Overview of the R&D for an Environmental Impact Assessment on Japan's Methane Hydrate R&D Program in Phase-1

Japan relies on imports for the greater part of its energy needs, so that securing reliable future energy resources have become even more significant due to the recent violent fluctuation in the price of oil. In addition, as global environmental problems, such as global warming, become more serious, the need to shift to cleaner energy sources, such as natural gas, becomes more pressing. In this social context, methane hydrate, a new natural gas resource that has been confirmed to exist in the sea surrounding Japan, is expected to become a cleaner source of domestic energy in the future. “Methane Hydrate Exploitation Program in Japan” was published in July 2001 and the Research Consortium for Methane Hydrate Resources in Japan (official abbreviated title: MH21 Research Consortium) was established to oversee the completion of phase-1 of this plan. In this consortium, Engineering Advancement Association of Japan (official abbreviated title : ENAA), which is the group responsible for conducting Environmental Impact Assessment, EIA, has conducted a number of research and developed activities to establish basic technologies associated with EIA and completed almost all of aims during phase-1. In this paper, we introduce overview of our R&D about EIA which should be necessary to implement on methane hydrate production.