Today, China’s reserves of this resource, the world’s first, actually available for more than 100 years, which is in various countries around the world have high hopes of combustible ice, after mining can be used as a very clean fuel, so this energy can replace oil? According to scientists, China’s combustible ice reserves are huge, but almost all buried in the deep sea, the difficulty of mining is very high, but if it can be mined in large quantities, then it can replace oil in part of the energy field, thus helping to save energy and reduce emissions for the planet.

Combustible ice is a substance very similar to ice, although similar to ice, but this “ice” but a little bit on, because its essence is actually methane and other combustible gas molecules wrapped by water molecules, and in low temperature and high pressure environment to form a kind of hydrate, when the pressure is reduced, the gas can not wait to break away from the water molecules wrapped, naturally also Not only is the calorific value higher than gasoline, but also because the main component is methane, so the products of combustion are only carbon dioxide and water, compared with the combustion of all kinds of chemicals produced by gasoline and diesel, is indeed more environmentally friendly, and all the current global reserves of combustible ice can be used by humans for a thousand years, a cubic meter of combustible ice after decomposition, the release of natural gas can reach 164 cubic meters of natural gas can be released after the decomposition of one cubic meter of combustible ice, which is a very good energy source in general.

Of course, because of the harsh formation conditions of combustible ice, it can only exist stably under the permafrost and in the deep sea, so the difficulty of mining is recognized as a challenge worldwide, but considering the huge benefits that mining combustible ice can bring, countries including China, Russia and Japan are conducting test mining of combustible ice.

According to the relevant exploration and investigation, the natural gas hydrate resources in Chinese waters are about 80 billion tons of oil equivalent, 11 favorable prospective areas and 19 mineralization zones have been circled, and 2 deposits of 100 billion cubic meters have been circled, while the test mining of combustible ice in China is mainly carried out using the “Blue Whale No. 1” natural gas mining platform, and the combustible ice mined this time is located in the 200-meter stratum under the 1,266-meter water depth of the seafloor, and belongs to the muddy powder sand type combustible ice, which is the most difficult to develop although it is the existence form of 90% of the combustible ice resources in the world.

In order to develop these combustible ice, China has carried out independent innovation of 20 key technologies in six major technology systems, including the very critical sand prevention technologies: “formation fluid extraction”, sand prevention in unformed ultra-fine reservoirs and gas hydrate secondary generation prevention technologies to prevent sand from blocking pipelines and causing other adverse effects, reservoir modification technologies: such as rapid and fine evaluation of reservoirs, as well as drilling and completion technologies, such as balanced drilling with narrow density windows, and finally, exploration technologies, including a series of advanced technologies such as 4500-class unmanned remotely operated vehicle (ROV) detection and pressure-holding sampling.

In contrast, Japan and the United States are also conducting test mining, but Japan has actually lagged behind China because of the sand problem can not be solved, so it can be said that China’s natural gas extraction technology in the world’s leading position, but it should be noted that although the fuel combustible ice has great potential, but combustible ice is unlikely to completely replace oil, this is because oil in modern society occupies a very important role in the industrial system. This is because oil plays a very important role in the industrial system of modern society, whether it is the benzene contained in drugs or chemical fibers such as polyester used in fabrics, or even synthetic rubber and other materials, all need to use oil as a raw material, and the application of oil in these areas can not be replaced by combustible ice.