Japan has become the first country to extract natural gas from methane hydrate under the seabed, opening up a potential source of domestic fuel for the resource-poor nation. Gas was obtained from a layer 330 meters below a 1,000-meter-deep floor of the Pacific Ocean on March 12, the industry ministry said. It plans to extract thousands to tens of thousands of cubic meters of gas over the coming two weeks or so. The seas around Japan are estimated to hold enough methane hydrate to produce as much natural gas as Japan consumes in 100 years. --Mari Fujisaki,
Asahi Shimbun, 12 March 2013
Methane hydrates are the largest reserve of hydrocarbons in the planetary crust. The methane hydrates in sediment considered part of U.S. territory alone could supply U.S. natural gas needs for 1000 years. So far humanity has not devised a process to economically harvest this immense energy wealth. Today’s DOE announcement may point the way to a new era in abundant energy to build out a bigger and better world economy. --
The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 3 May 2012
Spain, a country that’s yet to produce its first shale gas, probably has enough resources of the fuel to satisfy domestic demand for at least 39 years, according to the nation’s Council of Mining Engineers. --
Bloomberg, 11 March 2013
It turns out, though, that the problem has never been exactly about supply; it’s always been about our ability to profitably tap that supply. We human beings have consumed, over our entire history, about a trillion barrels of oil. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates there is still seven to eight times that much left in the ground. The oil that’s left is just more difficult, and therefore more expensive, to get to. But that sets the invisible hand of the market into motion. Every time known reserves start looking tight, the price goes up, which incentivizes investment in research and development, which yields more sophisticated technologies, which unearth new supplies—often in places we’d scarcely even thought to look before. --Vince Beiser,
Pacific Standard Magazine, 4 March 2013
For billions living in the developing world, the real choice isn’t between “dirty” coal plants and “clean” wind turbines or solar panels. It’s between having sufficient energy to improve the quality of their lives, or to remain trapped in what those of us living in the First World would describe as the Dark Ages of humanity. --Lorrie Goldstein,
Toronto Sun, 10 March 2013
