Science and Technology for Canadians

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Transcript of Video:

Narrator:
The McKenzie Delta - Canada's far North.
Government of Canada scientists lead an international team looking for ways to unlock the power of a vast, clean burning fuel.
These chunks of icy sludge are home to methane hydrate - a natural gas trapped deep underground and formed by incredible pressure and extreme cold.
A gas so concentrated it produces 164 times its own volume.
A lick of flame and ice actually burns.
Methane hydrates are made up of a carbon atom with four hydrogen atoms attached to it.
They bounce around but can't get out of the cage unless the framework melts away.
Gas hydrates occur deep beneath the ocean's floor on the continental margins and below perma frost in northern regions.
And they occur in massive concentrations.

Super: Scott Dallimore, Geological Survey of Canada
“There is a lot of hydrates in the world. If you took the energy that you could derive from gas hydrates provides, it yields almost twice as much as much energy as you could get from all other sources of hydrocarbons for instance.”

Narrator:
The growing interest in clean burning gas hydrates brought scientists to the Mallik Research Well Program from Japan, India, China, the United States and Germany in November 2002.
They had one critical question to answer - can you actually get the gas out of the ground in an economic way?

Scott Dallimore:
“The challenge is the technology challenge. They're occuring in the ground -not in the gaseous form. They're occurring as a solid substance. And we have to convert them to a gaseous form in order to get them to the surface. And put the gas into a pipeline for instance and get it to a place where we can turn it into energy. So it's all technology.”

Narrator:
Two methods were used - heating the hydrates and lowering the pressure on them. The question was answered.
Gas was brought to the surface - enough that it had to be flared off.

Super: Kirk Osadetz, Head, Energy and Environment Subdivision, Geological Survey of Canada
“At Malik we learned for the first time that with further research it may be possible to efficiently and economically recover gas hydrates and to realize this potential energy source as part of our energy supply."

Narrator:
Results of the breakthrough research were presented in winter, 2003 at Japan's International Gas Hydrate Symposium.
It may be 50 years before the world sees mass production of gas hydrates. But for nations with limited energy supplies, a gas hydrate powered future starts now.