Kiel, Germany - German scientists issued details Friday of a research project to extract an untapped source of energy on the ocean floors and at the same time replace it with unwanted carbon dioxide. The project, sponsored by the German government, could solve two of the world's problems at the same time: gas hydrates in seabed rock could meet the shortfall when oilfields and gasfields run dry, and climate change could be reduced by sequestering the CO2.
Klaus Wallmann, heading the project at the Leibniz Institute for Oceanography IFM-GEOMAR in Kiel, northern Germany, said the world's gas hydrate beds contained more energy that all the world's oil, gas and coalfields combined.
Code-name SUGAR, the project will study how to extract the methane.
Methane hydrate or methane ice is ice that contains a large amount of methane within its crystal structure. It is typically found in rock where the ice does not melt because of the pressure or cold of water above. When warmed, the gas quickly escapes from the ice.
The scientists said the only lode of gas hydrate currently being extracted commercially was under Siberian permafrost. Japanese, US, Canadian, South Korean, Chinese and Indian engineers hoped to start recovering seabed gas hydrates within a decade.
The German research project has a budget of 13 million euros over several years, with the first seabed experiments three years away after laboratory tests, Wallmann said. Injecting carbon dioxide from power-station chimneys into the ocean floor is a new twist.
"The principle is pretty simple: we get the gas out and put the carbon dioxide back in," he told reporters.
He said gas hydrates were found practically all over the world and could free nations of dependence on oilfields.
The team aims to develop new ways of carrying the gas on ships than existing gas liquefaction. The German idea is to convert the methane into solid pellets, using less energy than is needed to liquefy natural gas.
