Start-up compresses air in tanks for energy storage

by Martin LaMonica:

BOSTON–While hundreds of other companies are trying to make a better battery, start-up SustainX Energy Solutions is compressing air, an approach it says will let utilities more easily add wind and solar to the power grid.

The president of the company, Dax Kepshire, sketched out the company’s technology and product plans here on Thursday. SustainX was spun out of Dartmouth College last year and received $4 million in funding from Polaris Venture Partners and Rockport Capital in August of this year. It now has ten employees.

There are already two compressed air energy storage facilities in the world where air is pumped underground for storage. Utilities make electricity at off-peak times and draw on the stored energy during peak-demand when power is more valuable. It’s a method that’s getting more attention now as a way to store several hours worth of wind power, which can produce the most at off-peak times.

The primary difference with SustainX’s approach is that it doesn’t need an underground salt dome or limestone cavern to store the compressed air. Instead, it proposes storing the compressed air in the off-the-shelf tanks. Its technical goal is to cram four megawatt-hours worth of stored energy in a 40-foot long container in two years, said Kepshire. The tank-filled container would be able to deliver one megawatt of power.

In the near term, it plans to build a 100 kilowatt hour pilot system to test the efficiency and then validate the larger model in 2011, Kepshire said.

Its technology is also very different from the existing compressed air storage facilities. With traditional compressed air energy storage, a machine called a compressor compacts air and pumps it underground. To make electricity, the air is released and run through special turbines and a generator to make electricity.

SustainX is designing a system that uses a hydraulic piston to compress air. When the air is released, it moves a hydraulic motor which is attached to a generator to make electricity, Kepshire explained.

The key to making the overall system is to reduce energy loss that happens in the compression and decompression of air, he said. He expects the first pilot system to be about 50 percent efficient but the full system to be more like 70 percent efficient overall.

Compressed air energy storage has a lot of potential because it’s relatively inexpensive and because utilities can store many hours worth of electricity. Pacific Gas & Electric is investigating locations for compressd air storage capable of delivering 300 megawatts of electricity for 10 hours, or 3,000 megawatt-hours. By contast, utility-scale battery storage systems in use now deliver one or two megawatts for a few hours.

SustainX has not yet gotten any customers. But Kepshire said the company is targeting utilities looking to use more renewable energy. The company’s technology, if it proves efficient enough, can be scaled to stored many hours of energy and deliver large amounts of power, he said.

PetroAlgae signs deal with Indian Oil

by Candace Lombardi

PetroAlgae has signed a memorandum of understanding to license its proprietary technology for producing and harvesting algae for fuel to Indian Oil, the company announced this week.

The Melbourne, Fla.-based company has developed bioreactors and harvesting methods for converting algae grown in open-pond freshwater farms into biodiesel.

The first phase of its partnership with Indian Oil will involve building a test facility to see whether PetroAlgae’s production method is scalable. Once that has proven to be successful, Indian Oil plans to build a commercial production facility that could produce 200,000 tpa (tonnes per annum) of biodiesel. That facility would also produce a protein byproduct from the process that could be sold for use in making animal feedstock.

The Indian Oil-PetroAlgae deal lends further support to the notion that India’s ambition is to rival Brazil as the world’s largest exporter of biofuel in the coming years. Global biofuel use is expected to double by 2015, according to a recent report by Hart Energy Consulting, and many Big Oil players have been focusing efforts on getting a footing in that arena.

Until recently, most of the Big Oil interest in algae biofuel has been in the form of investments thrown at pilot projects, start-up companies, and research institutions. But the past few months have seen prominent partnerships with more clearly laid-out commercial ambitions.

In July it was announced that Exxon Mobil is investing over $600 million to produce biofuel made from photosynthetic algae in conjunction with the Calif.-based biotech firm Synthetic Genomics (SGI). Martek Bioscience, which initially was selling its fermented algae as a baby food additive, announced in August that it had signed a deal with BP on microbial biodiesel production from algae fermentation.

While algae start-ups seem to have weathered the economic investment drought, as PetroAlgae’s own board head John Scott predicted in May, it remains to be seen which method for growing algae will win out.

There is an ongoing debate over whether it’s more cost-effective to grow algae by fermentation or photosynthesis. The PetroAlgae deal with Indian Oil puts another mark in the photosynthesis column.

