Gas hydrate is an unconventional form of natural gas with massive energy potential. To become a commercial reality, any gas hydrate development must be economically sound, with limited environmental and social impacts, but no holistic evaluation mechanism for gas hydrate projects exists.
The primary objectives of this project are:
We review all available literature on gas hydrate development, and the evaluation of conventional energy projects, to understand and structure the potential impacts from a commercial gas hydrate project. From this review we create our own, gas hydrate-specific, evaluation protocol.
For numerical modelling, we use the TOUGH+Hydrate simulation code to simulate production on a series of heterogeneous distributions of gas hydrate.
Fieldwork has been conducted in Alaska, where gas hydrate development technology has historically been tested. In meeting with stakeholders we discuss potential future development and quantify their priorities.
Modelled gas production in a formation with heterogeneous gas hydrate saturation over a 30 year simulation.