Estimates of the amount of carbon sequestered in methane hydrates and found in Arctic permafrost and in ocean sediments along the world's continental shelfs range widely, but is believed to be large and has even been compared to the total known reserves of fossil fuels.
Beginning in February, 2012 The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) together with ConocoPhillips and the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation conducted a small scale test project in the North Slope of Alaska to extract natural gas from methane hydrate using a production technology, developed through collaboration between the University of Bergen, Norway, and ConocoPhillips. It involved injecting a mixture of carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen into the methane hydrate formation to release methane gas (natural gas). DoE has announced that the test has been successful in extracting a steady flow of natural gas from methane hydrates. The technology involves in situ exchange of CO2 with CH4 molecules within the methane hydrate structure. Depressurization then leads to production of methane gas.
DoE says that based on the successful test it plans to conduct a long-term production test in the Arctic. It also plans to test technologies to identify and extract methane hydrates on a larger scale in the U.S. Gulf Coast.
This technology also has the potential to be used to sequester CO2, for example, from conventional fossil-fuel burning power plants. The DoE intends to analyze the data acquired as part of the test to determine how efficient CO2 sequestration in the methane hydrate reservoirs is.
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