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Preface
When it comes to combustible ice, many people may wonder, isn't ice capable of extinguishing fires, and how can there be combustible?
In fact, combustible ice is not ice, but refers to natural gas, that is, methane, because its shape is similar to ice, so it is called combustible ice.
Combustible ice is made by mixing methane and water, and at low and high temperatures, it forms natural gas for people to use, which is why people call it combustible ice.
Source: "Land Combustible Ice: New Energy in the Post-Petroleum Era" - People's Daily Online 2009-10-20
Combustible ice is a new type of clean energy source, which is seen as an alternative to petroleum, and after combustion, there are no impurities and no exhaust gases.
It can be said to be a very environmentally friendly energy source, the continent has the largest reserves of combustible ice in the world, but today there are few combustible ice substitutes for oil on the market.
So why is there no movement for such clean energy now?
China has the largest reserves in the world
Energy is the lifeblood of a country's development, without energy, people's clothing, food, housing and transportation will be hindered to a certain extent, some researchers have speculated that by 2022, China's remaining oil can still support people's lives for about 100 years, but as time goes by, the consumption of oil will also increase, and mankind is facing the crisis of energy depletion.
Then finding alternative energy sources for oil has become an important task, and now there are a lot of clean energy sources that can be used in the world, and in addition to some common clean energy, there is also a new clean energy in the fossil field, which is combustible ice.
Combustible ice has large reserves, low consumption, and will not produce too much waste, which can be said to be one of the most suitable energy sources to replace oil, and various countries also attach great importance to the research of combustible ice.
Since the 90s of the last century, we have carried out in-depth research on combustible ice in the South China Sea, and found a large number of combustible ice resources in the South China Sea.
In recent years, we have carried out a number of combustible ice mining experiments in the South China Sea, and in 2017, we successfully mined combustible ice in the waters of Shenhu Lake in the northern part of the South China Sea.
Information source; "The South China Sea has a delineated reserve of about 19.4 billion cubic meters of combustible ice ore body", China Geological Survey, 2010-12-31
In addition to our country, the United States and Japan have also engaged in the development of combustible ice, especially Japan, which is a country that lacks raw materials such as oil and natural gas, and they have had to change direction and seek new sources of energy.
In the 10 years since Japan began to study combustible ice in 1960, it has carried out a number of combustible ice exploration work and discovered a large number of resources in the South China Sea.
In addition to Japan, countries such as the United States and Canada have also explored combustible ice resources in the Arctic and found large amounts of combustible ice, but they stopped developing combustible ice in the Arctic in 2017 due to the difficulty of mining.
As a renewable energy source, the importance of combustible ice is self-evident, and the storage of combustible ice is also very considerable, among them, the continental combustible ice reserves are the largest in the world, according to relevant researchers, the mainland South China Sea combustible ice storage capacity is at least more than 80 billion tons.
So why is combustible ice so sought-after that people are rushing to mine it?
Combustible ice that is claimed to be a substitute for oil
This starts with the composition of combustible ice, which is a special crystal formed by water molecules and methane in the high-pressure environment of the deep sea, which contains a large amount of methane, which is not only more efficient than traditional fossil energy, but also easy to store and transport.
In addition, under the same conditions, combustible ice releases more than 10 times more heat than oil and gas, and there are no impurities after combustion, and there is no exhaust gas due to insufficient combustion.
With the massive use of fossil fuels such as coal and oil around the world, resulting in a sharp increase in greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and other problems are becoming increasingly prominent, we urgently need to develop new alternative energy sources, and combustible ice is undoubtedly the best alternative.
And according to the research, under the standard atmospheric pressure, the ratio of combustible ice to natural gas is 1:164, it can be said that the efficiency of its conversion into energy is very high, combustible ice is one of the very traditional energy sources, and its reserves are extremely rich.
Combustible ice is more environmentally friendly than petroleum and produces more than natural gas, and the storage of combustible ice in the world is huge, reaching 250 trillion cubic meters.
In addition, combustible ice is very renewable, so its service life is also very long, which is why combustible ice is considered a substitute for future energy.
So if there are so many benefits of combustible ice, why is there no movement on the use of combustible ice now?
Why is the combustible ice not moving now?
This starts with the storage environment and formation conditions of combustible ice, combustible ice must be generated in a low temperature and high pressure environment, if the temperature exceeds its range of 0~10 degrees, the combustible ice will be directly dissipated in the air, and if the atmospheric pressure is not enough.
The rate at which combustible ice decomposes will be accelerated, and from this point of view, the conditions for extracting combustible ice are very strict.
And combustible ice is a hydrocarbon, carbon is very important in nature's material cycle, according to research shows that most of the combustible ice is methane, and methane is a greenhouse gas.
Its efficiency in causing the greenhouse effect is definitely not lower than that of carbon dioxide, so if the safety of mining is not solved in the process of mining combustible ice, once it causes a large amount of greenhouse gas emissions, then it will also lead to a rise in global temperatures.
In addition, combustible ice is called ice, not only because its shape is similar to ice, but also because some of its characteristics are the same as ice, such as being extremely easy to melt at room temperature.
This leads to the high cost of large-scale mining and transportation of combustible ice, and combustible ice is a fossil energy after all, and a certain amount of carbon emissions will be produced after combustion, which will also make the utilization of combustible ice a very difficult thing.
Although there are now various methods to mine combustible ice, such as decompression mining, heat shock mining, chemical reagent injection, solid mining and displacement mining, these methods require very high technology.
At present, people have not been able to fully grasp the relevant technology, which has caused the current situation of combustible ice mining difficulties.
epilogue
Combustible ice is a new energy source with great development prospects, and it is expected to become an important part of new energy in the future, but if you want combustible ice to play the greatest effect, you should pay more attention to environmental protection and make full use of resources in the process of development.
If it is blindly developed, it will only cause damage to the ecological environment and irreparable damage to the survival of human beings.
Source: "Land Combustible Ice: New Energy in the Post-Petroleum Era" - People's Daily Online 2009-10-20
Source: What is combustible ice? ——Oil and Gas Resources Survey Center, China Geological Survey, 2017-05-27
Source: "Preliminary Proven 18.5 Billion Tons of Oil Equivalent in Combustible Ice Reserves in the North of the South China Sea" - Central Government Portal 2008-11-28
Information source; "The South China Sea has a delineated reserve of about 19.4 billion cubic meters of combustible ice ore body", China Geological Survey, 2010-12-31
Source: "The Mainland Plans to Complete the Survey and Development of "Combustible Ice" Resources within 10 Years - Central Government Portal 2009-10-30
Source: "Test Production Sets Record, Mainland China Takes the Lead in Realizing Horizontal Well Drilling and Deep-sea "Combustible Ice"——Science and Technology Daily 2020-03-27
Source: "Two New World Records for Combustible Ice Mining in China" - Beijing News 2020-03-26