Green dollars moving to smart grid, energy storage

By Poornima Gupta - Analysis

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The U.S. green technology sector, which suffered a drop in funding early this year, is seeing renewed interest with venture dollars flowing in once again to promising startups and some companies looking to resurrect public offerings that had been set aside.

Investment is seen shifting from capital-intensive energy generating technologies, such as solar and wind, to those associated with energy storage, transportation and efficiency.

Bets are being placed on lithium-ion battery makers and startups in the smart grid sector that offer a range of possibilities from helping electric utilities operate systems more efficiently to enabling consumers to control energy use.

Smart grid technologies aim to make the existing power grid more efficient and reliable.

“Six to nine months ago, people were putting the brakes on everything,” said Gary Vollen, managing director of Robert W Baird & Co’s clean technology investment banking. “I don’t think we are in that condition these days.”

Industry experts and company executives are expecting the appetite for investments in green technologies, sometimes referred to as cleantech, to see a significant pickup as early as this fall, with continued improvement through 2010.

But they caution that the level of activity is unlikely to reach the $2.6 billion peak seen in the third quarter of 2008.

“I would expect to see a meaningful increase in cleantech investment over the course of the next six months,” said Tim Carey, head of PriceWaterHouseCoopers’ clean technology group. “Will they return to levels that we saw in 2007, 2008? I am not so sure about that.”

Aggressive stimulus from the U.S. government’s Department of Energy (DOE), which has pledged nearly $100 billion for a wide variety of green technology spending, is also providing a big boost.

“There’s a lot of excitement about money coming out of DOE,” Carey said.

While the government has announced grants and loans, the money is still making its way to the companies.

Overall, green technology venture investments rose 73 percent to $572 million in April to June from the previous quarter, according to a study by Ernst & Young.

Analysts said there was a lot more money on the sidelines waiting for an opportunity to jump in when the economy brightens.

“If the companies can hold on, can stay through this curve, then there will be lots of funding available,” said Awais Khan, director of venture capital practice at KPMG.

Treasury, DOE Introduce 30% Tax Credit For Renewable Energy Manufacturing Equipment

SustainableBusiness.com News - The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Thursday announced a program to award $2.3 billion in tax credits for manufacturers of advanced energy equipment.

Authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, this new program will provide 30% investment tax credits to manufacturers who produce clean energy equipment.

Qualifying manufactures will produce solar, wind, and geothermal energy equipment; fuel cells, microturbines, and batteries; electric cars; electric grids to support the transmission of renewable energy; energy conservation technologies; and equipment that captures and sequesters carbon dioxide or reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

“This program will help encourage innovation in design of clean energy technologies,” said Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. “This partnership between Treasury and Energy adds an important new dimension to the incentives created in the Recovery Act to increase US manufacturing output, improve energy efficiency, and develop alternative sources of energy.”

The manufacturing tax credit is capped at $2.3 billion, and credits are available for two years or until the cap is reached.

Tax programs have provided successful incentives for encouraging the development of renewable energy in the past–in 2006 alone, approximately $550 million in renewable energy tax credits were provided to 450 businesses. In July, Treasury and Energy announced the availability of a payment in lieu of tax credits for facilities that produce renewable energy, a program that is expected to result in more than $3 billion of stimulus for energy development in rural and urban communities.

Companies can expect to receive payments within 180 days of filing for the credit, DOE said.

A program summary and guidance for applying for the tax credit are available at the link below.

Tires to match your cellulosic ethanol?

by Candace Lombardi -

I’m sure you’ve heard of a rubber tree plant, but have you also heard about the new rubber tree tire?

Researchers at Oregon State University (OSU) have developed a tire made from plant materials combined with rubber that offers several benefits over conventionally manufactured tires.

The rubber composite contains microcrystalline cellulose as an additive, a material that can be made from a wide variety of plant materials, instead of the usual carbon black or silica typically used.

Manufacturing tires from a renewable plant source could be less expensive to produce than tires using carbon black, which is made from oil, or silica which takes a lot of energy to produce.

But aside from the manufacturing benefits, the researchers found that the cellulosic rubber tires had better traction on wet surfaces and were less affected by heat compared to conventional tires.

“Early tests indicate that such products would have comparable traction on cold or wet pavement, be just as strong, and provide even higher fuel efficiency than traditional tires in hot weather,” according to a report from Kaichang Li, associate professor of wood science and engineering in the OSU College of Forestry, and Wen Bai, a doctoral student who collaborated on the project.

Is the ocean Florida’s untapped energy source?

