Gas hydrates, simply put, is methane trapped in the oceans. OK, that is simplifying it a bit too much, but you got the idea.
The big news is that there are billions of tons of gas hydrates around the world (one estimates puts it at twice the amount of existing oil and natural gas reserves), the tough news is that no one has yet extracted any.
All these apart, it was interesting for me to note that India is also considered to have huge reserves of gas hydrates in its oceans. ( “India has around 2,000 trillion cubic feet of prognostic reserves of gas hydrates off the country’s east coast, directorate-general of Hydrocarbons (DGH) said” – Source)
This article says India will start exploring gas hydrates by 2010
And this article says we are in the very early stages of extracting the GH. It could be many many years (20 or more) before anyone figures out how to profitably get this energy source out of our oceans
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And here are the results of the Indian National Gas Hydrate Program Expedition 1 (Feb 2008). Sounds quite exciting and promising
I’m gonna watch out the gas hydrates space. Not that I expect any practical extraction any time soon, but this is a big area so worth observing the developments
