Japan extracts 'frozen gas' from seabed

First country to successfully produce methane hydrate gas offshore

Japan has become the first nation to successfully extract ‘frozen gas’ from deposits from under the sea.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced the news with images showing what they claim is gas flaming from a pipe at the project, which is located 50 miles off the coast of central Japan. This breakthrough of harvesting methane hydrate, a form of methane gas which is frozen below the seabed, could be a massive step towards commercial production of the gas for the country, which imports most of its energy due to its own scarce resources.

Commercialising the production of 'frozen gas' could help solve Japan's energy problems

(Image source - The Guardian)

The process of extracting the gas, which uses a technology developed to reduce pressure in the underground layers holding the methane hydrate 4,363 feet below the sea surface, is expensive compared to other forms of gas production. However, this hasn’t put off Ryo Minami, director of the oil and gas division at Japan’s Agency for Natural Resources, who believes they will find of way of lowering the cost of collecting ‘frozen gas’, telling 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 commercialised’.

Was Doha a success?

Did climate talks in Qatar achieve anything?

The Doha climate talks in Qatar have come to an end; and for some they were a bit of an anti-climax, as no grand, bold deal on dealing with climate change was reached. However, other commentators have stated that this was never the point of the talks, that they were just a stepping stone for the more important talks in 2015. So was Doha a success?

According to environmental organisation World Wildlife Federation, the talks were a complete failure. WWF called the deals made at Doha ‘shamefully weak’ and accused larger nations like the US, Russia and Japan of blocking any real progress. The organisation even went as far to say that many governments of developed countries are ‘out of touch with the reality of climate change’ and that at Doha they failed to deliver even the most minimum expectations of dealing with climate change.

Doha didn't produce a major climate change deal, but did pave the one for one in 2015

(Image source - Yahoo.com)

However, there are others who would disagree. Granted that no major deals on battling climate change were made at Doha, a lot of people didn’t see that as the main goal of the talks. Connie Hedegaard, environment correspondent for the Guardian, believes that Doha was simply ‘setting the stage’ for the main talks in 2015. She states that, although goals on climate change weren’t set, goals on sorting out the way future talks would go were set, and reached.

Before Doha, there were several different working groups based on the vast differences between developed and developing nations. Now, there is one negotiation forum for everyone, the Durban Platform. Before Doha, only developed nations had a legal commitment to reducing carbon emissions. Now, both developed and developing countries will make legal commitments to tackling climate change. And now, following Doha, there is now a schedule of what must be done before 2015.

So Doha may not have been the spectacular definitive moment where climate change was beaten, as some environmental groups seem to have thought it would be. But progress was made. The preparations for the major talks in 2015 were made. Now it is down to the governments to make the most of the progress made at Doha and take it into the talks in three years time. Climate change is a very serious issue, for both developing and developed nations alike, so all nations have to make sure that a proper deal is made in 2015, otherwise all of the progress made in Doha will have been for nothing.

Are new coal plants a backwards move?

Plans for new coal-fired power plants raise questions

New research has revealed that over 1000 new coal plants are being planned in 59 countries, with China and India contributing to three-quarters of them. 

This coal expansion is going ahead despite warnings over the large amount of pollution the new plants will create, with scientists, politicians and climate change campaigners all agreeing that the world needs to move away from fossil fuels as the main energy provider. Many argue that fossil fuel assets will become worthless as action on climate change moves forward.

Coal plants are the most polluting of all types of power plants. The capacity of all 1200 proposed plants across the world will be around 1400GW, which is the same as adding another China to the world in terms of the level of greenhouse gas emissions.

A coal-fired power station in Michigan, USA

(Source - Wikipedia)

The report is said to be the most comprehensive made and was compiled by the World Resources Institute, who state that the proposed coal plants are ‘definitely not in line with a safe climate scenario’. Nick Robins, head of HSBC’s Climate Change Centre, believes it would be easier to ignore coal as an energy source, as several factors including tighter air pollution regulations, the increasing investment and commitment to renewable energies and the scarcity of water (as coal plants need massive amounts of water to operate) make coal energy not worth the hassle.

