“Burning ice” to boost Japan’s power supplies

Huge reserves of methane hydrate off its coast to last for a century.

Japan recently extracted natural gas from “burning ice” or methane hydrate that lies beneath the seabed off Aichi Prefecture. The gas was extracted from a layer of methane hydrate about 300 meters below a 1,000 meter-deep floor of the Pacific Ocean.

The methane hydrate fields stretch from waters off Shizuoka Prefecture to the Kii Peninsula and further to the Kyushu region. Including the Sea of Japan side, waters near Japan hold one of the world’s richest reserves of methane hydrate.

Reserves are estimated to consist of as much natural gas as Japan consumes in 100 years. Japan can freely dig for the gas without having to worry about bothering its neighbors.

Japan’s self-sufficiency rate of energy is slightly less than 5%, centering on hydropower generation.

Energy researchers estimate there are at least 1.1 trillion cubic meters of methane hydrates near the Atsumi Peninsula, enough for about 11 years of Japanese gas consumption. In total, the seas around Japan could have enough gas to supply the country for the next 100 years.

Methane hydrate or methane clathrate is a solid clathrate compound in which a large amount of methane is trapped within a crystal structure of water, forming a solid similar to ice.