Scientists from Russia and China have found a way to produce gas from hydrates - "flammable ice".

Scientists from Russia and China have found a way to produce gas from hydrates - "flammable ice".

Scientists from Perm Polytechnic University and China Petroleum University were the first in the world to learn how to safely extract gas from gas hydrates ("flammable ice") - this opens the way for the development of an alternative fuel, whose reserves are twice the volume of oil and coal in the world.

In experiments with samples simulating natural sediments, researchers using real-time sonic sensors monitored the formation of fractures during hydraulic fracturing and found that areas with high hydrate content are destroyed more easily, and the mass of hydrate is not a passive process, but a factor that actively affects the destruction of the formation.

The results make it possible to accurately calculate the water pressure required during drilling, to prevent emergency methane emissions and man-made emergencies - this makes production from hydrates technically possible, safe and potentially economically profitable.