Hydrocarbon Reserves on Titan Options

[Webscientist]

The latest news about Titan reveal that, according to a study led by Ralph Lorenz, the orange moon has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth.
This estimate is close to the estimate made by independant authors, presented at the following webpage: http://www.planetaryphysics.com/Researchwo...lakes281007.htm
The authors conclude that the liquid hydrocarbon reserves in Titan's arctic lakes might well be at least 650 times greater than the proven oil reserves on Earth. The key factor for obtaining the estimate appears to be the mean depth, postulated to be 250 meters, here.
Unfortunately, it won't change anything on oil prices! ( unless speculators...)

[nprev]

Unfortunately, gas would have to hit a few tens of thousands of US$s per gallon to make any sort of resource exploitation even remotely feasible. Thinkin' I'll be walking to work a long time before THAT happens...

[Juramike]

Awesome!

We can "crack" water to make oxygen, burn the hydrocarbons in internal combustion engines and produce CO2 to our hearts content without worrying about global warming. In fact, we'd probably have to worry about causing global cooling since CO2 has a lower GWP than methane. (GWP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential)

Titan land of Big Weather and Bigger SUV's.

-Mike

[nprev]

Yep...you just coined the first slogan for the Titanian Chamber of Commerce tourism campaign there, Mike! I wanna jump me some dunes in my 700HP 4x4...gotta have a sleeveless spacesuit though, do have a certain image to preserve...

[volcanopele]

Blar! I was hoping no one would realize how much petrol you could get up in the north... There goes cornering the market in Titanian Natural gas. Besides, on Titan, I can have a nice SUV and I don't have to hear some whiny environmentalist complain about it.

Love the slogan!

[JRehling]

The bright side is that even if you did increase Titan's temperature, it would only make it more comfortable. The down side is that Titan would start losing volatiles and you'd eventually find yourself on another Ganymede.

[nprev]

Hmm. You raise an interesting question, JR, though probably not one easily answered: How much would the mean surface temperature of Titan have to be raised to begin losing its atmosphere?

I seem to recall some speculation that once the Sun enters its red giant phase Titan might become literally Earth-like, at least in accordance with primordial Earth models. Sounds pretty far-fetched to me (much more so after Cassini's revelations, in fact). Unfortunately, I think Titan will go <poof> in just a few million years after this happens & as JR said become another Ganymede, provided that the present atmosphere can even last until then (got my doubts there, too).

Any number-crunchers have some data to share? I don't want to commit to renting an SUV on Titan till I know how long the place is gonna be wild & foggy; ain't no fun jumpin' dunes in a vacuum, the dust ain't got no hang-time!!! <snort><spit><scratch>...<grunt> (Gee, can ya tell I'm from Montana?...)

EDIT: Fairly silly OT observation here, but what the hell are future residents of Uranus' moon Titania going to use as the possessive form of its name? All I can think of is "Titaniaian", which, when pronounced, actually sprained my epiglottis. We may have to avoid colonizing this place out of fear of strangling its residents.

[volcanopele]

I figure it will be resolved the same way Georgians from the Caucasus and Georgians from the Southern US aren't confused very often: context, dialect/language. IF you are talking about working with the Titanians at one of their new oil refineries, you probably aren't talking about moving to Titania.

[Rob Pinnegar]

Besides that, place names can change over time. If people ever start living on Titania, they might decide to change its name to something they like better.

[rlorenz]

The latest news about Titan reveal that, according to a study led by Ralph Lorenz, the orange moon has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth.

Doesnt get the headlines so much as the lakes, but our paper also evaluates the volume of the dune
deposits (=100s-1000s times the coal inventory on Earth..) as well as some of the sediment-generating
processes

[tty]

Spreading hothouse gases on Titan is certainly an intriguing idea. However we had better find out more about the surface chemistry first. As suggested in another thread some of those complex organics may be quite unstable if heated. Having the whole surface suddenly go bang might be a bit awkward.

[volcanopele]

Personally, I think colonists would use what ever is cheap and easy to obtain when it comes to energy sources. For Io, you would obviously go with geothermal (or iothermal). On Titan, hydrocarbons make sense.

How much would obtaining energy from hydrocarbons on Titan heat the place up? CO2 would largely freeze out (or if you are that worried about, just do what some have been advocating here, sequester it), for example.

[Juramike]

How much would obtaining energy from hydrocarbons on Titan heat the place up? CO2 would largely freeze out (or if you are that worried about, just do what some have been advocating here, sequester it), for example.

Exactly.

CH4 is a much more efficient greenhouse gas than CO2. I doubt that the slight amount of CO2 kicked into the atmosphere will do much compared to the natural variation of methane. (H2O is also a greenhouse gas as well)

Course, the CO2 (and H2O) would like to stay as a frozen solid on the surface. It's real easy to sequester the stuff when you can shovel it around (and guessing wildy about the vapor pressure of CO2 at that temperature, it's probably not necessary to sequester it).


But you've got much better options for generating "clean" and easy power on Titan:
Wind (in the equatorial zones), low speed but the higher pressure should give more "oomph" per m/s.
And the hydrocarbon equivalent of a hydroelectric plant in the temperate, polar zones. (gotta find some streams that move).

[I think all these and more were discussed in a previous thread somewhere in here.]

-Mike

[helvick]

How (exactly) are our colonists going to liberate much energy from these hydrocarbons ? What do we propose as an oxidiser for these hydrocarbon burning mega-SUV engines?

[Juramike]

Oxygen from electrolysis of water.

Wind power generates electricity, water electrolyzed to hydrogen and oxygen. Oxygen would be "bottled" and would be the Titan equivalent of a tank of gasoline. The oxidizer part of the equation would be the more energy-intensive stuff to generate and store safely.

In comparison, the hydrocarbon part would be easier to get, just scoop up and refine and pour into a second fuel tank. (Combustion motors on Titan would require two tanks - one for the oxidizer, one for the fuel).

On Titan, the hydrocarbon tanks would be relatively safe from accidental spillage. (A little extra hydrocarbon spilled outside in a reducing atmosphere is not a major safety hazard.) In comparison, the oxidizer would be dangerous, organic fuel would be omnipresent in the environment.

-Mike