Methane Hydrate “To Make Japan Energy Superpower”
- Categories: Japan, News
- Date: Mar 21, 2013 06:48 JST
- Tags: Business, Image Gallery, Politics, Senkaku Complex, Technology
Japan’s recent success in extracting methane hydrate is now expected to make Japan a gas export powerhouse, as there is estimated to be enough of the stuff around Japan to last a century or more.
Methane hydrate (or methane clathrate) is a solid deposit of methane gas found in large quantities on the ocean floor, and with extraction and processing yields natural gas, commonly used as fuel.
Japan recently announced the first ever success in extracting methane hydrates from the ocean floor, and expects commercial production in its waters to begin “within 5 years.”
These reserves are estimated by the government to be big enough to supply Japan’s gas needs “for 100 years” (assuming of course that they do not export it all well before then, and that gas will be of any use to anyone in a century).
Experts also mention another unusual property of the deposits – some are thought to be renewable:
“The deposits in the Sea of Japan are called surface deposits, and are deposits on the seabed which are actually exposed.
On the Pacific side, once we extract the deposits they will be exhausted, but in the case of surface deposits they form pillars which are constantly being deposited and then melting away.
So, as long the Earth remains active, they will continue to be created – so the amount produced in these deposits will exceed the 100 year deposits.”
Vast reserves and renewable stocks could are thought likely to not only make Japan self-sufficient in its energy needs, but also make it into a huge net exporter of gas, ending its dependence on energy imports and potentially allowing it to pay down its enormous national debt.
Best of all – from Japan’s perspective at least – most of the major deposits so far identified lie on Japan’s Pacific coast, well away from even the most extravagant Chinese and Korean claims, and well within Japan’s EEZ:
However, there are also suspected to be large deposits lying undiscovered in such inconvenient areas as the Senkaku islands, the Northern Territories, and Takeshima, so there is still ample scope for territorial squabbles.
The huge implications of methane hydrates to Japan have been exciting massive interest recently – but also some misgivings:
“Infinite reserves you say!?”
“Expect us to get invaded soon.”
“Just wait for the research fraud to be uncovered.”
“The renewable reserves do sound too good to be true. Still, resources are resources!”
“China and Russia are going to be all over us if we do start exporting this stuff.”
“Can you actually use this stuff in a car?”
“Between Russia’s natural gas and the USA’s shale gas I don’t see this ending well for Japan.”
“Some of this stuff sounds like the kind of propaganda you’d hear in North Korea. There is bound to be a limit to this stuff.”
“It’s gas so it is not a replacement for oil like these idiots seem to think.”
“I guess we can at least get rid of those nuclear plants now though.”
“Japan having the best tech in the world and being a next generation energy superpower – isn’t this against the rules?”
“This all feels like a repeat of the bubble dreams…”
“We don’t need to work any more! We can just buy stuff from overseas and live like kings…”
“If vast amounts of new deposits are exploitable, the price is bound to collapse. Imagine what this is going to do to the middle east… from nouveau rich to NEET.”
“Other nations have barely prospected for this stuff. What if they all have it?”
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Japan needs to covet this and not export to filthy nations like China and Korea. Keep it for yourself Japan!
They can't keep it for themselves. It's called 'protectionism' and any nation as small and export-oriented as japan cannot afford to be branded as such since that would ostracize them from the world economy and essentially collapse the basis for their economic health.
Therefore, they have no choice but to bow their heads and be subject to international pricing for market in natural gas that would undoubtedly destroy any chances for japan to reap any benefit from the resources. Korea and China now have even more reason to go to open conflict against the japanese, and if America sees little benefit in reinforcing this ungrateful bitchy little island nation that fancies itself a '1st world country', than japan's fresh out of big brothers to watch its back.
Expect korea and china to jump at this opportunity like sharks to blood in the water. Japan's making itself an even more appealing target now.
Are you stupid ?this is exactly the reason America would protect Japan, we want those resources too,we definitely don't want the backwards ass chinese or the arrogant koreans getting their hand on OUR resources.
Which means the 'protection fee' for the japanese will only go higher.
LOL.
now that might actually be correct.
America has plenty of fracking locations and Japan will demand too much per cubic litter to make it worth protecting them. Try again kid.
Go take a bath kid, you reek of weeaboo.
And really, this "miracle" energy is in such low quantity that it doesn't matter in the large or small picture.
It's just Jap politicians jerking off to delusions to win some re-election points.
