Worldwide dependence on fossil fuels costs far more than the price of a barrel of crude oil. The current Middle East crisis, the gradual transformation of Central Asia into a military outpost of the West, and weak regimes in other key producers, such as Russia and Venezuela, are sobering reminders of the fragility of global energy security.
With the world economy remaining dependent on fossil fuels well into this century, energy vulnerability will only increase in the foreseeable future. Conservation can moderate, but not reverse, rising consumption in the industrialized countries and the developing world. Renewable energy sources are promising, but they will not soon replace fossil fuels.
Yet there is hope for an abundant, clean energy source that would boost global security by placing production closer to consumers. Surprisingly, the energy source is a kind of ice. When natural gas seeps up from within the earth and combines with water at and below the seafloor under certain conditions of low temperature and high pressure, the result is gas hydrate-a substance that most people have never heard of, but that is common geologically. Once the gas is liberated from the frozen water, it can be collected in wells and put into pipelines, just like ordinary natural gas.
Gas extracted from hydrate reserves is exactly the same as the natural gas in use currently. Natural gas is increasingly today's fossil fuel of choice, currently accounting for more than 20% of the world's primary energy consumption. This is mainly because it burns cleaner than coal or oil. The only byproducts of gas combustion are carbon dioxide, water, and small amounts of nitrogen oxides. While carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, natural gas produces less of it than other fossil fuels.
With our current technology, the amount of recoverable natural gas worldwide-called "conventional gas" in industry parlance-represents about a 60-year supply at today's prices and rate of consumption. Running out of gas may seem like a distant prospect, but the risk of a security breakdown that jeopardizes supplies haunts us always. Only 6% of conventional reserves are in North America-roughly a ten-year supply for that continent. Europe imports much of its gas from Russia, and Japan's resources are minuscule; it imports liquefied natural gas from Indonesia and the Middle East. India is also energy-poor relative to its population and economy.
Although these reserve estimates are based today's known deposits, we should not pin our hopes on vast undiscovered supplies. There is a well-established method for estimating reserves yet to be found, and whether one examines currently proven reserves or future projections, one fact stands out: conventional gas supplies are distributed unevenly around the world-and in places far from most consumers. Russia accounts for one-third of total reserves; the Persian Gulf states control a similar amount. Conventional gas production will increasingly be concentrated in these two regions over the coming decades.
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Gas hydrate, however, is abundant in offshore areas near many major consuming nations-indeed, generally within their exclusive economic zones. The US is estimated to have a thousand-year supply at its present rate of gas consumption. Japan is also well endowed, with a large potential resource just 50 kilometers south of Hamamatsu. There are indications of significant gas hydrate deposits near India's eastern coast, between Madras and Calcutta.
Unfortunately, major hurdles must be overcome. To liberate the gas, the frozen water has to be melted. This can be done in one of three ways: increase the temperature, lower the pressure, or introduce chemicals (like antifreeze for a car). But the optimal method is not yet known.
More importantly, in some places, hydrate fields are vast but dilute, and extraction would be similar to mining a very low-grade ore-not worth the trouble and expense. For example, one hydrate-bearing geological formation, Blake Ridge, lies 300 kilometers from Charleston, South Carolina, in the US. Blake Ridge alone contains six times more natural gas than all American conventional reserves combined. But this huge resource is spread out over 26,000 square kilometers and lies under 1,000 meters of water. The investment required to tap it would be enormous and could never be recovered.
But not all gas hydrate reserves are alike. A more promising one lies beneath the permafrost of Prudhoe Bay, the big oil-producing region on the arctic coast of Alaska. This deposit is smaller than Blake Ridge, but it is more concentrated and closer to the surface. While operations in the arctic are always challenging, existing infrastructure makes the Prudhoe Bay prospect a reasonably accessible one.
A reliable assessment of global hydrate reserves and extraction costs would be a very wise investment. Even if gas hydrate will never be economically competitive with conventional gas, it may have value as a strategic energy reserve. Many countries subsidize domestic food production to guarantee emergency supplies. A domestic hydrate-production capability would serve a similar purpose, while perhaps promising a new era of global energy security.
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Iran’s mass ballistic missile and drone attack on Israel last week raised anew the specter of a widening Middle East war that draws in Iran and its proxies, as well as Western countries like the United States. The urgent need to defuse tensions – starting by ending Israel’s war in Gaza and pursuing a lasting political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – is obvious, but can it be done?
