They are quite likely not using wave power because it's really hard to do. Assuming one is able to find a place with a sufficiently strong and consistent wave action there is still the problem of making turbines that can hold up to constant abrasion of water flows with sand suspended in it. The sand just scours the turbines away, like a sandblaster.
The whole area is part of what's called the Ring of Fire, lots of seismic activity there. They could spend a lot of money trying to build this thing under wat
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But if they do release it, it will contribute to global warming.
They won't just release the methane, they will burn it to generate power. The by-products are water and carbon dioxide. In climate terms, this is effectively comparable to fossil fuels, except cleaner due to the absence of particulates. This is most noticeably an improvement over coal.
Per the EIA, natural gas gives off about 1/2 the carbon dioxide of coal for the same amount of energy:
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs... [eia.gov]
Since natural gas is basically methane with some miscellaneous natural contaminants, methan
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I want to stress that its only good in as much as it is better than coal (and some other very bad ways to generate power). Once we heavily invest it, we will likely use it for a very long time.