By Azadeh Ansari - CNN

Imagine if your utility company could harness the ocean’s current to power your house, cool your office, even charge your car.

Researchers at Florida Atlantic University are in the early stages of turning that idea into reality in the powerful Gulf Stream off the state’s eastern shore.

“If you can take an engine and put it on the back of a boat or propel a ship through water, why not take a look at the strength of the Gulf Stream and determine if that can actually turn a device and create energy?” asked Sue Skemp, executive director at Florida Atlantic University’s Center for Ocean Energy Technology.

The demand for energy in Florida — the fourth most populous state, with an estimated 19 million residents — is quickly outpacing the capacity to create it, according to experts.

“Right now in Florida, we are at the cusp of an energy crisis. Our energy demand keeps growing,” said Frederick Driscoll, director of Florida Atlantic University’s Center of Excellence in Ocean Energy Technology.

Beginning in the Caribbean and ending in the upper-North Atlantic, the Gulf Stream lies on the eastern shore of Florida.

Its powerful currents have been used by many fishermen, sailors and explorers to expedite their passage in the Atlantic north and east to Europe, but scientists say the energy within its currents could propel Florida out of its potential energy crisis, powering 3 million to 7 million Florida homes — or supplying the state with one-third of its electricity.

“The predictions at this point estimate that the strength of the Gulf Stream could generate anywhere between four to 10 gigawatts of power, the equivalent of four to 10 nuclear power plants,” said Skemp.

“The Gulf Stream is the strongest current in the world, so we want to harness our greatest resource. It’s renewable, emission free and reliable,” said Jeremy Susac, executive director of the Florida Energy and Climate Commission.

At the university’s Center for Ocean Energy Technology in Boca Raton, Florida, ocean engineers are working with marine, environmental and material scientists to develop cost-competitive technologies to commercialize the energy within the Gulf Stream.

Though it has been considered for more than a century, harnessing the energy of the Gulf Stream is no easy task, and no sustainable system has been implemented.

“First we have to do a resource assessment and understand how much energy is in the Gulf Stream current on a minute-to-minute, day-to-day, hour-to-hour and yearly basis,” said Driscoll.

In April, researchers at the center deployed four acoustic Doppler current profilers in the Atlantic off the east coast of Florida.

Using high frequency, low-power sonar, these large orange ball-shaped objects measure the speed of the ocean currents.

“We are looking at how much energy we can safely extract — what is the sensitivity of extraction versus the environmental effects?” said Driscoll.

The vision for the pilot program is to develop and test a 20-kilowatt underwater turbine by spring 2010.

Sound familiar?

The concept behind underwater turbines is similar to that of wind turbines on land.

As water flows by the turbine, it turns a rotor blade. As the rotor blade turns, energy is generated.

That energy can be transmitted from a generator inside the turbine to electrical conducting cables, where it’s captured, harnessed and distributed for future use.

Researchers also are looking at ways to use the electricity that is generated underwater to generate and store hydrogen in the ocean. The hydrogen could be used to fuel clean-running cars and trucks.

“Because it’s such a new endeavor, there’s a lot of knowledge gaps not only in terms of the technology side but also on the ecological side of things,” said Driscoll.

Completely reliant

Florida is completely reliant on out-of-state fuel sources (coal and natural gas), but generates more than 90 percent of its own electricity, according to the Florida Energy and Climate Commission. It ranks third nationally in total energy consumption.

So how much will this endeavor cost? And what kind of impacts will it have on the local marine environment?

“Those are the questions we don’t have answers to,” said Skemp.

There are some hurdles that need to be cleared before the technology can get approval and become commercially available.

“This area is so new, we’re still finding out what needs to be done,” said Skemp.

“It’s not like an established industry, like the aerospace industry or the automotive industry or others, where you have models which you could base cost on,” added Skemp.

So far, the state of Florida has allocated $13.75 million in grants toward research and development of the pilot project, but the cost to implement the project on a large scale could be much higher.

Before a project like this can go forward, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will have to look at a whole range of factors, from the effects it will have on wild and marine life to recreation activities and shipping, said an environmental specialist with the commission.

If the pilot program is successful, it could take another five to 10 years before the technology can be implemented.

Salty water power

Researcher proposes new, cheaper way to get energy from salt water and fresh water

By Jenny Lauren Lee

A new way to get electricity out of water could prove to be worth its salt. Mixing salt water and fresh water in a container with carbon electrodes can produce clean, renewable energy, reports Doriano Brogioli of the University of Milano–Bicocca in Italy.

