Rktect

As Gas Prices Fall, Fuel Economy Loses Importance to Auto Shoppers

I'm amazed to observe traders aren't researching energy more carefully before investing in it. Forget your charts; there is something coming that despite its having been of interest to oil and gas men for forty years is only now been brought into production because there were some technical difficulties involved in getting it in the pipeline.

Clinton signed off on it in 2000 and its likely Obama will go along. Most reports I have seen expect to see full scale production by the US, Korea, India, and Japan with some joint partnerships signed off on by DOE last spring involving XOM, BP, COP, RIG and others in full scale production in early 2009.

There are three earth atmospheres of the stuff lying in easily reachable deposits just off most of the earth's coasts. The biggest danger is that its production might contribute to global warming but oil company researchers say their contributions will be less than what is presently produced naturally.

Allowing peak oil will force people to get over their oil addiction soon and prices will continue higher than we like for another decade until the fossil fuel is all gone, there is the possibility that within less than ten years there will be enough cheap methane hydrate on the market to take up the slack.

www.fossil.energy.gov/.../

"In recent field tests, researchers have demonstrated the capability to predict the location and concentration of methane hydrate deposits using reprocessed conventional 3-D seismic data, and new techniques, including multi-component seismic, are being tested. Modeling of small-volume production tests in the U.S. and Canadian Arctic suggest that commercial production is possible using depressurization and thermal stimulation from conventional wellbores. Large-scale production tests are planned in the Canadian Arctic in the winter of 2008 and in the U.S. Arctic in the following year. "