apan has some of the largest reserves of methane ice (methane clathrate or methane hydrate), huge amount of methane condensed within crystalline water structures deep within the sedimentary outcrops just off the Japanese coastline. Experiments in 2002 and 2008 first extracted natural gas from the methane ice reserves, and in 2013 the state-owned Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) announced their successful extraction of natural gas from frozen methane clathrate. However, Japan is facing an energy crisis, nuclear power has fallen out of favour since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, and Japan has since become the world’s third largest importer of coal, as coal and natural gas have bridged the country’s energy needs when stepping away from nuclear . Can methane ice save Japan from an energy crisis?

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