by Tanada » Wed 31 Jul 2013, 22:54:37
ROCKMAN wrote:Tanada - That could make sense although the conditions might be relatively rare. It sounds as though the hydrates are forming a seal onto of a viable reservoir rock. Essentially just as all reservoirs must have a seal containing them. Dropping the reservoir pressure would cause the lower portion of the seal to "melt" and charge the reservoir rock. The only down side is that this is being down at a rather shallow depth and thus he NG would be at a rather lower pressure and thus not an impressive flow rate. One risk that’s difficult to qualify would be developing a "melted" channel vertically in the hydrate causing a surface rupture. Might cause some sort of catastrophic release of the entire hydrate body. Could put a lot of methane into the atmosphere
[SARCASM] Oh come on ROCKMAN how can you be so chicken about such a wonderful energy source that is so safe the USSR spent twenty years developing ways to harvest it in Siberia? Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain!{/SARCASM]
Seriously, I have read about the trial runs several different times from different sources over the years and as you point out degradation of the hydrates can be a very serious issue. I think the only realistic ways to deal with it would be to have a cooling jacket in the well casing insulated on the inside to not freeze up the supply being extracted. You would have to use something like freon as your liquid phase to keep the outside of the casing as far below freezing as possible to keep the hydrates stable as long as possible. Sooner or later the cap is going to weaken if you are dropping the pressure below it and the bottom is eroding into water and free methane.
I should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, design a building, write, balance accounts, build a wall, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, pitch manure, program a computer, cook, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.