The reaction’s main by-product is brackish water that could be dumped back into the sea, Brogioli says in a paper to be published online in Physical Review Letters.

If further developed, the idea could be the basis for a new type of power plant that could be built in coastal areas, where natural sources of salt water and fresh water already exist, Brogioli says. A device developed using the method could have the potential to produce 1 kilowatt of electric power — enough to power a house, he says.

The idea is feasible but “still in the early stages of development,” says materials scientist Yury Gogotsi of Drexel University in Philadelphia. It will take more research to “bring it to a stage where it can be made … into a large device that could handle cubic meters of water flow,” Gogotsi says.

Brogioli likens his concept to the reverse of desalination, in which electricity is consumed to separate salt ions from seawater. In his method, the combination of fresh and salt water generates electricity when the ions diffuse through water.

In the first stage of the process, salt water is pumped into a container with two charged carbon electrodes. Salt ions — positively charged sodium and negatively charged chloride — are attracted to the surface of one of the two carbon electrodes, depending on the ions’ charge. Next, fresh water is pumped into the container, and the salt ions diffuse away from the surface of the electrodes and mix in the fresh water. Like pulling a rubber band taut, pulling the salt ions away from the charged electrodes creates increased energy in the system — the potential for work.

The amount of energy generated is similar to that harnessed through existing techniques that use fresh and salt water to produce electricity, but at a fraction of the cost, Brogioli says.

Since the 1970s, people have been exploring ways of getting energy from salt water. But many of those methods produce energy from the flow of water across membranes that separate fresh from salt water.

Yet making and maintaining the membranes has proved expensive compared to other sources of renewable energy. The field did not receive attention again until recently, when advances in materials and a drive to find renewable energy resources made the process a popular line of research, Gogotsi says.

Even if a device designed from Brogioli’s method could be used only in areas with a natural abundance of salt water and fresh water, Gogotsi says, it would be a welcome addition to existing renewable energy options such as solar and wind power. Given the limited amounts of fossil fuels in the Earth, “we will have to move to renewable energy sources one way or another,” he says.

Biofuels FAQ’s by Sean O’Hanlon

We are working hard to bring renewable fuels to everyone through collaboration and technological innovation. World wide growth in demand for petroleum has outpaced the supply. The economic, environmental, and security implications of our consumption are mounting, threatening every aspect of life in America and around the world. We believe there is a better way - Biofuels.
With a growing and rapidly industrializing world economy, conservation will not be enough. We need new sources of fuels which are both renewable and better for the environment.

Despite the threats imposed on our country by ever increasing oil imports, higher prices and environmental concerns, biofuels continue to be the subject of false assumptions and unfounded concerns based on incomplete and inaccurate opinions. As a result, there is great demand for thorough and accurate information about biofuels from government, private enterprise, the media and most importantly consumers. ABC is actively working to correct the myths and distortions surrounding the development of biofuels by producing publications and other educational information. To request more information on any of the points listed below, or if you have an idea for a new publication, please contact us at the American Biofuels Council.

There have been serious questions raised about the impacts of biofuels. These questions are perfectly reasonable and therefore should be addressed in a responsible and thoughtful manner by making direct comparisons to the petroleum they are meant to replace.

Myth: We are causing starvation by using food based crops to produce biofuels.

Fact: The price of food is increasingly tied to the cost of oil; not biofuels. The rising price of commodities, ranging from oil and steel to corn and wheat, are in many ways a reflection of the growth in the global economy.

The rise of China, India, and Latin America means they are now taking a greater bite of the world’s soybean and grain exports. As the standard of living rises in these regions, more people can afford to purchase meat. That means increased amounts of grains are needed to feed chickens, hogs, cattle and other livestock.

Myth: Producing biofuels will cause there to be a lack of clean drinking water for people.

Fact: Grey water (reclaimed from waste water treatment plants) can and should be used to irrigate crops grown for biofuels and algae.

Did you know?…

The DoE estimates that if biofuels from algae replaced all the petroleum fuel consumed in the United States, it would require only 15,000 square miles, which is a few thousand square miles larger than the state of Maryland.

This is less than 1/7th the area of corn crops planted in the United States in 2000.

Myth: It takes more energy to produce biofuels than they provide.

Fact: Biodiesel has a positive energy balance of 3.5 to 1; (and that’s just from soybeans) while ethanol from sugarcane has a positive energy balance of 8 to 1. (That’s an 800% return on investment!)

