Advances in Gas Hydrate Research from Energy, Environmental, Engineering And Scientific Perspectives as Informed by Comparative Bibliometric and Scientometric Analyses
It is estimated that 2 to 20 quadrillion (10^15) cubic meters of methane exist in the Earth’s crust in the form of solid hydrate (also known as methane clathrate). The recovery of this methane, however, presents an enormous challenge to engineers, and it is doubtful if energy needs may not be better...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Conference Object |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2023
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://zenodo.org/record/8003645 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8003645 |
| Summary: | It is estimated that 2 to 20 quadrillion (10^15) cubic meters of methane exist in the Earth’s crust in the form of solid hydrate (also known as methane clathrate). The recovery of this methane, however, presents an enormous challenge to engineers, and it is doubtful if energy needs may not be better satisfied with more sustainable technologies that do not require the level of capital and risk associated with hydrate energy development. Moreover, gas hydrates also participate in the runaway greenhouse effect (RGE), whereby a warming planet leads to a faster rate of hydrate decomposition from permafrost, releasing the potent greenhouse gas at a faster rate than it is removed from the atmosphere, thus cumulatively fueling global warming. These are complicated multistep phenomena, and studies are ongoing to understand the factors that lead to the onset of hydrate decomposition, the rate of methane release, and the reactions that methane undergoes after release, to thus better quantify the impact and seriousness of the RGE. Such research topics on energy and environment, coupled with other research involving hydrates in the field of energy and heat storage and transport among other scientific and utilization themes, illustrate the breadth and diversity of gas hydrate research. To better understand how these topics are advancing relative to each other, to guide effort and investment in the most promising fields and inform policy and regulatory development, bibliometric and scientometric analyses of the scientific literature become a valuable tool. Recent bibliometric and scientometrics analyses on the topic of gas hydrates have been limited to single-topic assessments to gauge the historical development of all related fields of research and delineate the level of cross-institutional and cross-national collaborations. The limitation of these types of analyses is that they exclusively utilize inclusive search strings (e.g., {“Gas Hydrate*” OR “Clathrate Hydrate*” OR “Methane Hydrate*”}), which aims at capturing as much ... |
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