MOSAIC: Japan’s future fuel
LIKE an ice that burns, methane hydrate is cold, white and would light up like a gas stove if held to a flame. And so much of the frozen fuel naturally blankets the sea beds off Japan and elsewhere that scientists say it could power the world for centuries.
Yet, as soon as researchers plumb the depths and pull the potentially revolutionary energy source to the surface, the frosty crystalized methane starts to fizz and bubble into oblivion. It warms up, gasifies and then dissolves into the ocean.
Most nations don’t even bother exploring offshore reserves for lack of harvesting technology. But in resource-poor Japan, plucking the deep-sea bounty off its shores is more than science fiction; it is a national initiative that Tokyo hopes will become reality in 15 years.
“Japan’s domestic resources are almost zero, so nonconventional sources are a top priority,” said Tetsuo Yonezawa, a member of the government-backed methane hydrate research team. “There is more than 100 years’ worth of Japanese natural gas consumption there.”
Japan this year will dig 10 to 20 wells in methane hydrate beds along the Nankai Trough, some 1,100 meters (3,630 feet) under water. By 2011, Japan hopes to determine whether commercial methane hydrate mining is economically feasible and, if so, begin extraction four years later.
Methane hydrate is a crystal structure of methane gas surrounded by water molecules, held together by freezing temperature and crushing pressure. Knowledge of the substance dates back to the 1890s. But it never caught on as an energy source because it is found in hard-to-access Arctic permafrost and deep ocean sediments.
However, worldwide resources are massive: an estimated 25,000 trillion cubic meters (875,000 trillion cubic feet), according to current estimates. That contains about twice the carbonized energy as the Earth’s coal, oil and gas resources combined.
Deposits around Japan are just a fraction of that, between 4 trillion and 20 trillion cubic meters (140 trillion and 700 trillion cubic feet). But Japan believes it’s worth shelling out US$120 million this year alone on methane hydrate research to try to boost its energy self-sufficiency. The island nation now imports about 97 per cent of its natural gas and virtually all of its crude oil.
Japan is not alone in pursuing methane hydrate, but perhaps it is the most desperate. The US Geological Survey has estimated the quantity of gas hydrates in the United States at 9,600 trillion meters (336,000 trillion cubic feet), 200 times conventional natural gas resources and reserves in Japan.
The US Congress has also appropriated millions of dollars for research, but projects are focused as much on academic as on commercial applications — in part because methane hydrate on other planets is envisioned as a fuel source for future space travel.
In Russia, the entire Siberian tundra is laced with the frozen fuel. But Russia is so rich in crude oil and traditional natural gas, Moscow spends little time or money trying to perfect thorny methane hydrate mining techniques.
Yonezawa said temperature control is the hardest part: how to warm vast beds of the icy substance and catch the released methane. As soon as the temperature or pressure change, the methane typically gasifies and disappears.
Retrieval methods are largely hypothetical and mostly untried. One idea tabled in Russia was to pump nuclear waste under the permafrost to thaw fields of hydrate.
It’s still too soon to tell whether the Japanese project will ever go commercial. And no matter what is achievable, Yonezawa said, it will be impossible to recover 100 per cent of the methane hydrate deposits around Japan. But even if a sliver can be harvested, it’s worth pursuing, he said.
“There are still a lot of uncertainties, but the potential is too big to ignore.” — Samina Iqbal
Smoking death
FOUR million people die annually all over the world due to tobacco related causes and this figure will rise to 10 million by 2020, states a recent issue of the British Medical Journal.
South Asia contributes substantially to these figures. Tobacco is used in many forms with the most common one being the bidi, which has to be puffed harder. Annual cigarette consumption averages 1440 cigarettes per person in the Maldives, 620 in Nepal and 560 in Pakistan. Smoking increased in Bangladesh, India, the Maldives and Pakistan from 1990, showing the focus of tobacco companies towards the poorer countries.
More than a third of tobacco consumed is smokeless and comes in the form of betel leaf and tobacco as gutka or pan masala. These forms of tobacco have a similar mortality as smoked tobacco. Some South Asian countries are trying to curb the harm of tobacco by reducing its intake. And here, Bhutan is the pioneer.
It has a tobacco control law since 1729 and is now trying to eradicate smoking. Even some of the islands in Maldives are tobacco free zones.
Bangladesh and India are using the public interest litigation approach. The Supreme Court of India has directed all states to ban smoking in public places and in public transport. Sri Lanka curtailed the promotion of tobacco by stopping smoking scenes in films and television plays. It has set an example of community action which has held back the tobacco tide.
Major shortcomings are still to be addressed in South Asia’s response to tobacco. The policies implemented by the governments in the West have not been introduced here. Doctors can at least encourage people to quit smoking while sitting in their clinics. — Dr Fatema Jawad
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