'Combustible Ice' Mining: A Chinese First!

[Hervé]

China Becomes First Country to Lift 'Combustible Ice' From Ocean Floor (https://sputniknews.com/asia/201705181053748811-china-mines-combustible-ice-ocean/)

Sputnik
Asia & Pacific (https://sputniknews.com/asia/)
19:02 18.05.2017


https://cdn5.img.sputniknews.com/images/105374/80/1053748001.jpg
© AFP 2017/


China has managed to successfully mine combustible ice in the South China Sea after nearly two decades of research and exploration.

The trial mining site is situated in the Shenhu area of the South China Sea. It is a major breakthrough that may lead to a global energy revolution, according to China’s Minister of Land and Resources Jiang Daming.

In a statement published on China’s government website it said that the natural gas hydrate is the best replacement for oil and natural gas.

Combustible ice usually exists in seabeds or tundra areas, which have the strong pressure and low temperature necessary to keep it stable. It can be ignited like solid ethanol, which is why it is called "combustible ice."

China first discovered combustible ice, a kind of natural gas hydrate, in the South China Sea back in 2007.

CCTV channel, reported that samples of combustible ice were lifted from a depth of 1,266 meters in the South China Sea region, 285 kilometers from Hong Kong.

Since May 10, the Chinese oil industry has produced 120,000 cubic meters of combustible ice which contains 99.5% of methane.

Experts believe that the extraction shows China has mastered combustible ice mining technology.

"Many countries along the Maritime Silk Road have a demand for combustible ice mining," Qiu Haijun, director of the trial mining commanding headquarters said, Shanghai Daily reported.

"With the advanced technology we could help resolve the energy resource problem and boost economic development and exchanges between countries," Qiu said.

[Fellow Aspirant]

Calling it "Combustible Ice" makes it sound so much more wonderful and fabulous than it's real name of methane. This Chinese first initiative has the potential to devastate the atmosphere of our planet:

Here’s where one of the biggest problems lies: once methane escapes, it will find its way into our atmosphere and act as an even more threatening GHG than carbon. This potentially entails speeding up the process of global warming by an alarming margin, which could have catastrophic consequences for lower-lying nations and coastal regions.

taken from the article below:

What is Frozen Fuel?

Frozen fuel is the colloquial nickname given to methane hydrate, which is a form of the natural gas methane trapped inside sheets of ice. Since methane is a valuable energy source, there has been interest in recent years and decades about how best to access these previously undiscovered reserves of energy which are often located at the bottom of the ocean.

However, methane is also an even more dangerous greenhouse gas (GHG) than carbon. As such, it’s vitally important that all possible precautions are taken and all contingencies considered before attempting to mine frozen fuels, since a mass escape of methane into the atmosphere could accelerate global warming dramatically.
How Frozen Fuel is Formed

Normally, methane is formed by a process over thousands of years, whereby the decomposed carcasses of animal and plant life are bacterially broken down and condensed by layers of silt and mud, applying immense amounts of pressure to the fossils. This pressure works with the high temperatures to remove the carbon bonds and thus create natural gas and oil.

However, when this phenomenon occurs at ocean levels depths greater than 500m, the sub-zero temperatures down there can have an interesting effect. Instead of mixing with the water, the methane becomes encased in a shell of ice, thus preserving it indefinitely in much the same way that a recent specimen of moss was discovered to have survived 1,500 years coated in sheets of ice.

Once warmed, the ice melts away and we are left with pure methane.
The Potential Energy of Frozen Fuel

The discovery of these frozen energy sources is a relatively recent one. The first methane hydrate field was located in Siberia in the 1960, while more deposits were found off the coast of Alaska soon after. A flurry of activity in the 90s saw more and more frozen fuel reserves being discovered in places as diverse as Canada and Japan.

Today, the exact amount of total methane hydrate lying latent under our oceans and ice sheets is still not known precisely. However, estimates range from anywhere between a total of 2,800 trillion m3 and 8.5 million trillion m3. If these figures sound too big to be intelligible to you, consider that the current estimated reserves of natural gas in its ‘normal’ form lie around the 368 trillion m3 mark.

Clearly, if even the lowest of estimates prove to be correct, we will have an alternative energy source which will last for well over a century and perhaps much longer. For more information on potential underwater energy sources such as this, check out the article Methane, Ethylene and Ethane in Water.
The Dangers of Frozen Fuel

However, with great potential comes great responsibility. Accessing this precious resource is an ordeal in itself, since mining companies have to first drill at least 500m through the ocean to reach the seabed, before drilling for more than a kilometre more in order to access the methane hydrate deposits. The logistics of this are mind-boggling. Even should scientists and technicians figure out a way to achieve it effectively, much of the methane would still be lost in transportation to the surface.

Here’s where one of the biggest problems lies: once methane escapes, it will find its way into our atmosphere and act as an even more threatening GHG than carbon. This potentially entails speeding up the process of global warming by an alarming margin, which could have catastrophic consequences for lower-lying nations and coastal regions.

Meanwhile, the displacement of the gas from the seabed could also have dire consequences for the ocean floor itself. By removing the frozen fuel, we run the risk of destabilising the seabed and causing huge landslides of silt and other substances, which in turn would certainly cause devastating tsunamis on sea and land.

