Methane hydrates potential as a future energy source

Gas hydrates are crystalline solids that form from mixtures of water and light natural gases such as methane, carbon dioxide, ethane, propane and butane. They are of considerable interest for their potential as an energy resource and for their potential role in global climate change. From an energy resource point of view, the enormous amounts of methane hydrate under the ocean and beneath arctic permafrost represent an estimated 53% of all fossil fuel (coal, oil, natural gas) reserves on earth, about 10,000 gigatons. The difficulty with recovering this source of energy is that the fuel is in solid form and is not amenable to conventional gas and oil recovery techniques. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.