The most successful development stories almost always involve major shifts in the sources of economic growth, which in turn allow economies to reinvent themselves out of necessity or by design. In China, the interplay of mounting external pressures, lagging household consumption, and falling productivity will increasingly shape China’s policy choices in the years ahead.
explains why the Chinese authorities should switch to a consumption- and productivity-led growth model.
Designing a progressive anti-violence strategy that delivers the safety for which a huge share of Latin Americans crave is perhaps the most difficult challenge facing many of the region’s governments. But it is also the most important.
urge the region’s progressives to start treating security as an essential component of social protection.
Worldwide dependence on fossil fuels costs far more than the price of a barrel of crude oil. The current Middle East crisis, the gradual transformation of Central Asia into a military outpost of the West, and weak regimes in other key producers, such as Russia and Venezuela, are sobering reminders of the fragility of global energy security.
With the world economy remaining dependent on fossil fuels well into this century, energy vulnerability will only increase in the foreseeable future. Conservation can moderate, but not reverse, rising consumption in the industrialized countries and the developing world. Renewable energy sources are promising, but they will not soon replace fossil fuels.
Yet there is hope for an abundant, clean energy source that would boost global security by placing production closer to consumers. Surprisingly, the energy source is a kind of ice. When natural gas seeps up from within the earth and combines with water at and below the seafloor under certain conditions of low temperature and high pressure, the result is gas hydrate-a substance that most people have never heard of, but that is common geologically. Once the gas is liberated from the frozen water, it can be collected in wells and put into pipelines, just like ordinary natural gas.
Gas extracted from hydrate reserves is exactly the same as the natural gas in use currently. Natural gas is increasingly today's fossil fuel of choice, currently accounting for more than 20% of the world's primary energy consumption. This is mainly because it burns cleaner than coal or oil. The only byproducts of gas combustion are carbon dioxide, water, and small amounts of nitrogen oxides. While carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, natural gas produces less of it than other fossil fuels.
With our current technology, the amount of recoverable natural gas worldwide-called "conventional gas" in industry parlance-represents about a 60-year supply at today's prices and rate of consumption. Running out of gas may seem like a distant prospect, but the risk of a security breakdown that jeopardizes supplies haunts us always. Only 6% of conventional reserves are in North America-roughly a ten-year supply for that continent. Europe imports much of its gas from Russia, and Japan's resources are minuscule; it imports liquefied natural gas from Indonesia and the Middle East. India is also energy-poor relative to its population and economy.
Although these reserve estimates are based today's known deposits, we should not pin our hopes on vast undiscovered supplies. There is a well-established method for estimating reserves yet to be found, and whether one examines currently proven reserves or future projections, one fact stands out: conventional gas supplies are distributed unevenly around the world-and in places far from most consumers. Russia accounts for one-third of total reserves; the Persian Gulf states control a similar amount. Conventional gas production will increasingly be concentrated in these two regions over the coming decades.
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Gas hydrate, however, is abundant in offshore areas near many major consuming nations-indeed, generally within their exclusive economic zones. The US is estimated to have a thousand-year supply at its present rate of gas consumption. Japan is also well endowed, with a large potential resource just 50 kilometers south of Hamamatsu. There are indications of significant gas hydrate deposits near India's eastern coast, between Madras and Calcutta.
Unfortunately, major hurdles must be overcome. To liberate the gas, the frozen water has to be melted. This can be done in one of three ways: increase the temperature, lower the pressure, or introduce chemicals (like antifreeze for a car). But the optimal method is not yet known.
More importantly, in some places, hydrate fields are vast but dilute, and extraction would be similar to mining a very low-grade ore-not worth the trouble and expense. For example, one hydrate-bearing geological formation, Blake Ridge, lies 300 kilometers from Charleston, South Carolina, in the US. Blake Ridge alone contains six times more natural gas than all American conventional reserves combined. But this huge resource is spread out over 26,000 square kilometers and lies under 1,000 meters of water. The investment required to tap it would be enormous and could never be recovered.
But not all gas hydrate reserves are alike. A more promising one lies beneath the permafrost of Prudhoe Bay, the big oil-producing region on the arctic coast of Alaska. This deposit is smaller than Blake Ridge, but it is more concentrated and closer to the surface. While operations in the arctic are always challenging, existing infrastructure makes the Prudhoe Bay prospect a reasonably accessible one.
A reliable assessment of global hydrate reserves and extraction costs would be a very wise investment. Even if gas hydrate will never be economically competitive with conventional gas, it may have value as a strategic energy reserve. Many countries subsidize domestic food production to guarantee emergency supplies. A domestic hydrate-production capability would serve a similar purpose, while perhaps promising a new era of global energy security.