Properties of methane hydrates? Gas hydrates are a combination of gases and water which are naturally occurring under specific conditions (Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, n.d.). Methane is the key ingredient in natural gas (Pentland, 2008). The methane which can form hydrates comes either from biological or geological sources (“Methane Hydrate”, n.d.). Methane hydrates are an ice-like lattice with methane bubbles trapped in it ("Ice that burns", 2006). They are formed when water combines with methane (Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, n.d.). They can be found most commonly in arctic permafrost and in ocean sediments almost everywhere in the world (Department of Energy, 2013). Hydrates …show more content…
The technology is still being developed, and it was only in May of 2017, that the first demonstration of a steady flow of methane gas was achieved (Jones, 2017). For the past few decades, the extraction of methane hydrates was considered too costly and risky (Jones, 2017), and this is still mostly the case. Methane is a flammable gas, and if we lose control, a large explosion is a likely outcome (Jones, 2017). Flammable ice, in general, is an odd sight to see. Oil rigs, for example, will actively go around methane hydrate deposits just to avoid the danger (Jones, …show more content…
We know that the combustion of hydrocarbons, like methane, releases greenhouse gases. Methane, even before combustion, can act as a greenhouse gas (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2015), and it is 20 times more potent than CO2 (Jones, 2017). As a planet, we must ask ourselves if we are willing to have more energy, knowing that this energy may have to come from fossil fuels, like methane. Methane hydrates can also trigger underwater landslides (Jones, 2017). It is suggested that methane hydrates caused the largest landslide we know of, that happened 8000 years ago. The leading hypothesis is that an earthquake caused the methane hydrates to become unstable and release their gas in an explosion (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2015). The concern is that in drilling for methane hydrates we could artificially trigger such an event, which would have catastrophic results, including releasing tons of methane in the atmosphere rapidly advancing climate change (Pentland,