Team News Riveting
As the world runs out of fossil fuels and looks out for alternate sources of clean energy, there is good news from the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin. The methane hydrate deposit in this basin is a rich source that will ensure adequate supplies of methane, a natural gas.
Methane is a clean and economical fuel. It is estimated that one cubic meter of methane hydrate contains 160-180 cubic meters of methane. Even the lowest estimate of methane present in the methane hydrates in KG Basin is twice that of all fossil fuel reserves available worldwide.
In a recent study conducted by researchers at the Agharkar Research Institute (ARI), an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology, have found that the methane hydrate deposits located in the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin are of biogenic origin.
According to the present study accepted for publishing in the journal ‘Marine genomics’, the ARI team has further identified the methanogens that produced the biogenic methane trapped as methane hydrate, which can be a significant source of energy.
“The massive methane hydrate deposits of biogenic origin in the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin and near the coast of Andaman and Mahanadi make it necessary to study the associated methanogenic community,” said Dr. Vikram B Lanjekar, the Principal Investigator of the study.
The kinetics study based on their model also predicted the rate of biogenic methane generation in KG Basin hydrates to be 0.031 millimoles methane/gTOC/Day, resulting in total deposits of methane around 0.56 to 7.68trillion cubic feet (TCF).
