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 crystalline compounds that encage gas molecules inside the lattices of hydrogen bonded water molecules. Although hydrates appear similar to ice, they will release over 160 volumes of methane gas for each volume of hydrate when exposed to atmospheric conditions. Early indications from production tests in the Canadian Arctic show that a significant amount of gas can be viably produced from hydrates. Canada is the third largest exporter of natural gas and, along with increasing domestic demands, has the opportunity to augment our conventional reserves (~11 trillion cubic meters) with our staggering resources of gas from hydrate reservoirs (~500 trillion cubic 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 to characterize and assess the effect of permeability on gas production from hydrate reservoirs. Permeability is important in that gas production rates from hydrate reservoirs is a strong function of permeability of the hydrate zone; however, current models and measurements suggest a variation of seven orders of magnitude of predicted permeability for the same hydrate saturation. Our group is approaching the characterization of this important parameter 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 natural gas from hydrate reservoirs. We have adopted a multilevel collaborative approach to solving one piece of the hydrate recover puzzle which will no doubt contribute to the production of methane gas from hydrates and thus benefit not only the energy industry but also the general population.