Did you know?…

There are numerous crops grown in the US that can be used for ethanol production with higher yields from lower inputs than corn. (Algae, Sweet Sorghum, Sugar Beets, Sugar Cane)

Myth: Biofuels are worse for the environment than petroleum.

Fact: Ethanol from sugarcane reduces harmful GHG emissions by 80% and using biodiesel in school buses reduces harmful emissions by as much as 76%.

Did you know?…

The American Lung Association of Metropolitan Chicago credits ethanol-enriched fuel with the 25% reduction of smog-forming emissions in Chicago since 1990.

According to Argonne National Laboratory, blending 15% ethanol with regular diesel fuel (ULSD), Particulate Matter emissions are reduced by up to 75% and NOx (Nitrous Oxide) emissions by up to 84%. (This does not include the benefits of blending biodiesel.)

Myth: Biofuels will never be economically competitive with petroleum without government subsidies.

Fact: First generation Ethanol from sugarcane is already competitive with oil at $45/bbl.

Did you know?…

Brazil ended all subsidies on ethanol in 2006.

Brazil had 30 years to develop their ethanol industry. We can do the same thing in much less time.

Myth: We can “Drill here, drill now, and pay less.”

Fact: We have hit peak oil. ($145/bbl proves it.)

Did you know?…

There is a 5 year back order on oil exploration rigs and equipment.

What little oil there is left to find is further offshore, in deeper water, and even deeper under the ground. That oil is not “light sweet crude” either. (That means it is dirtier and more expensive to refine.)

Two out of three of our major petroleum suppliers in this hemisphere are running out of oil. (Mexico and Venezuela) Before the end of the next decade, Mexico will no longer be exporting oil and will have to start importing it to meet their growing demand.

You can learn more by reading our Biofuels News.  Still have questions?      Please contact us at info@americanbiofuelscouncil.com anytime! We look forward to hearing from you.

Tesla takes off with $465 mil in government funding

By Jim Motavalli

Tesla is getting more interesting by the day. Here’s a company that was basically flat on its back just a couple of years ago, plagued by internal strife and trying to sell a then-$92,000 electric roadster that cost $140,000 to build. That’s not my estimation, it’s right from the blog of CEO Elon Musk, who was responding to a suit by an embittered co-founder.

I recently drove a Tesla Roadster (pictured) owned by the Vulcan Motor Club on a jaunt through rainy rural New Jersey, and I enjoyed it more than similar rides in even more expensive high-end supercars by Aston-Martin and Lamborghini.

And now Tesla is in fast company. The Department of Energy (DOE) announced June 23 that Tesla was one of three recipients — with Ford and Nissan — of $8 billion in advanced technology loan funds. Tesla will get $465 million to build a manufacturing plant for the new ultra-fast Model S sedan in Southern California and a second battery plant in the Bay Area.

The federal fund is designed to further a very worthy cause: Ensuring that the U.S. will be competitive in battery technology. It’s quite clear that without federal assistance, we will lose that business to Asia, mostly to China and Korea. And right now it really matters who will capture this market: It is, unquestionably, the future of the auto industry.

I like what Tesla is doing — starting with a high-end vehicle and then, gradually, moving into more affordable markets as the company becomes solvent. Musk has told me that Tesla’s third car will be even further downmarket than the Model S. The mainstream carmakers are approaching it differently, but they’re plugging in, too.

Even the skeptics are starting to gain confidence in Tesla’s prospects. The company has now delivered more than 500 roadsters, and is getting a handle on fulfilling the 800 it has pending. Daimler has bought nearly 10% of Tesla, and the two companies are working together on batteries for electric Smarts.

The largest recipient of the DOE funding is Ford, which got $5.9 billion to increase the fuel efficiency of a dozen popular models, from the Taurus to the Focus, Mustang, Escape, and F-150 truck. The upgrades include very economical direct-injection EcoBoost engines, electrically assisted steering, start-stop technology, and six-speed transmissions. Ten factories will get upgrades.

Nissan is the only foreign automaker to get funded, but it too is investing in U.S. factories. Its Smyrna, Tennessee, plant will be revamped to build the company’s new battery car, and a second battery factory will be added at the same location. Nissan is playing it smart, because its battery strategy includes charging networks around the world to make sure the cars can plug in.

