New Reactor Vessel for Better Investigation of Gas Production from Gas Hydrates

摘要

With the overall effort to tap into abundant reserves of fossil fuels , the oil and gas industries are exploring as many opportunities as possible. Among them one source of gas production is from gas hydrates. In comparison with other deposits, gas hydrates store an extremely large quantity of organic carbon. The compact nature of the hydrate structure makes for highly effective packing of methane. A cubic volume of hydrate contains gas that will expand to somewhere between 150 cubic volumes and 180 cubic volumes at standard pressure and temperature. There are uncertainties with regard to the global methane budget, yet there is a rough consensus that about 20,000 trillion m 3 of methane are locked up in hydrates. Gas hydrates could therefore represent a potentially significant source of energy in the future. They have been found as layers, nodules, and pore infillings on and beneath the sea floor at shallow depths within the ocean sediment around the world, particularly along the continental shelf, in polar continental sedimentary rock, and in the permafrost areas of the Arctic. Although gas hydrates have been known for a long time, scientists still strive to understand all the risks associated with the production of gas hydrates.