Fuel Processors and Methane Hydrate ?

[rust]

Searching Wikipedia for a nice natural resource for my Pandora setting,
I found the article on methane hydrate. This seems almost perfect for
my purposes: Well suited for a water world, useful for the production of
power, as a fuel for vehicles and as a raw material for the production of
plastics, and somewhat dangerous to mine (good to annoy the charac-
ters with an underwater mining accident now and then).

Unfortunately chemistry is not at all my friend, and I would dislike to be
caught while telling some obvious nonsense to the players. So please let
me know whether this is basically right:

Methane hydrate turns into methane gas when the water pressure on it is
reduced by moving it upwards towards the surface or when it is heated.
As methane gas it is basically the stuff that is skimmed from gas giants,
and a fuel processor should be able to purify it, probably also to liquify it
for storage or transport.

Thank you.

 

[captainjack23]

Searching Wikipedia for a nice natural resource for my Pandora setting,
I found the article on methane hydrate. This seems almost perfect for
my purposes: Well suited for a water world, useful for the production of
power, as a fuel for vehicles and as a raw material for the production of
plastics, and somewhat dangerous to mine (good to annoy the charac-
ters with an underwater mining accident now and then).

Unfortunately chemistry is not at all my friend, and I would dislike to be
caught while telling some obvious nonsense to the players. So please let
me know whether this is basically right:

Methane hydrate turns into methane gas when the water pressure on it is
reduced by moving it upwards towards the surface or when it is heated.
As methane gas it is basically the stuff that is skimmed from gas giants,
and a fuel processor should be able to purify it, probably also to liquify it
for storage or transport.

Thank you.

Actually, Rust, I've always assumed that Hydrogen is what is skimmed from a GG atmosphere.

Depending on you and your players tolerence for handwavium, the MHyd copuld work, but I suspect that the energy needed to break out the hydrogen alone would be prohibitive -and I do know that MHyd is at least as volitile as Raw Hydrogen.

 

[rust]

Actually, Rust, I've always assumed that Hydrogen is what is skimmed from a GG atmosphere.

Sorry, bad wording on my part.

What I mean is that a fuel processor is designed to separate the gas mix
skimmed from a gas giant into its components by separating hydrogen
from helium, methane and some impurities and preparing the hydrogen
for storage.

The question is whether a fuel processor could be used to separate ano-
ther gas mix (the one from naturally occuring methane hydrate), discar-
ding the impurities and only filtering out the methane and preparing it for
storage - or whether there is any reason that would make this implausible
or impossible.

 

[DFW]

Methane is basically CH4. You can condense to LNG and transport to "market" that way. Fuel purif plants in Traveller can handle CH4 as they crack H2O which is at least as power intensive...

BTW, if purif plants couldn't handle it, you just burn the CH4 and get your H2O for fuel purif plants that way. But, you are on a water world so you really don't need the CH4. Unless I missed s/g.

 

[Ishmael]

Here's some if that looked interesting....

http://marine.usgs.gov/fact-sheets/gas-hydrates/title.html

I had no clue that it might have a strong effect on causing landslides on the continental shelf.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/20/deepwater-methane-hydrates-bp-gulf
https://www.llnl.gov/str/Durham.html

hope these links are useful

 

[captainjack23]

Actually, Rust, I've always assumed that Hydrogen is what is skimmed from a GG atmosphere.

Sorry, bad wording on my part.

What I mean is that a fuel processor is designed to separate the gas mix
skimmed from a gas giant into its components by separating hydrogen
from helium, methane and some impurities and preparing the hydrogen
for storage.

The question is whether a fuel processor could be used to separate ano-
ther gas mix (the one from naturally occuring methane hydrate), discar-
ding the impurities and only filtering out the methane and preparing it for
storage - or whether there is any reason that would make this implausible
or impossible.

Ah, sorry. I see. Well, IMTU the scooping includes the separation, probably simply by selective size filtering - and passes the H2 to the purifier which then sorts out the extras and the heavy hydrogen types.

However, I'm not sure if there's any discussion of what scoops do in the actual rules (let alone the OTU), though, so , really, given a high tech separation method, I don't see why one can't have a scoop that's tuned to extract MHy; I just wouldn't think it would be able to reconfigure on the fly - possibly you could pass it off as some kind of gravitic field/filter that passes based on exact molecular mass ? Depends how unique MHyd would be, I guess. DFW ?

 

[captainjack23]

Here's some if that looked interesting....

http://marine.usgs.gov/fact-sheets/gas-hydrates/title.html

I had no clue that it might have a strong effect on causing landslides on the continental shelf.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/20/deepwater-methane-hydrates-bp-gulf
https://www.llnl.gov/str/Durham.html

hope these links are useful

Additionally, they may have almost killed the earth, at least once in the Permian era:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis

 

[rust]

Thank you all very much for the interesting links.

But, you are on a water world so you really don't need the CH4. Unless I missed s/g.

Hydrogen, easy to get on a water world, is a good fuel, but methane can
be used as a raw material for the chemical industry, a first step towards
the production of lots of useful chemicals, for example via methanol and
formaldehyd to plastics, paints, explosives ... - at least that's what Wiki-
pedia says.

And, as the links show, the existence of methane hydrate on the planet
has a lot of additional "roleplaying value", like landslides causing tsuna-
mis, potential extinction events and similar nice things to keep player
characters busy ...

