Japan seeks to improve energy security by drilling for frozen methane but environmentalists fear a leak of the greenhouse gas, which is 21 times as damaging as carbon dioxide Tubeworms and mussels on top of a hydrate mound, Gulf of Mexico 2002. The yellowish methane hydrate provides a source of methane for the mussels living on top of them. A little further from the hydrate, we see lots of tubeworms growing. They may be connected to the hydrate too, since the microbes in the sediment that turn seawater sulfate into sulfide need methane for energy. Image courtesy of NOAA / OER

By Michael Fitzpatrick, www.guardian.co.uk
Monday 27 September 2010 09.22 BST 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. A consortium led by the Japanese government and the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (Jogmec) will be sinking several wells off the south-eastern coast of Japan to assess the commercial viability of extracting gas from frozen methane deep beneath local waters. Surveys suggest Japan has enough methane hydrate for 100 years at the current rate of usage. Lying hundreds of metres 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 depressurises the frozen gas. Tokyo plans to start commercial output of methane hydrates by 2018. At present, Japan imports nearly all its gas – about 58.6m tonnes of liquified gas annually – and is heavily dependent on oil imports. In a desperate attempt to secure more oil, for example, Japan recently did a deal with the United Arab Emirates. In exchange for using Japan as a base for Asian oil trading, Japan now has priority to purchase rights to up to 4m barrels of immediately accessible crude. … Environmentalists, however, are concerned about the burning of more earth-locked hydrocarbons. Methane may be a cleaner-burning fossil fuel than coal or oil but will still release many tons of CO2. Jogmec acknowledges the problems, admitting mining of methane ice could lead to landslides and the devastation of marine life in the mining areas. “There are many other technological problems to overcome,” says the Jogmec website. “Not least that when you drill you create heat, which turns the frozen methane into gas, which could then leak uncontrollably through the sea to our atmosphere.” …

Japan to drill for controversial ‘fire ice’