Nonconventional fossil energy sources: Shale gas and methane hydrates

Abstract

The world has run on fossil fuels for the past 50 years. However, the current rates of demand for energy and the limited reserves have led to focus our attention on renewable sources, in search for sustainability, and nonconventional fossil fuels, shale gas and methane hydrates. Shale gas is already a reality, but hydrates represent an even larger reserve, accounting for 50 % of the carbon fossil sources. The advantage of unconventional fuels is that they are virtually the same as conventional ones. Therefore, the technology to process them into energy and chemicals is already well known and developed. On the other hand, the exploitation of these sources faces important technical challenges in terms of safe extraction and to avoid any environmental burden as a result of its recovery from the ground. In this chapter we present the availabilities of shale gas and methane hydrates, the technologies for its recovery, and the effect on the energy market.