 

[DFW]

You are quite correct. A large supply of hydrocarbons is needed for chem industry. Wasn't thinking down that avenue.

Cap'nJack, Wow, I don't know. There is so little in the rules about how this is all supposed to work. I just think how far we've come in OUR last 5 tech levels IRL, and sometimes am at a total loss to guess what's possible in the NEXT 5 tech levels. If you know what I mean.

 

[rinku]

If you're producing methane in cheap quantity, you have a direct fuel source - you won't need to do anything to it except burn it, as DFW said. I suspect that the energy cost to mine or produce it is going to be well under that required to crack water to get H2.

You've previously stated that in this setting fusion plants are large and expensive... well, here's all you need for small and cheap power production.

Plus, snobby cooks prefer gas cookers to electric

 

[rust]

Plus, snobby cooks prefer gas cookers to electric

A most convincing point.

Now I have only to find out whether it would be a problem to convert the
engines of the colony's vehicles from hydrogen use to methane use once
the methane hydrate is discovered, but I think this should not be a very
difficult task for a skilled engineer.

Then the hydrogen would only be required as fuel for the fusion plant and
for the reactors of the visiting starships, and perhaps as lifting gas for air-
ships (if the characters decide to introduce airships).

Yep, the more I think about it, the more I like that methane hydrate. :wink:

 

[locarno24]

To be honest, fuel production is quite a profitable industry, if you can find a customer who actually needs it:

Cost of 1 dTon of fuel processors: Cr 50,000

Cost of 1 dTon of unrefined fuel: Cr 100

Cost of 1 dTon of refined fuel: Cr 500

Profit from 1 dTon of refined fuel: Cr 400 less personnel costs

Monthly wage for 1 starship-grade engineer: Cr 4,000
Weekly wage for 1 starship-grade engineer: Cr 1,000
Hourly wage for 1 starship-grade engineer (assuming 40 hr week): Cr 25

Daily refining capacity for 1 dTon of fuel processor: 20 dTons

Hourly refining capacity for 1 dTon of fuel processor: 0.833 dTons

Profit from 1 hour's refining activity: 0.833 x 400 - 25 = Cr 308.33
40 hr weeks required to buy 1 dTon of fuel processor: 4.05 weeks

Or to put it another way, if you can sell the refined fuel to someone at the book price, you can pay for the setup to do so with a month's work.....

 

[rust]

To be honest, fuel production is quite a profitable industry, if you can find a customer who actually needs it ...

This is what I cannot avoid to think each time I have to stop at the gas
station.

 

[DFW]

Or to put it another way, if you can sell the refined fuel to someone at the book price, you can pay for the setup to do so with a month's work.....

Whick begs the question, why no refined fuel at a class C?

 

[Silvereye]

So please let me know whether this is basically right:

Methane hydrate turns into methane gas when the water pressure on it is
reduced by moving it upwards towards the surface or when it is heated.
As methane gas it is basically the stuff that is skimmed from gas giants,
and a fuel processor should be able to purify it, probably also to liquify it
for storage or transport.

Thank you.

Essentially yes. Methane clathrates store the compressed methane gas in a molecular cage of water ice. Clathrates were the ice that blocked the large funnel that BP first installed to plug their leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon sank (Link).

The clathrates are kind of in an equilibrium - changing the pressure or temperature of the clathrate will change the volume of methane in it. When you raise it from the sea floor you change the water pressure and temperature. Its very similar to what happens when you release the top on a carbonated soft drink (especially if you shake it a bit before hand). Mechanically mining them off the sea floor may also damage the ice cages which would also lead to gas escapes.

However, if you can keep the clathrates stable, methane is more efficient to transport in this form then as a liquid.

Methane is a really good fuel source and chemical building block. Steam reforming is extensivley used today to convert it into hydrogen - mainly as part of the Haber(-Bosch) Process for manufacturing ammonia/nitrates. This step may indeed be a part of the fuel processors magic along with the water gas shift reaction.

Also, if you are generating methane, you may wish to consider something like these as auxillary/backup power supplies.

 

[rust]

Thank you very much for informations and links.

 

[locarno24]

Whick begs the question, why no refined fuel at a class C?

Damned if I know. Fair enough that the imperium doesn't mandate that it be available, but you'd think that in a system like that, some enterprising sort would buy in the capacity to do so.

This is what I cannot avoid to think each time I have to stop at the gas
station.

Yes, well - in your case you can't have a fuel scoop on your car...

 

[DFW]

Damned if I know. Fair enough that the imperium doesn't mandate that it be available, but you'd think that in a system like that, some enterprising sort would buy in the capacity to do so.

I think the next time I'm a player and not GM I will invest a bit and set up refineries at 2-3 class C's. Nice side income to finance adventures...

 

[Ishmael]

Additionally, they may have almost killed the earth, at least once in the Permian era:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis

a nice bit of history might be that the world had been much cooler with much water tied up in icecaps on some landmasses and that something triggered a methane release in the past that increased greenhouse to the point of melting those icecaps and raising the sea level until only the mountain peaks remain above water.

How might this relate to the Kanga?
Could such a climate change be the genetic trigger to their present 'condition'
or perhaps the same CME that Lord High Munchkin proposed:

Something like a CME or a cell-damaging X-ray burst could be the underlying cause for the "switch on/off" of the genes responsible.

perhaps also somehow triggered the methane release and climate change.

 

[rust]

Thank you, good ideas, I will see how they fit into the setting.