As such, we must be 100% of the consequences before tampering with this potentially powerful yet devastating substance.
Image Source: IIP Photo Archive

Article source:

https://www.envirotech-online.com/news/water-wastewater/9/breaking_news/what_is_frozen_fuel/37456

When it comes to global warming, methane is 25 times more dangerous than CO2 by volume:

1 x – carbon dioxide (CO2)
25 x – methane (CH4) – I.e. Releasing 1 kg of CH4 into the atmosphere is about equivalent to releasing 25 kg of CO2
298 x – nitrous oxide (N2O) – I.e. Releasing 1 kg of N2O into the atmosphere is about equivalent to releasing 298 kg of CO2

source: https://climatechangeconnection.org/emissions/co2-equivalents/


So before we get too carried away by the Chinese state's Rah!-Rah! propaganda, we should first take a cold and sober look at the implications of what it is that they propose to do.

B.

[enigma3]

First, China doesn't care at all about the effect methane has on the environment. They are so resource dependent that any solution to their energy needs will win out.
Secondly, there are currently two massive methane releases happening on the planet. There may be more that I am not aware of. There is a humongous release that has been going on for some time off the north coast of Siberia. And there is a large release in Antarctica. The powers that be are not telling us just how much methane is being released from these two locations, but we know it is major.
So, even if the Chinese take all the frozen methane they want to, the effect will be minimal compared to the natural methane releases already occurring.
Frankly I am a bit surprised the Chinese haven't announced a breakthrough in technology to harness ocean currents. That would be right up their alley.

[Hervé]

Calling it "Combustible Ice" makes it sound so much more wonderful and fabulous than it's real name of methane. This Chinese first initiative has the potential to devastate the atmosphere of our planet:

[...]

Let's chill it a bit :)
Methane: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane)

Uses (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane#Uses)
Methane is used in industrial chemical processes and may be transported as a refrigerated liquid (liquefied natural gas, or LNG (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNG)). While leaks from a refrigerated liquid container are initially heavier than air due to the increased density of the cold gas, the gas at ambient temperature is lighter than air. Gas pipelines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipeline_transport) distribute large amounts of natural gas, of which methane is the principal component.

Natural gas
Main article: natural gas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas)
Methane is important for electricity generation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation) by burning it as a fuel in a gas turbine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_turbine) or steam generator (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiler_%28power_generation%29). Compared to other hydrocarbon fuels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel), methane produces less carbon dioxide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide) for each unit of heat released. At about 891 kJ/mol, methane's heat of combustion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_of_combustion) is lower than any other hydrocarbon but the ratio of the heat of combustion (891 kJ/mol) to the molecular mass (16.0 g/mol, of which 12.0 g/mol is carbon) shows that methane, being the simplest hydrocarbon, produces more heat per mass unit (55.7 kJ/g) than other complex hydrocarbons. In many cities, methane is piped into homes for domestic heating (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heating) and cooking. In this context it is usually known as natural gas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas), which is considered to have an energy content of 39 megajoules (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megajoule) per cubic meter, or 1,000 BTU (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_thermal_unit) per standard cubic foot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_cubic_foot).

Methane in the form of compressed natural gas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_natural_gas) is used as a vehicle fuel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_fuel) and is claimed to be more environmentally friendly than other fossil fuels such as gasoline (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline)/petrol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrol) and diesel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_fuel).[22] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane#cite_note-:0-22) Research into adsorption (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adsorption) methods of methane storage for use as an automotive fuel has been conducted.[24] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane#cite_note-24)

[Bubu]

I welcome this as methane burns much cleaner than diesel or petrol. I experimented with propane gas, the one we use for cooking. Just by adding length to intake manifold with stationary agitators inside I get an increase in mileage. To understand we need to know that a piston can travel more than 20 mtrs per second. burning or combustion is just to slow and most of the pressure created trail the piston instead of pushing it. This is explains the big % of waste and explains what most of us already knew; the faster you drive the less mileage you get. In order to increase efficiency we need explosion. explosion can only happen when fuel is thoroughly mix with close to exact amount of air/oxygen. with gasoline we need to vaporize the fuel first and this makes the system much more complicated.

I am surprise that despite most of us knowing that the PTB did nothing but lie to us, many still believe in the suppose GHG and its alleged effects. The opposite of what they say is most probably the right thing. I wont be surprise if we see a lot of negative right up with regards to combustible ice in the near future, the owners of the media has nothing to gain from it.

[Fellow Aspirant]

If it stays chilled we won't have to deal with its effects.
B.[COLOR="red"]

While burning methane is preferable to burning oil or gasoline, harvesting it from the bottom of the ocean is problematic and fraught with unknown complications. The technology that China is employing is in its infancy. There is so much that could go wrong.

I, for one, am not convinced that these kinds of operations are going to be as troublefree as the oil industry's seafloor mining of oil deposits.

B.

[Bubu]

If it stays chilled we won't have to deal with its effects.
B.[COLOR="red"]

While burning methane is preferable to burning oil or gasoline, harvesting it from the bottom of the ocean is problematic and fraught with unknown complications. The technology that China is employing is in its infancy. There is so much that could go wrong.

I, for one, am not convinced that these kinds of operations are going to be as troublefree as the oil industry's seafloor mining of oil deposits.

B.

Thats speculation, right? for me there is no speculation that I could improve the efficiency of ICE using gaseous fuel up to 80%, fuel potential to actual power conversion. The only thing thats in the way is the computerize fuel injection system. But I dont think there is much problem converting to the old carb system. for me this means cleaner air. thats something worth the trouble of bringing the CI from the deep sea. IMO