Spotlight on Natural Resources Canada, (Part 1)
Institutional Feature, September 2010 (Page 3 of 3)
POTENTIALLY IMMENSE, CLEAN ENERGY SOURCE: GAS HYDRATES
Another branch of the Energy Sector, the Office of Energy Research & Development, carries the mandate for coordinating federal research and development in energy. Its current Director General is Dr. Marc D'Iorio, who sums up their mission as "Our thrust is towards the low-carbon economy, and many of the programs are shaping our clean energy future—we're looking for technologies and developments that will promote renewable and low-emission types of energy generation."
"...preliminary estimates suggest that in the Mackenzie Delta-Beaufort Sea area, we could have upwards of 350 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in gas hydrate form. To put that in context, Canada consumed approximately three trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2008."
--Marc D'Iorio
One of the forms of energy generation the Energy Sector is looking at is gas hydrates. These are a very concentrated solid form of natural gas, most commonly methane. Gas hydrates occur in cold geologic environments beneath and within thick permafrost occurrences in the Arctic and in deep-water environments offshore of Canada's coasts. When the solid structure of gas hydrates is broken down it expands in volume more than 160-fold, forming free gas.
And there's a lot of it in Canada alone. According to D'Iorio, "We don't have an exact estimate of resources up north, but preliminary estimates suggest that in the Mackenzie Delta-Beaufort Sea area, we could have upwards of 350 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in gas hydrate form. To put that in context, Canada consumed approximately three trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2008. Even if only a fraction of this resource can be extracted commercially, that is still a lot of gas!"
In terms of environmental issues, gas hydrates are essentially natural gas, which is the cleanest-burning of the fossil fuels. Extraction-wise, many of the issues are similar to conventional gas extraction. "You have to be careful of your well and its casing, you have to understand how much gas you're extracting so you don't cause any problems at the surface; these are all things you would have to worry about with conventional natural gas extraction as well," D'Iorio says.
Gas hydrates have another aspect in common with conventional natural gas: a history of being seen as more liability than resource, but considerable potential for future given its cleaner greenhouse gas footprint then other hydrocarbon energy sources.
"Fifty years ago, natural gas was often just an unwanted by-product of oil production—something that was burned off, because it had little commercial value and could cause operational problems. Times have changed and natural gas is now recognized as a secure energy source that emits the up to 40% less carbon dioxide then coal or oil," D'Iorio relates.
Photo 4:
"Gas hydrate core sample from 920 m deep at the Mallik
site..."
View larger image & complete description in tab
below.
While gas hydrates represent a potential expanded supply of natural gas for Canada, there are still technical and research challenges to overcome. "Under some circumstances gas hydrates are seen as a hazard, because if you drill into a pocket and depressurize it, you can release a lot of gas that expands rapidly and can cause well control problems and even blow outs.
"When drilling for deeper targets, exploration companies are very cognizant of where these lenses of gas hydrates might be—they're still perceived as something to be mindful of rather than as a resource. However, the interest is also shifting to consideration of their energy potential."
There are additional environmental concerns related to natural occurrences of gas hydrates, but not related to production, per se. D'Iorio goes on to point out that methane is a potent greenhouse gas, even more so than carbon dioxide. Understanding natural sources of methane that can release to the atmosphere, including gas hydrates, becomes a climate change issue as well.
As far as the technology goes, "there are things we know and things we don't," D'Iorio explains, "We know it's there, below the permafrost in northern Canada and the Arctic regions and on the margins of continental shelves all around the world, so that's why you have quite a few countries interested in or involved in gas hydrates research.
"Gas hydrates are kept a solid form because of high pressure and low temperature. They will remain that way unless you change one of those conditions. Natural Resources Canada has been at the forefront of gas hydrate production research. We've tried stimulating the reservoirs by heat to release the natural gas. That has worked, but we end up spending more energy heating things up, than the energy we can produce with the gas.
"The next thing we tried was releasing the gas through depressurization of the reservoir, by reducing the pressure in the reservoir, which changes the gas hydrate from a solid to free gas—the free gas then flows up in the well, and you capture it at that point. We did the first major production test of this technique with the Japanese a couple of years ago and managed to produce a lot of natural gas over a short production interval.
