Research
|
Scientific discovery is always met with a certain amount of skepticism. But Ames Laboratory scientist Dan Schechtman could hardly have been prepared for the backslash he received back in 1982 when he announced he had found the icosahedral phase in rapidly solidified aluminum transition metal alloys, which opened up the field of quasi-periodic crystals as an area of study in materials science. Submitted by DOE's Ames Laboratory |
Check out the joint Fermilab/SLAC publication symmetry.
|
NETL Researchers Participate
|
NETL researcher Kelly Rose, left, and Dr. Jang Jun Bahk of Korea Gas Corporation examine hydrate bearing sediments from a recent Korean gas hydrate expedition in the Ulleung Basin, South Korea. |
By 2015, the Department of Energy (DOE) plans to initiate the commercial production of methane hydrates, an ice-like structure that contains trapped methane molecules. The energy content of methane in hydrate is estimated to be greater than that of all other known fossil fuels combined. As such, expeditions to evaluate the arctic and deep oceans where hydrates occur are critical to advancing understanding of these methane-rich accumulations.
Back from a recent three-week ocean expedition near Vancouver Island off the British Columbia coast, geologist Kelly Rose of the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and her fellow researchers collected over 1,800 samples and approximately 50 kilometers of geophysical surveys in one more step toward understanding the role of methane hydrate in the natural environment.
This expedition included researchers from the Geological Survey of Canada, United States Geological Survey, McGill University, and DOE. Rose provided shipboard sedimentology support and NETL Methane Hydrates Graduate Research Fellow Laura Lapham participated as a member of the shipboard geochemistry team.
The United States is expecting a 20-percent increase in demand for natural gas by 2030. DOE’s NETL-managed National Methane Hydrate R&D Program supports research targeting three key issues related to methane hydrate as a potential energy resource, environmental impacts, and gas hydrate’s role in seafloor stability. As part of this effort DOE has supported and contributed to key domestic and international methane hydrate field projects.
NETL directly manages two large-scale field projects that ultimately seek to test gas hydrate produceability in marine and arctic environments. The BP-DOE Alaska North Slope project drilled and executed a short-term test of hydrate-bearing sands in 2007. Among the on-site science team were NETL researchers Rose, Ray Boswell, and Eilis Rosenbaum, and as a result of that success, a future exploration well, including a production test, is under development. In FY09, the NETL supported Chevron-Texaco Joint Industry Project is set to evaluate three sites for future drilling and coring activities in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM)
Over the past two years, Rose, team leader for NETL’s methane hydrate field studies program, has participated in six gas hydrate field expeditions including those in the South China Sea, South Korea’s East Sea, offshore the Cascadia margin, and the GOM. Rose and Boswell also served as members of the science team during the 2006 Indian Ocean expedition.
These expeditions, in conjunction with extensive laboratory and computational research, move the research effort a step closer to DOE’s goals of determining whether sufficient quantities of methane hydrate exist to provide 10 percent of the nation’s gas supply by 2010. If that quantity exists, then DOE can proceed to commercial production by 2015.Submitted by DOE's National Energy
Technology Laboratory
| DOE Pulse Home | Search | Comments |