2010-09-29
Japan to Start Drilling for Methane Hydrate. By Michael Fitzpatrick, Guardian, 9/27/10. "In a bid to shore up its precarious energy security Japan is to start commercial test drilling for controversial frozen methane gas along its coast next year. The gas is methane hydrate, a sherbet-like substance consisting of methane trapped in water ice -- sometimes called 'fire ice' or MH -- that is locked deep underwater or under permafrost by the cold and under pressure 23 times that of normal atmosphere… Surveys suggest Japan has enough methane hydrate for 100 years at the current rate of usage. Lying hundreds of meters below the sea and deeper still below sediments, fire ice is exceedingly difficult to extract. Japan is claiming successful tests using a method that gently depressurizes the frozen gas… Concerns had been raised that digging for frozen methane would destabilize the methane beds… Methane itself is a greenhouse gas which is 21 times as damaging as carbon dioxide and any leakage from wells could be an environmental problem… The US, China, Canada and South Korea are among other countries seeking to develop commercially viable extraction technology and each is now exploring the mining of methane hydrates from their own sea beds. 'Some commercial production of methane from methane hydrate could be achieved in the United States before 2025,' says a US government report on the subject."
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