Methane hydrate--nicknamed "burning ice"--has recently been attracting much attention. With the aim of lowering the cost of transporting natural gas from small and midsize gas fields in Southeast Asia, the Japanese government has set a policy to start commercially transporting natural gas in solid form by 2008, government sources said Wednesday. Natural gas hydrate (NGH) is an icelike material produced artificially by combining natural gas and water under high pressure at moderately cold temperatures.
As transporting natural gas in solid form is much cheaper than moving liquefied natural gas, the government expects to employ the method at numerous small gas fields located in Southeast Asia, many of which are currently unexploited.
NGH stabilizes as a solid at around minus 20 C and can be transported more easily in this form.
Liquefied natural gas needs large-scale plants to cope with the ultralow temperatures involved in liquefying natural gas, which is occurs at minus 162 C.
The government will propose the creation of an international safety standard for transporting the solidified natural gas--NGH--at a safety meeting of the International Maritime Organization, being held in Turkey until Friday.
The plan will significantly help Japan compete for energy resources with China, India and other emerging economies, which are desperately seeking to secure natural gas supplies.
Source: The Yomiuri Shimbun via Peak Oil News & Message boards
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