Burning Ice: a clean energy source

摘要

GOING with the all around concern about depleting conventional energy sources on the Earth and pollution from them, scientists are always looking for alternative sources of energy. A new source of energy first came as shale gas and then shale oil and, popularly called "Fire/Burning Ice" because it is a white crystalline solid that burns, is catching up the imagination of scientists and engineers as future clean source of energy. Methane hydrate is a mixture of natural gas and water that becomes a solid in cold, high-pressure conditions in deep sea-beds (where the temperature falls to 2 degrees centigrade). When methane and freezing cold water fuse under tremendous pressure, they create a substance as paradoxical as it is coveted: fire/burning ice. Methane hydrate (MH) is a special class of ice that contains methane molecules in cages or networks of hydrogen bonded water molecules. MH-I, abundant in the deep ocean, has been attracting attention of the industry as a key material of new energy resource, whose amount is estimated twice as much as the total fossil fuel reserve. It is also found in onshore deposits in the permafrost of northern Canada and Russia. The sheer abundance of methane hydrates around the globe and the thought that much of this gas could soon be economically extractable is almost intoxicating for those involved.