Sadly there is a lot of weeaboos on this site who sucks Japanese cock at every oppurtunity. Probably cuts himself everyday when Japan gets critisized like Twilight fans.
Face it weeaboo trash. No matter how much you kiss Japanese ass, YOU ARE HATED by the Japanese because you are weeaboo trash.
“Expect us to get invaded soon.”
Lol he knows us very well...
“Japan having the best tech in the world and being a next generation energy superpower – isn’t this against the rules?”
LOL the delusions of japs.
US and other nations have prospected and measured deposits all along the world's oceans decades ago while doing 'scientific explorations' for cold war purposes. They already know and have the tech to recover those methane hydrate from the ocean floor, but know better than to broadcast that shit all over the place and make themselves a target and upset their position in the world stage. The deposits around japan are nothing compared to the amount sitting dormant along the American coast, south american shores, and in the coast along africa or the arctic. These hard-to-get resources will be expensive and uneconomical. Energy and geopolitics is closely linked, and japs just gave another reason for china to pick on them.
But no, japs need to buttress their fragile little pride and bitch about 'superior technology' whenever they get the slimmest chance, even though the fact that this shit lies at the bottom of the fuckin ocean floor makes it much more cost intensive to produce in the first place than land-based resources. Japan's like that one player in poker that can't hold its mouth or expression when he barely gets a three of a kind because he was never good enough to play in the first place.
Having a few deposits don't make one an 'energy superpower'. These japs clearly have no sense of what it means to be a power on the international stage. I highly doubt even America would think it's worth to invade japan over such meager amounts of gas.
Dumb amateurs and pathetic.
Ready the army, there is a country with vast reasources open the grabbing. Just gotta get rid of the Japanese first though.
That would be doing everyone a favor. Let's have the chinese and koreans take the first cake and we can swoop into grab the rest!
No fuck that, this is America's and Japan can have the rest if we let them, Fuck China and Korea though.
You don't need army, just send Shell, ExxonMobil and Total...and maybe BP but expect them blow it up or something.
Meh, I think I'm just gonna sit here and await the next major bio-catastrophy (I think I can already see it looming over the horizon).
I seriously sense some gross over optimism about becoming 'energy power'. The deposits around japan aren't much, there are much more plentiful reserves that haven't been publically revealed yet because nations like to keep such advantages quiet until they can make great profit off of them. I would not expect the japanese to know of such basic subtlties in international politics.
If anything, japan will be out of the resources in 30 years with little profit, or rest of the world will begin to drill their own within a few years which would destroy the market price by flooding the market with over supply of gas, and thus destroying japanese profit margins which will already be too high thanks to the danger cost of being close to such quake-prone location.
They really are just desperate for any little bit of good news. I bet shinzo abe is blowing this 'success' out of proportion so he can score some political points from gullible net-uyo bitches like these japanese posters.
"These modern estimates are notably smaller than the 10,000 to 11,000 Gt C (2×1016 m³) proposed[24] by previous workers a reason to consider clathrates to be a geo-organic fuel resource (MacDonald 1990, Kvenvolden 1998). Lower abundances of clathrates do not rule out their economic potential, but a lower total volume and apparently low concentration at most sites[19] does suggest that only a limited percentage of clathrates deposits may provide an economically viable resource."
Just a little bit of how limited this so-called energy source is.
Watch China start trying to catch up to Japan soon after. Thereafter their offshore deposits will explode, spreading further and further.
Ring of Fire, indeed.
Offshore deposits "exploding" will probably be quite literal in china's case.
I for one would like to know how the hell this expensive, time-consuming miniscule amount of exaggerated gas under water is supposed to compete with shale natural gas of US and much easier, much more plentiful sources around the world.
If they try to nationalize this shit, their export economy is going down the toilet.
@anon 08:32
If they try to nationalize fart gas, they deserve to have their export economy go down the toilet.
1. A large amount of homes and industries run on natural gas. They won't need to import it anymore.
2. It is worth a fair amount of money, and thus they can sell it. It's not meant to compete with the oil industry, it will only compete with the methane industry, which having such an easy source of it gives you lowest bid power, offering the best price and thus taking sales away from other countries.
And to he anon that said having so much will turn it into a commodity that makes it no longer worth much... That argument makes no sense. Japan is the one controlling their production of it. It's not suddenly all going to come out of the sea at once. They merely supply what demand there is for it.
12:55
I don't think you even know how such energy resource commodities work, or how globalized economics function today. You sound like you have little knowledge of money and economics beyond personal finances.
