Necessity spurs innovation, as Vince Beiser’s recent piece on
fossil fuels reminded us last week and Japan demonstrates that
anew this week. The energy-poor nation has become the first to
successfully tap the frozen natural gas, known as methane
hydrate, scattered on the oceans’ seabed. Since it started
seriously studying how to harvest methane hydrates almost two
decades ago, Japan has been a leader in the field, as Bruce
Dorminey, who wrote about hydrates for us a year ago exactly,
explained. While the Japanese have been looking at hydrates in
the permafrost of Canada, shale fracking has meant the economics
of either land- or sea-based extraction haven’t made sense
domestically in North America—so far. That was once true for
Japan, too. As that country’s Ryo Minam of the Agency for
Natural Resources told the Financial Times: “Ten years ago,
everybody knew there was shale gas in the ground, but to extract
it was too costly. Yet now it’s commercialized.” So, as Dorminey
closed his primer on hydrates: Couple i