To: Brumar89 who wrote (77082 ) 5/23/2017 12:51:02 PM From: Brumar89 Read Replies (2) | Respond to China Claims Methane Hydrates Breakthrough May Lead To Global Energy RevolutionChina is talking up its achievement of mining flammable ice for the first time from underneath the South China Sea. The fuel-hungry country has been pursuing the energy source, located at the bottom of oceans and in polar regions, for nearly two decades. China’s minister of land and resources, Jiang Daming, said Thursday that the successful collection of the frozen fuel was "a major breakthrough that may lead to a global energy revolution," according to state media. Experts agree that flammable ice could be a game changer for the energy industry, similar to the U.S. shale boom. But they caution that big barriers — both technological and environmental — need to be cleared to build an industry around the frozen fuel, which is also known as gas hydrate. China, the world’s largest energy consumer, isn’t the first country to make headway with flammable ice. Japan drilled into it in the Pacific and extracted gas in 2013 — and then did so again earlier this month. The U.S. government has its own long-running research program into the fuel. The world’s resources of flammable ice — in which gas is stored in cages of water molecules — are vast. Gas hydrates are estimated to hold more carbon than all the world’s other fossil fuels combined, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. money.cnn.com notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com