1. Japan's supposed gas sources are perilously close to fault lines in one of if not the most earthquake prone regions on earth. This increases the opportunity cost of the gas produced there since the risk is higher than other regions.
2. No matter what japan produces on its own, other people are also producing them, and global prices for natural gas is set by global market trends, not japanese decisions. This is why even when US is exporting oil its oil prices at the pumps can rise higher - prices for global supply of resources are set to global demands and supply. Therefore, since japan isn't exactly going to corner the methane hydrate gas market with their minuscule reserves, they cannot control any of the prices they sell their stuff at - if they attempt to be protectionist, there will be direct consequences to their export model of economy by punishment of overseas market governments.
3. The day when a nation produces their resources to call it entire their own is a dangerous illusion these days. All are tied to the global market, and therefore the pipe dream of 'our gas, we get to power ourselves' is a dangerously naive way of thinking about things. It's the same mentality that thinks when you put your money in the bank that money sits in the deposit box somewhere, instead of being circulated around and is only 'yours' by the virtue of promissory contract that you get back similar amount when you make the request.
Therefore, if the japanese can't control the market prices, then they will be helpless when other nations over produce, glut the market, and leave the more expensive japanese gas (thanks to terrain) in the dust, in which case the government of japan will not buy the gas from the companies but import them from overseas.
If your rebuttal to this is "but it's their company, why won't they buy their own stuff?", you are dangerously naive and misinformed about how governments work. You are the same kind of person who confuses how national bond and finances work with personal finances.
Now someone tell me when this is supposed to become economically feasible, and what exactly is the recoverable gas amount?
Their overly optimistic propaganda does not really impress me since it's simple enough to fool only uninformed japs like those on 2ch.
Since it doesn't really fit into the standard "fossil fuels" energy OPEC will try to control the prices but has less power. If they can use this fuel for 100% of their own power needs (aka no gas importing at all) then they well could use it much cheaper than OPEC prices. Maybe.
The other good thing about this is if it is carbon neutral or not. If it is built up from carbon waste falling from above then it would be carbon neutral. That is effectively no (well very limited) increase to global CO2 levels from using this fuel.
15:14
They don't need OPEC to peg prices to certain international level. That's a gross simplification, and naive way of looking at global energy market. In order for them to have any legitimacy, they must peg the gas prices to world average or suffer the consequences of protectionism by the principle of international global economy.
They won't see a single dime of this if it actually was realized - their neighbors will force it upon them to take it all away.
EXACTLY AND MOST LIKELY A EARTHQUAKE PROVOCATION!
Well Interesting renewable gas reserve
Well at least they have a new export :)
Kill that epic long depression hope it doesn't kill anime too
They still haven't gotten out of their trade deficit for 8 months now. For an export-oriented nation, this is a very, very, very bad news.
"Sinking of Japan"
or
"Gas boat awakens Godzilla from seabed" :D
Ok just to make things clear about any misunderstandings this fuel is not infinite. And fucking around with it can cause DISASTROUS affects. If they cause a spill and leak huge amounts of methane hydrate into the atmosphere the planet would experience adverse weather the likes of which we've never seen and nothing short of an armageddon (for us humans and animals at least). Not to mention this stuff is laying right on the fucking continental shelf. One wrong move or too much drilling could set off a massive tsunami and cause major earthquakes.
Spilling this stuff into the atmostphere would make the BP spill and it's after affects look like childs play. Lets just hope the japans don't fuck around and get us all killed.
You read way too much hippie propaganda. We simply don't have the capability to cause any of that, even if we wanted to. Also, if a puny human drill could cause massive methane outbursts, then this would have already naturally happened in an earthquake somewhere in the last few million years.
Read "The Swarm" by Hohlbein and change your text, please :)
@03:23
A fictional novel? Really? Maybe you need to read a few books on critical thinking instead.
Fictional as in scientifically proven? Check.
Quoting wiki:
"It was lauded by many critics and readers for its accurate representation of marine biology, geology, and geophysics."
Read as: Methan clathrates sit on coasts around the world and -when destabilized- are prone to affect the continental slopes, resulting in highly-likely collapses, devastating a large area with tsunamis.
By the way, this has happened to the northern coast of europe before (quoting again):
"The Storegga Slides were a series of underwater landslides, in which a piece of the Norwegian continental shelf slid into the Norwegian Sea. The immense landslips occurred between 8150 BC and 6000 BC, and caused a tsunami up to 20 metres (66 ft) high that swept through the North Sea,(...)"