All told, that’s $8 billion in federal funding from the action-oriented DOE, which has become a business incubator for green cars. Expect to see a lot more action, because this was only the first third of $25 billion in funding to be announced. General Motors and Chrysler will undoubtedly also get funded in one of the next rounds. Chrysler is already out of bankruptcy and GM soon will be back in the game, too.

Ice on fire: The next fossil fuel

24 June 2009

by Fred Pearce

DEEP in the Arctic Circle, in the Messoyakha gas field of western Siberia, lies a mystery. Back in 1970, Russian engineers began pumping natural gas from beneath the permafrost and piping it east across the tundra to the Norilsk metal smelter, the biggest industrial enterprise in the Arctic.

By the late 70s, they were on the brink of winding down the operation. According to their surveys, they had sapped nearly all the methane from the deposit. But despite their estimates, the gas just kept on coming. The field continues to power Norilsk today.

Where is this methane coming from? The Soviet geologists initially thought it was leaking from another deposit hidden beneath the first. But their experiments revealed the opposite - the mystery methane is seeping into the well from the icy permafrost above.

If unintentionally, what they had achieved was the first, and so far only, successful exploitation of methane clathrate. Made of molecules of methane trapped within ice crystals, this stuff looks like dirty ice and has the consistency of sorbet. Touch it with a lit match, though, and it bursts into flames.

Clathrates are rapidly gaining favour as an answer to the energy crisis. Burning methane emits only half as much carbon dioxide as burning coal, and many countries are seeing clathrates as a quick and easy way of reducing carbon emissions. Others question whether that is wise, and are worried that extracting clathrates at all could have unforeseen and perilous side effects.

If countries and companies are exploring the potential of clathrates only now, that’s not for lack of scientific interest over the years. Research over the past two decades has shown that the energy trapped in ice within the permafrost and under the sea rivals that in all oil, coal and conventional gas fields, and could power the world for centuries to come. Oil and gas companies have been slow to catch on, however, believing methane clathrates to be unreliable and uneconomical. Feasibility studies and the diminishing supplies of conventional natural gas are changing that, making commercially viable production realistic within a decade, says Ray Boswell, who heads the clathrates programme at the US Department of Energy.

“Just a few years ago no one was thinking about clathrates as an energy source,” Boswell says. “Now there is a great deal of interest in them.” It is not just the US. Canada, China and Norway are entering the race too. The governments of Japan and South Korea have given the green light for full-scale production. The first intentional commercial exploitation may come as early as 2015.

So what are methane clathrates, and where do they come from? As with all natural gas, the story starts with rotting plants. As these plants decay, they release methane, which permeates through porous rocks underground. If the conditions where the methane ends up are just right - temperatures close to 0 °C and pressures of roughly 50 atmospheres - ice crystals form that trap the gas in place.

In practice, these conditions mostly occur within and underneath permafrost and beneath the seabed on continental shelves, usually at ocean depths of 200 to 400 metres, although clathrates have also been known to appear on the seabed. In 2000, a 1-tonne chunk of the stuff was scooped up by fishermen off Vancouver Island in British Columbia. They hastily dumped the hissing mass back into the ocean.

Until recently, these deposits escaped the serious attention of energy companies. Engineers stumbled on clathrates from time to time while drilling for conventional reserves of oil and gas, but they were mostly viewed as an irritant that caused blowouts or blocked pipelines.

That view changed with studies showing that the gas is often present at a given site in concentrations of 50 per cent or more in ice’s pore space - values similar to the prevalence of natural gas in traditional sources - in layers of clathrate hundreds of metres thick. What’s more, in its constricted surroundings the gas is compressed to 160 times its density at atmospheric temperature and pressure, making for vast quantities of it when released.

These revelations made clathrates a potential gold mine that countries and energy companies are now eagerly prospecting. In 2007, a US project found clathrate reserves in Alaska with 80 per cent of the ice’s pore space packed with methane. Tim Collett, a clathrate specialist at the US Geological Survey who was part of the team, says there may be reserves all along the Alaska north slope, including beneath existing oil installations at Prudhoe Bay and, alarmingly for environmentalists, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Collett estimates there is between 0.7 and 4.4 trillion cubic metres of methane clathrate in Alaska alone. Even the low end of that range could heat 100 million homes for a decade. “It’s definitely a vast storehouse of energy. But it is still unknown how much of the volume can actually be produced on an industrial scale,” he told a meeting of the American Chemical Society at Salt Lake City, Utah in March this year.

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