WORLD PROGRESS IN GAS HYDRATE RESEARCH AND ITS ENLIGHTENMENT TO ACCELERATING INDUSTRIALIZATION IN CHINA

Gas hydrate is one of the most promising new clean energy sources for the 21st century. It is also a new energy source with huge reserve. The total natural gas resources of gas hydrates in the world, as estimated, is about 2.1×10¹⁶m³, almost twice of the total amount of proven traditional fossil fuels in the world. It occurs mainly in deep waters and permafrost of the earth. With China′s first success in trial mining of gas hydrate in the Shenhu area of the South China Sea, the development and utilization of gas hydrate resources has attracted more and more attention from the world. However，to safely, economically and efficiently exploit this kind of new energy still needs a lot of efforts and scientific researches. This paper started from an introduction to some cases of gas hydrate researches and testing exploitations in the world, then discussed its future trends of development and utilization. Some key problems were discussed, and finally some observations proposed to accelerate the industrialization of gas hydrate surveys and exploitations in China.