APAN ON COURSE TO ACHIEVING ENERGY SECURITY – DISCOVERS RICH RESERVES OF METHANE HYDRATE

Japan, the world’s largest importer of liquefied natural gas, the second largest importer of coal, and third largest importer of oil, may finally have a natural energy source of its own. In a new energy breakthrough, the island nation says it has extracted natural gas from Methane Hydrate (also known as “Flammable Ice”) nearly a mile below the ocean surface off the Japanese coast — a world first, according to Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Offshore deposits present a potentially enormous source of methane but also some environmental concern, because the underwater geology containing them is unstable in many places. A survey of the gas field is being run by state-owned Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC). Methane hydrates are essentially cage-like lattices of water molecules that contain methane, the chief ingredient in natural gas. They can be found either beneath the sea floor or underneath Arctic permafrost.