海底天然气水合物开采的环境安全性探讨

Discussion of Environmental Safety Factors in Subsea Natural Gas Hydrate Exploitation

在能源需求和环保要求的双重压力下,天然气的消费量大幅增长,对海底天然气水合物进行大规模开采是必然的。目前,海底天然气水合物的开采还处于初级阶段,没有找到公认的合适的开采方式,最主要的原因是担心开采天然气水合物会造成其瞬间大规模气化,引发环境灾难。从人们所担心的问题出发,通过分析天然气水合物的开采原理,调研天然气水合物的开采实践,指出开采天然气水合物的主要物理过程是气化,而气化需要吸收大量的热量,但地层传递热量的速度非常慢。为此,天然气水合物的开采速度非常低。天然气水合物在其开采过程中虽然不可避免的会对环境产生一定影响,但不会对环境造成灾难性影响。

The demand towards natural gas continues to grow in China and large-scale exploitation of subsea natural gas hydrate is inevitable;however, environmental protection in conjunction with methane hydrate production poses challenges. At present, the exploitation of subsea gas hydrate is still in its initial stages, and no commonly accepted method of exploitation has been developed yet. The main reason for production delays is that the exploitation of gas hydrate is likely to cause instantaneous release of gas hydrate and lead to serious environmental disasters. This paper analyzes the exploitation principle of gas hydrate, investigates exploitation practices, and emphasizes that the most important physical process in gas hydrate exploitation is gasification. Gasification requires a large amount of heat, whereas, heat transmission in formation is slow. Therefore, the exploitation of gas hydrate should be conducted at a moderate pace on the premise of maintaining a manageable but not catastrophic release of gas hydrate.