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Some scientists suspect that permafrost acts as a cap that protects hydrates from melting, particularly in the shallow Arctic seafloor, where the hydrates are found only a few tens of feet deep. The more that sea or lake waters thaw the permafrost below, the more likely this cap is to blow suddenly, releasing jets of methane up through the water and into the atmosphere.

methane methane hydrates ice permafrost thaw melt greenmonktv

The US Geological Survey released a report estimating that 85 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of technically recoverable gas hydrates are accessible on the Alaskan North Slope. If produced over 20 years and combined with the conventional gas supply from the North Slope, which has been waiting for a pipeline south for many years, this deposit could supply up to a third of total US natural gas consumption. But that barely scratches the surface of the overall potential of gas hydrates.

The reason this announcement is so significant lies in the words "technically recoverable." Geologists have known about gas hydrates for a long time, and estimates of global hydrate deposits have been refined to a range of between 100,000 and a million TCF, with the best estimate of US hydrate deposits currently at 200,000 TCF. To put that in perspective, one TCF of natural gas represents about 1% of US annual total energy consumption and contains the same energy as 180 million barrels of oil or 10 billion gallons of ethanol. In other words, that 200,000 TCF estimate is the equivalent of a 2,000-year energy supply for the US, at current consumption levels, of a fuel with half the greenhouse gas emissions of coal.

methane hydrates fossil fuel