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Dennis Red
Joined: May 9, 2014
Posts: 1 (view all)
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Country: Netherlands
Province/State: Noord-Holland
City: Amsterdam
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Could 'fire ice' fuel the future?
May 9, 2014
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The Woo Group RBC
Wealth Management Tokyo
During their three-day meeting last month, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe again asked US
President Barack Obama to speed up exports of American natural gas to help his beleaguered and
energy-poor economy. But the big energy revolution that could ride to Tokyo's rescue may not come on
tankers from US ports, but rather from deep underneath the sandy seabed off Japan's own shores.
Methane hydrates, which are chunky packets of ice that trap huge amounts of natural gas in the form
of methane, are looming ever larger in Japan's plans to meet its needs for energy in the wake of the
Fukushima nuclear disaster and skyrocketing bills for imported fuel.
Other Asian countries facing an energy crunch, including South Korea, India and China, are also
hoping to tap into the apparently abundant reserves of methane hydrates, also known as "fire ice."
That could help fuel growing economies - but it could also fuel further tensions in regional seas
that are already the stage for geopolitical sabre rattling and brinkmanship over natural
resources.
Totally unknown until the 1960s, methane hydrates could theoretically store more gas than all the
world's conventional gas fields today. The amount that scientists estimate should be obtainable
comes to about 43,000 trillion cubic feet, or nearly double the 22,800 trillion cubic feet of
technically recoverable traditional natural gas resources around the world. The United States
consumed 26 trillion cubic feet of gas last year.
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