Unconventional Fuels Part II: The Promise of Methane Hydrates

Today's hearing, as it relates to the promise of methane hydrates, is the longer-term strategy as we look at the ability to try to come together with a comprehensive bipartisan energy policy that will take advantage of all the opportunities that I think are there. Methane hydrates can be thought of roughly as natural gas. As it was explained to me, it is frozen and it is found in many places frozen in ice, not only in terms of the Arctic, but also under the permafrost in the Arctic as well as under oceans on the edges of continents. Our witnesses will testify this morning on its potential as a future source of natural gas for our nation and what that potential is. The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated that there might be 200,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas stored in the hydrates.