"To sum up, research and development is ongoing to establish safe and environmentally sound methods to extract gas hydrates. We are putting the theories that have been proposed for production into limited practice. The next step is longer-term production tests. It's ready to be tested over a longer time period, but not ready for commercial production."
NRCan did some extensive research at their Mallik test site in 2007-2008, and it was found that commercially available, off-the-shelf technology could be used to produce gas hydrates. "We have learned a great deal about gas hydrates at this research site with much learning that can be transferred to other environments. There is more work to do however and there is a host of other things to characterize," D'Iorio says.
"#1 It's hard to overestimate the value of CCS for our country and for the world. It's not the only technology that will help us solve climate change, but without it, it will be very, very difficult."
--John Marrone
"One important aspect we are focusing on is to understand the physical characteristics of the reservoir, because that will influence engineering design—everything from well casing to what kind of stability you need in the design of the well so you can mitigate potential impact."
Many of the most promising sites and reservoirs of gas hydrates are in the far north, in remote areas. "The Ice Road Truckers [from the History Channel television show] came up to the Mallik test site allowing many viewers to appreciate just how challenging the logistics of working at this site really are," D'Iorio comments.
In terms of partnerships for gas hydrates research, NRCan is connected on every level from local Canadian governments to the international community. "Within the government of Canada there's the Department of Natural Resources, National Research Council of Canada, and a number of Canadian universities, including the Universities of Calgary, Victoria and Toronto, that do a lot of work on gas hydrates," says D'Iorio, "We work with companies too—the first gas hydrate reports in Canada were basically documented by people from Imperial Oil back in the '70s."
On an international scale, many countries are involved in gas hydrates research, due to the fact that gas hydrates occur on continental margins and are more broadly available to countries that don't have other natural energy resources, and because natural gas is the cleanest-burning fossil fuel. There's been over a billion dollars invested in gas hydrates research worldwide, and countries like the US, Russia, Norway, Japan, India, Germany, Korea, and China have been looking into hydrates as a potential resource.
D'Iorio stresses that this is not a vision that is near to term. "Due to the research that remains to be done and the remote location of gas hydrates, Canada is a good 20 to 30 years away from commercial production of gas hydrates."
But it's definitely food for serious thought, and when the time comes, Canada will be ready.
Coming in October 2010 (Part 2): how NRCan is helping to "green" the mining industry, forecast forest fires, and monitor earthquake activity in Canada and in Haiti.
NATURAL RESOURCES CANADA MOST CURRENT MOST-CITED PAPER IN ESSENTIAL SCIENCE INDICATORS:
Schimel DS, et al., "Recent patterns and mechanisms of carbon exchange by terrestrial ecosystems," Nature 414(6860): 169-72, 8 November 2001 with 388 cites. Source: Essential Science Indicators from Clarivate.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
- Natural Resources Canada was named a New Entrant in the field of Geoscience for October 2009.
KEYWORDS: NATURAL RESOURCES, CANADA, GOVERNMENT, SUSTAINABLE RESOURCES, COLLABORATION, DISCIPLINES, INNOVATIONS, CLEAN ENERGY DIALOGUE, CLEAN ENERGY RESEARCH, ELECTRIC VEHICLES, WIND POWER, MARINE ENERGY, ENERGY EFFICIENCY, DRAKE LANDING SOLAR COMMUNITY, CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE, FOSSIL FUELS, CLIMATE CHANGE, CARBON DIOXIDE, GASIFICATION, POST-COMBUSTION, OXY-FUEL, COST, LOW-CARBON ECONOMY, GAS HYDRATES, NATURAL GAS, METHANE, EXTRACTION, GREENHOUSE GAS, MALLIK, INFRASTRUCTURE.
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Gas Hydrate Core Sample
Photo 4: Gas Hydrate Core Sample
Gas hydrate core sample from 920 m deep at the Mallik site. Gas hydrate occurs as white material filling the pore space of the granular sand. (Photo taken at the rig during the coring operation at JAPEX/JNOC/GSC et al. Mallik 5L-38. (e) visible gas hydrate in Mallik 5L-38 from similar depth.).
Reproduced with the permission of Natural Resources Canada 2010, courtesy of the Geological Survey of Canada.