For those of us who follow energy issues closely, a long-standing, persistent question has been: Are methane hydrates for real? Are they a realistically large potential energy resource? The answer seems to be yes. Thirty years ago the information available to answer these questions was not available. Today the literature on methane hydrates (also known as methane clathrates, methane ice, fire ice) is extensive and growing. This blog post attempts to capture the main points I came away with in a detailed review of the subject. To this energy wonk it was both fascinating and disturbing – fascinating in nailing down a lot of details about a potentially new and very large energy resource, and disturbing in that it again raises serious concerns for me about our lack of a national energy policy. I will explain further. First a word about clathrates and hydrates: clathrate is a general term […]