Underwater gas may solve world fuel crisis

Steve Connor reports from the annual meeting of the American Associatio n for the Advancement of Science in Atlanta, Georgia

Scientists will next year explore for the first time one of the world's largest untapped energy reserves - huge deposits of methane gas locked under the ocean floor - it was announced yesterday.

The methane reserves are estimated to be twice the size of other reserves of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal.

Each molecule of the gas is trapped under immense pressure in a "cage" of water molecules and can be released by drilling, researchers said.

An expedition involving 17 nations, including Britain, will embark on the Ocean Drilling Programme in an attempt to test techniques for extracting the methane hydrate from depths of between 300m and 1500m off the east coast of the United States.

The approaching world energy crisis, when coal and oil deposits are expected to run out before the end of the next century, will make drilling for methane hydrate an attractive proposition, oceanographers told the association.

Charles Paull, of the University of North Carolina, said that relatively little was known of methane hydrate because it can only exist under enormous pressure. He added: "These gas hydrates are rather hard to study because they are ephemeral. It's very hard to study something that is fizzing away in front of you."

Research indicates that a small area of ocean floor about the size of the Isle of Wight could supply enough methane hydrate to satisfy US energy demands for 30 years, said William Dillon, of the US Geological Survey.