Methyl-Clathrates (or Methane-Hydrates) are the next fossil fuel. Why? It's there for someone to grab. That's part of the reason why Russia made a claim for the north pole. I also suspect that's why the Russians are playing for control of the Caspian sea. The resources are there but the technology is a little short at the moment. No matter, where there's a will, there's a way especially if all you have to do is bring it up from under the surface.

Now think of this: With all that Methane or 'Natural-Gas' as it's commonly known there will be a lot more CO2 going into the air. What if we were to somehow 'charge' for making Oxygen? It would then be beneficial for us to be 'green'.

Posted by: Trung Tran at October 30, 2007 10:40 AM

Relating to the abrahams comment. The average electric car gets 200 miles per recharge. That is just electric based power. My hybrid allows hydrogen and electric combined in 2 tanks to allow fuel to convert by electrolysis beyond the fully charged battery pack of 200 miles. Don't forget that the waste product water in the back 2ndary engine can propulse out steam for extram mileage as well. /We are looking way past 200 miles per day, can the Abrahms get that on one tank of gas? I have a portable device tagged in max1mos111 that taps powerlines and uses jumpstarting power recharge similar to backup battery packs. Imagine several rows of grouped litium ion batteryies in the back of the craft pulsing out energy for torque, as they do the gas is slowly emitting a charge not only to assist turning the front wheel base but also re-storing that energy jsut released from that battery pack. 2 for the price of 1 so to speak. Can the average tank of gas get that kind of distance?

Posted by: Max Anderson at March 25, 2007 02:31 AM

Dr. Roger Eichman posts: "Methal [sic] hydrates can supply all the gass [sic] needed for any of our life times at nearly present costs."

I'm not sure how this is a useful idea since methyl hydrate is made from heating natural gas. In other words, you are adding energy to nat gas. So why not just quit while you have the nat gas? Also, the MH is toxic, so if it spills into the water supply it poisons the water - not a good result.

Posted by: José Joseph at March 22, 2007 03:18 AM

Gaaaahhhh!! Not perpetual motion/energy machines again. There is a lot of goofy thinking going re energy mining. Folks with their feet on the ground have found no reasonable way to harvest methane hydrates/clathrates. It is true there is a lot of it out there. Could be that ocean warming may release it as it has in eons past. To be safe, let's figure out how to do with less.

Posted by: Norm E at March 20, 2007 01:23 PM

Jose writes: >

Sorry. The deal is that over time the newest natural gas deposits to be located are smaller and smaller. Eventually the energy cost of constructing, installing and maintaining the rigs will use more energy than the field will return.

====

http://hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/

Dr. Hubbert (in response to remarks by David Nissen - Exxon): "... [T]here is a different and more fundamental cost that is independent of the monetary price. That is the energy cost of exploration and production. So long as oil is used as a source of energy, when the energy cost of recovering a barrel of oil becomes greater than the energy content of the oil, production will cease no matter what the monetary price may be." [referenced by Ivanhoe, 1982]

Posted by: Baby Peanut at March 19, 2007 04:19 PM

Fischer-Trope also works with wood, if you don't feel like using coal.

Posted by: Brian at March 15, 2007 09:18 AM

How do you harvest wood ? Are you going to use the liquid fuel you make from the wood to harvest the wood ? You are kidding right ?

And BTW:

Batteries at this time(and probably never will be)are not a viable solution - Too heavy a payload, the efficiency goes way down. Be kind of funny to see a bunch of Armored vehicles on the battlefield waiting for AAA to give them a jump.

Posted by: clueless at March 19, 2007 12:24 PM

Methal hydrates can supply all the gass needed for any of our life times at nearly present costs.

Posted by: Dr. Roger Eichman at March 18, 2007 09:36 PM

Really ?

Got a production/deliver strategy or plan ?

Posted by: clueless at March 19, 2007 12:09 PM

The army isn't saying that nat gas won't be available. They're saying that it won't be "viable" - i.e. it'll be too expensive. There's always nuclear, petroleum, coal, coal oil, coal gas, etc. Hydrogen and methyl/ethyl alcohol are not fuels, they're stored energy since it takes as much energy to make them as you get from them. Nat gas is going to be short because so much is slated to be used for "green power" to keep the global warming crowd quiet. So it's just a matter of choices. If we go green, nat gas will be in short supply.

Posted by: José Joseph at March 18, 2007 11:02 PM

Methal hydrates can supply all the gass needed for any of our life times at nearly present costs.

Posted by: Dr. Roger Eichman at March 18, 2007 09:36 PM

www.willyoujoinus.com do look-up here on chevron thinktank. I have been an active member since 2005. I posted in my yahoo 360 blogs the hydrogen electric hybrid steam based car with independant front and rear wheel torque converters and abs independant front and rear wheel suspension as well.

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blogO1ahRPI8er4gvVWAGF6W_kZB?p=140

tags are set up under yahoo or aol . type max1mos111 on the yahoo or aol search engine if you get lost in yahoo 360.

I have studied all the topics on this. Hydrogen , oxygen intake, steam and electric power seems the best . The aspen institutes mentions my car as experimental and has not yet been tested.

