Cheryl Anderson forwarded this interesting Anchorage Daily News update on hydrate production research and linked information about the specific Department of Energy research projects.
The methane – carbon dioxide exchange project is particularly interesting and is summarized nicely by the Daily News:
Conoco Phillips will try injecting carbon dioxide into the hydrate. Laboratory tests show that injecting carbon dioxide displaces methane, which comes out of the hydrate as a gas. The idea is that the carbon dioxide molecules take the place of the methane molecules in the hydrate, keeping it stable.
This could be neat, if it works. Carbon dioxide would be permanently sequestered, or stored, underground, while the methane is extracted and the hydrate is left intact.
One question the Conoco Phillips production test will attempt to answer is whether this reaction in the hydrate can occur fast enough for methane production to reach practical volumes.
This isn’t a slam dunk, though. The technical challenges are considerable.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 
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