SCI和EI收录∣中国化工学会会刊

中国化学工程学报 ›› 2019, Vol. 27 ›› Issue (9): 2026-2036.DOI: 10.1016/j.cjche.2019.01.005

• Special Issue on Natural Gas Hydrate • 上一篇    下一篇

Methane hydrates: A future clean energy resource

Zhenyuan Yin1,2, Praveen Linga1   

  1. 1 Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, 117585, Singapore;
    2 Lloyd's Register Singapore Pte. Ltd., 138522, Singapore
  • 收稿日期:2018-11-21 修回日期:2018-12-16 出版日期:2019-09-28 发布日期:2019-12-04
  • 通讯作者: Praveen Linga

Methane hydrates: A future clean energy resource

Zhenyuan Yin1,2, Praveen Linga1   

  1. 1 Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, 117585, Singapore;
    2 Lloyd's Register Singapore Pte. Ltd., 138522, Singapore
  • Received:2018-11-21 Revised:2018-12-16 Online:2019-09-28 Published:2019-12-04
  • Contact: Praveen Linga

摘要: Natural gas has been considered as the best transition fuel into the future carbon constraint world. The ever-increasing demand for natural gas has prompted expanding research and development activities worldwide for exploring methane hydrates as a future energy resource. With its vast global resource volume (~3000 trillion cubic meter CH4) and high energy storage capacity (170 CH4 v/v methane hydrate), recovering energy from naturally-occurring methane hydrate has attracted both academic and industry interests to demonstrate the technical feasibility and economic viability. In this review paper, we highlight the recent advances in fundamental researches, seminal discoveries and implications from ongoing drilling programs and field production tests, the impending knowledge gaps and the future perspectives of recovering energy from methane hydrates. We further emphasize the current scientific, technological and economic challenges in realizing long-term commercial gas production from methane hydrate reservoir. The continuous growth of the corresponding experimental studies in China should target these specific challenges to narrow the knowledge gaps between laboratory-scale investigations and reservoir-scale applications. Furthermore, we briefly discuss both the environmental and geomechanical issues related to exploiting methane hydrate as the future energy resource and believe that they should be of paramount importance in the future development of novel gas production technologies.

关键词: Methane hydrates, Energy recovery, Gas production, Energy resource, Recent advance, Future outlook

Abstract: Natural gas has been considered as the best transition fuel into the future carbon constraint world. The ever-increasing demand for natural gas has prompted expanding research and development activities worldwide for exploring methane hydrates as a future energy resource. With its vast global resource volume (~3000 trillion cubic meter CH4) and high energy storage capacity (170 CH4 v/v methane hydrate), recovering energy from naturally-occurring methane hydrate has attracted both academic and industry interests to demonstrate the technical feasibility and economic viability. In this review paper, we highlight the recent advances in fundamental researches, seminal discoveries and implications from ongoing drilling programs and field production tests, the impending knowledge gaps and the future perspectives of recovering energy from methane hydrates. We further emphasize the current scientific, technological and economic challenges in realizing long-term commercial gas production from methane hydrate reservoir. The continuous growth of the corresponding experimental studies in China should target these specific challenges to narrow the knowledge gaps between laboratory-scale investigations and reservoir-scale applications. Furthermore, we briefly discuss both the environmental and geomechanical issues related to exploiting methane hydrate as the future energy resource and believe that they should be of paramount importance in the future development of novel gas production technologies.

Key words: Methane hydrates, Energy recovery, Gas production, Energy resource, Recent advance, Future outlook