However when the natural gas debate came up several months ago the aspens intitutes reviews relate to bermudas natural gas supplies with bubble mining and or a pipes or tunnels networks set up for defense and or the next 60 years of us consumption. Yes, that right 60 years. Ther is no shortage of it. Bermuda is methane rich. Thats why the ghost ships come out 1/2 way burnt up. bubble back blast, don't light up htere or it's boom time. I worked on a sideways leveraged minig device called the mole to relate to a newer technology and also a electric portable gas netowrks detection systems and air breather for each worker for this project with haol tunnels networks and strip mining shortcuts as each halon tunnel is built to advert expolsions of the mass pockets of gasses in that area using chemicals and water to avert sparks. I also worked extensively on a man based robotics on the carrier of the mole that uses glue and drilling tools to lay in glue into the roofs for structure roof tunnel support.

I have a inventor standing out as the best of the best named riley101@cox.net for inquiries to his sight by his permission only, who has worked out
a millenia daw perpetual motion device that could be added into my wiring in the twin engine suv for extra amperage into the electrical power lines. We have corresponded regularly the last year and have a new fan he created for windmills that use my magnetics string arrayed theory design to create extended power that is pulled out of the fan tips perpetual motion and shot back into the power source turning the blased for exra power pull in down times when the wind is not turning windmills . The power is stored into lithium ion battery packs . Or we can use this same principle on fans and lights in houses when power goes out. The energy saver feature could save power companies billions if we implement this into all homes and do away with modern fans.

Biofuels is the current topic. My screenname is max1mos111 in www.wyju.com as well. You may view my article and comment on it hter now in current topics forum.

nuclear is outie. Hydrogen is in.
We have pumps to create hydrogen and oxygen gasses with electrolysis in overseas swiss alps areas and the netherlands. Why not declassify subs technologies and put paypumps here in the us near all water tables towns? Then the cars and boats could be built to run off of the twin blend . 100% clean emissions , water is the waste product. We have the newer plasma conversion kits which can burn out the hydrocarbons in the exhaust systems for extra horsepower and cleaner water wate product. Imagine it, drinking a cup of water out of you tailpipe. Imagine this, no 2-5.00 dollars a gallon. If we recharge with this system at home or at pay stations:

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blogO1ahRPI8er4gvVWAGF6W_kZB?p=138

It costs .05 cents for 200 miles of travel. max speed 85 miles per hour. All Electric cars Torque conversion formulas applied to street racers is up to 0-60 in less than 2.6 seconds, faster than a mazzarati.
I worked this as a car or suv or van or truck as a fuel source with means for 3 ways to refuel, electric,hydrogen,oxygen fuel, and the final water converted to steam in the twin engine. We could apply this to boats and subs too for alternate performance using saltwater to convert to fuel and brathing air. THINK ABOUT IT!

Posted by: Max Anderson at March 16, 2007 12:34 AM

Electric is great for non-emergency use. So for powering noncombat vehicles, like the general's golf cart, I'm sure it'll work fine. But let's not kid ourselves that we're switching over to an electric Abrams. Combat vehicles need lots of power, and they need to be able to refill quickly. You don't want to have the enemy on the run, and then find out that you need to stop for 10 hours to let your tank recharge. You need to be able to gas up and go.

Posted by: Brian at March 15, 2007 03:12 PM

Umm, electric? Sure you can't use it to power aircraft very easily, but the DOD would just be stupid to pass up what electric can do for ground transport and instillations. Battery and solar solutions are getting cheaper, faster, lighter and hold/produce more power.

Electric is how everything will be powered, weather eletric comes from coal, nuke, solar or whatever is the only real question. My house is 100% eletric, and I generate about 95% of my own power costing me only about 20K one time investment.

Posted by: The Cenobyte at March 15, 2007 10:45 AM

Fischer-Trope also works with wood, if you don't feel like using coal.

Posted by: Brian at March 15, 2007 09:18 AM

Yes the Air Force method synthetic fuel currently use natural gas for feed stock to make the synthetic fuel they are testing but the Fischer-Trope method works just fine with coal. It turns the coal into a synthetic fuel that burns hundreds of times cleaner than conventional diesel or jet fuel. I believe even without recent breakthroughs in the improvement synthetic fuel is about 80-90 cents a gallon to make.

Posted by: JeffC at March 15, 2007 09:10 AM

Don't forget the Deep Earth Hydrocarbon theory. If those guys are right we haven't even accessed a tenth of the available reserves.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/earth-04q.html

Posted by: Paulg at March 15, 2007 06:14 AM

>Also don't forget methane in the form of frozen methane in the deep ocean. Vast fields of it in
>the gulf of Mexico and Florida.

Methane Hydrate?

Posted by: pedestrian at March 15, 2007 05:16 AM

shortages of less expensive natural gas will most likely lead to greater use of coal...for those "installation"s; meaning, stateside forts, training areas, depots, etc. Coal is readily available and inexpensive; but has the downside of being dirty. However, when natural gas, for whatever reason, becomes to difficult to aquire or use, environmental concerns will go by the wayside. This is for land/building use.

Transportation is another field. It is likely that natural gas would still be used to produce synthetic aviation fuel, while land transport is likely to transfer, in some part, to biodiesel.

As oil, or natural gas, become more difficult or expensive, there are multiple alternatives that will enter use.

However, it will always be true that the military will have first choice of any fuels available, over civilian usage.

Posted by: campbell at March 14, 2007 08:00 PM

Remember all those movies that took place before the electric light. when cities were lighted by gas? Well That gas came from coal, The Habber back reaction [not sure of the name] It is a very old process. Also don't forget methane in the form of frozen methane in the deep ocean. Vast fields of it in the gulf of Mexico and Florida.

Posted by: davids at March 14, 2007 06:21 PM