Methane hydrates look like chunks of dirty ice chipped from an old snow mountain in a Denver parking lot.
But this ice burns when touched with a match.
And there’s enough of the stuff lurking under oceans and Arctic tundra to power the world, said Denver geologist Timothy Collett during a session of the American Physical Society’s annual meeting in Denver on Monday.
“It’s a high-risk, potentially very high-payoff issue,” Collett, with the U.S. Geological Survey, said during a news conference following his talk.
After exploring methane hydrate deposits around the world during the last few years, Collett and his colleagues calculated that the material tucks away at least 100,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and maybe even 300,000,000 trillion cubic feet.
The world’s reserves of conventional natural gas are estimated at about 13,000 trillion cubic feet, according to the U.S. Energy Department, and worldwide, people use about 100 trillion cubic feet per year.
That’s why Collett is so excited, he said.
“Even if a small percent of this ends up being producible, we could see a huge shift in energy balance,” Collett said.
There are possible environmental issues involved in harvesting hydrates, he said, including climate change.
If accidentally released to the air, natural gas – methane – is a potent greenhouse gas.
But Collett said he suspects the most economically recoverable hydrates are deep enough underground that accidental release isn’t likely.
Energy companies are beginning to take interest in hydrates.
Steve Rinehart, a spokesman for British Petroleum in Alaska, worked with Collett and other scientists on methane hydrate deposits under frozen Alaskan tundra last month.
Test drill holes showed that the seismic techniques used to search for methane hydrates did an excellent job mapping their actual distribution, Rinehart said.
“Everybody was very pleased,” he said. “We recognize there is potential there and we’re happy to be part of exploring it, testing it.”
“But is it a future energy resource?” Rinehart asked. “We are not there yet.”
Staff writer Katy Human can be reached at 303-954-1910 or at khuman@denverpost.com.
