UT to study methane harvesting in the Gulf of Mexico

Fuel Fix:

The University of Texas at Austin has won $58 million to investigate a potentially massive energy resource: methane trapped in ice-like crystals under the Gulf of Mexico and oceans around the world.

The Department of Energy is providing $41.2 million toward the grant, one of the largest government grants ever awarded to the university, with the rest coming from industry and research partners.

The university plans to use the funding to harvest and analyze core samples of methane hydrate from sandstone reservoirs thousands of feet under the Gulf – the first time the deposits have been retrieved from U.S. waters.

The methane hydrates, which are ice-like solids with gas molecules locked inside, are typically found in high-pressure, low-temperature environments. And while they are stable under those conditions, the lattice-like structures start to melt as soon as they are warmed or depressurized, causing the methane to bubble away.
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The amount of methane in the Gulf is more than 250 times the annual current usage of natural gas on an annual basis.  In other words if the y can find a way to harvest it, it could supply US needs for over two centuries.  The Japanese have also been studing methane harvested from the depths of the sea.