Fuel to power the cars, homes, and factories of the future may come from ice. The story, up next, on Arctic Science Journeys. Almost everyone knows Alaska has a lot of oil. Now researchers say the state also has a plentiful supply of an unlikely energy source found in ice.
Scientists call it methane hydrate.
It forms when methane gas becomes trapped inside molecules of frozen water. Methane hydrate is found in abundance within the Arctic's permanently frozen ground, and in cold, deep-ocean sediments around the world. Alaska's frozen tundra is thought to have huge amounts of the gas, and that's caught the attention of countries like Japan. Yutaka Aoki is the general manager of the Japan Petroleum Exploration Company's geosciences division. We don't know if it is possible in the very near future.