Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

Tapping into the methane gas locked in hydrate form could potentially double the world's energy reserves,while producing less harmful emissions than conventional energy sources. Gas hydrates are solid crystallinecompounds that encage gas molecules inside the lattices of hydrogen bonded water molecules. Althoughhydrates appear similar to ice, they will release over 160 volumes of methane gas for each volume of hydratewhen exposed to atmospheric conditions. Early indications from production tests in the Canadian Arctic showthat a significant amount of gas can be viably produced from hydrates. Canada is the third largest exporter ofnatural gas and, along with increasing domestic demands, has the opportunity to augment our conventionalreserves (~11 trillion cubic meters) with our staggering resources of gas from hydrate reservoirs (~500 trillioncubic meters).This innovative program investigates the relatively unexplored field of gas hydrate-sediment mixtures,specifically the flow of fluids within this unique system. The objective of the proposed research is tocharacterize and assess the effect of permeability on gas production from hydrate reservoirs. Permeability isimportant in that gas production rates from hydrate reservoirs is a strong function of permeability of the hydratezone; however, current models and measurements suggest a variation of seven orders of magnitude of predictedpermeability for the same hydrate saturation. Our group is approaching the characterization of this importantparameter through an integrated program of experimental and theoretical research, which links micro, meso,and macro level scales to garner a full understanding of the effects of permeability on the production of naturalgas from hydrate reservoirs. We have adopted a multilevel collaborative approach to solving one piece of thehydrate recover puzzle which will no doubt contribute to the production of methane gas from hydrates and thusbenefit not only the energy industry but also the general population.