Some things better left untouched...
PS: Written by Frank Schätzing, not Hohlbein.
My bad.
Didn't they learn anything from Ergo Proxy!? They'll doom us all!!!!!
Yeah, this is literally the plot to a post-apocalyptic anime.
get ready to live your animu dreams.
Yeah, yeah, just as soon as SkyNet is done evolving from the CoD AI scripts and the LHC creates a blackhole in the middle of Europe.
If SkyNet evolved from CoD AI scripts, every battle against the robot conquerors will be made of QTEs and push X button.
Why do all these stupid japs sound like they think methane hydrate only exists around japan, or than majority of them are around their EEZ?
That shit is all over the world and ones around japan minuscule. Not to mention the cost of extraction/refining these resources are much greater than conventional resources, hence limiting their utility.
Worst of all, a single seismic event would send their prices through the roof, while other nations can more easily extract and sell at a lower price, hence destroying any profitability of japanese resources and making their own gas-based power plant bills go through the roof. They cannot isolate their own resources for the fear of being kicked out from the world economy.
Well, this might help Japan to finally get rid of its decade long depression-ish state...
And guys seriously, nobody uses armies for this anymore... You take a lobbyist, they pay some politicians and boom! ...You have rights for those deposits, and by "you" I mean Shell or Exxon most likely.
This won't help them. The very fragile nature of where japan is located alone will make the prices go up and it will be very unprofitable compared to other nations' stocks.
The amount of propaganda and self-comforting tone of the news articles makes it almost certain that this is a political game by Shinzo Abe to make it seem like he's doing something when in fact no other nations are so stupid as to loudly announce how they are going to be a target for the wolves around itself already snarling with lust at how it would be fun to fuck over japan.
The price for this little political score-whoring by Abe will be further erosion of japanese influence in the region. Japan no longer has any comparable ability to even stand up against those pressuring its economy and politics.
Why? Because the entire reason japanese managed to get their economy up and running better than others is because for the better part of that century, rest of the world was mired in cold war security challenges that drew away the attention from pure economics. They 'succeeded' because everyone else was fighting with a hand and a leg tied behind its back, while looking at the opposite direction. Of course, dumb cunt japs like to think they actually won anything for stabbing a sleeping enemy.
Now that world's attention has turned, japan will be at the mercy of fully energized economies of the world. Korea and China are already out competing and out smarting the japanese in various fields. US is putting a lot of political pressure on the japanese to rid itself of protectionist tendencies, all the while re-energizing its economic sector. There's a reason why some japs hated Apple so much - it was a slap in the face to their delusions about 'innovation' and 'best in electronics' that a guy who built his shit in a garage can outsmart them globally and take the mantle of most successful electronics company.
They wish. This is minor.
If it works out it'll at least gain them some much needed energy Independence.
Having more stable energy prices will go a long way in stabilizing the rest of their economy.
Stable? Wtf are you talking about! Their drilling in an earthquake zone! They fuck up once and it'll cause an earthquake which would in turn cause a tsunami and wipe out a large part of their infrastructure.
You should work in Hollywood. This is the kind of things they sell in movies.
LOL @01:26
If you think men power can affect the tectonic plates to shift, won't you think they try to find a way to release the tension which will make the earthquakes stop?
Thought this was an 18 and above site.
Expect massive paranoia from manganaka and writers now.
why do I say this?
how many science horror stories begin with "Japan corners market in fuel export/ resource / material / energy" before it ends with " and Japan's population was reduced to only a few thousand"
Here's a freebie.
Bio Meat. Figure out the rest, or watch the rest. It's a good way to spend the day.
Those manga always laughably try to portray japan as the 'victim'. Remember Code Geass?
Why won't they run a REAL story about that one korean Park Yeol and Fumiko Kaneko, korean resistance fighter and his japanese girlfriend who fought against the actual real japanese oppression and despised the japanese all the while getting fucked by her korean boyfriend?
Not that any japs have the balls for that.
probably for the same reasons south koreans don't like to talk about vietnam.
Actually they love to talk about how they ran around burning villages, raping vietnamese women, confiscating weapons and generally being good at beating up helpless civillians and scaring them by flinging over decapitated heads to local villages.
Congratulations, you just discovered national sentiment. Here, have a cookie.
That 'national sentiment' will get them killed in the near future. East asians are digging their own grave.