Despite these warnings however, the coal industry has seen economic rejuvenation in recent years, as global coal trade increased 13% in 2010. The UK, Germany and France are still in biggest importers, but countries like South Korea and Japan are fast-increasing their import levels. These countries, along with developing countries such as Senegal and Uzbekistan, have high numbers of coal plants but produce practically no coal of their own. Ailun Yang, of the WRI, believes that there is an issue of a lack of awareness in these countries that their energy needs can be met from sources ‘other than coal’.

How safe is nuclear?

With Hitachi investing over $1 billion into two new nuclear power plants in the UK, the issue of nuclear safety is raised once again

This week, Japanese company Hitachi bought the Horizon nuclear power project in the UK for $1.2 billion, which will create two new nuclear power plants in Anglesey, Wales and Oldbury, England, with around 12,000 jobs in constructing the sites and then 2000 permanent jobs once they are completed. Hitachi took over the project from German companies RWE and E.ON after they pulled out following the decision by Angela Merkel to phase out nuclear energy in Germany by 2022. This decision by one of Europe’s leading industrial powers to renounce nuclear energy in favour of renewables was made following the disaster at Fukushima, with fears raised about the safety of nuclear power. Now, with Hitachi opting to invest in this type of energy and start a ‘100 year commitment to the UK’ that question is brought up once again.

A typical nuclear power plant - but is it really that safe?

(Source - http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/NuclearEnergy.php)

Safety is the biggest factor in debates about nuclear power. Anti-nuclear campaigners state that the potential risk of a nuclear disaster (such as a complete nuclear meltdown – a nuclear explosion similar to an atomic bomb is a complete myth, as the uranium isn’t enriched enough in a power plant to explode) outweighs any benefits of nuclear power, as the damage that could be caused by a disaster would be catastrophic. That fear is understandable; a worst-case scenario would be a complete meltdown that contaminates the ground and water supply in the surrounding area, which would cause explosions as a result of radioactive material reacting with water and widespread exposure to radiation that could result in deaths. 

However, in nearly 15,000 cumulative nuclear reactor years, only three major accidents have occurred; Three Mile Island (USA, 1979), Chernobyl (Ukraine, 1986) and Fukushima (Japan, 2011), with only Chernobyl resulting in loss of life. These accidents weren’t caused by the nuclear power process itself, but by a series of specific factors. Three Mile Island was a result of human error, Fukushima was caused by damage from both an earthquake and a tsunami, and Chernobyl was the result of poor reactor design in an environment where safety regulations and security were a low priority. Nuclear energy is so much safer now with security measures and tight safety regulations in place.

The devastating aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster - but events like these are extremely rare

(Source - Liverpool Echo)

In terms of safety, renewable energy is much better than nuclear, as the only risk of damage or death from a wind turbine is if it fell over, which wouldn’t affect as many people as a nuclear meltdown would. With Germany looking to phase out nuclear power by 2022 in favour of renewable energy, they are showing they are willing to commit and support the development of renewable power (as nuclear energy currently provides a quarter of the country’s energy usage), which is a good thing, as it shows the country is prepared to move forward and is thinking about the future. 

However, nuclear power shouldn’t be ignored completely. There is always the worry that something could go terribly wrong with nuclear and, however safe nuclear energy can be made, the actual process of working with radioactive materials and the science behind it will always carry some level of risk. But with safety measures as tight and important as they currently are, the chances of something bad happening are very low. Nuclear power is still important to the world, as it is very efficient in terms of energy production. An average-size nuclear plant would produce the same amount of energy as around 2000 wind turbines. 2000 turbines would take up an area of land around 60,000 acres, whereas a power plant would take up only 1500 acres.

Hopefully in the future there will be a form of renewable energy so efficient and effective, with absolutely no risks, that nuclear power won’t be needed anymore. But until such a time, nuclear energy is still important, and still necessary.