Taiwan discovers frozen natural gas

Taiwan has found off its coast huge deposits of frozen natural gas, known as the ‘ice that burns’ and billed as the energy source of the future, a newspaper said Saturday.

A team of Taiwanese and Japanese researchers have succeeded in extracting samples of methane hydrate from the ocean floor off Taiwan’s southwest coast and will publish their report in May, the Liberty Times reported.
The team began its exploration two years ago, after US and Japanese scientists suspected methane hydrate deposits in the region through monitoring by satellite and scientific equipments.

Relying on a deep-sea remote-controlled research ship, the team recently extracted crystallized methane hydrate from a depth of 1,100 metres and recorded how it began to melt at 500-metre depth and vaporize at 400-metre depth.

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