Huge Energy Potential: Gas Hydrates Shown Harvestable in Fed Test
By SEAN COCKERHAM
Anchorage Daily News
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Energy has completed an unprecedented successful test of harvesting the vast storehouse of methane hydrates on Alaska’s North Slope, essentially natural gas locked in ice crystals under the permafrost.
It is still a long way from being commercial but the potential is huge. The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated that the North Slope holds 590 trillion cubic feet of methane hydrate, potentially at least three times as much as the huge amount of conventional natural gas on the North Slope.
The Department of Energy said it also has the potential to eventually unlock massive reservoirs of methane hydrates that are believed to exist under the ocean floor of the Gulf of Mexico.
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