China has been successful in extracting a new source of energy from its sea shores which is being called ‘combustible ice’ or flammable ice’.
In reality it is the flammable gas methane hydrate which is trapped in ice crystals and China has become the first & only country to extract & convert it. The extraction is being done on a floating platform which is 300 km away from Hong Kong in the Shenhu area of South China Sea.
US, Canada, & Japan were also involved in similar researchers and were hoping for a breakthrough. Japan was also successful to extract natural gas in some tests which were conducted on a ship and hopes to start production in a month.
Chinese production test was different from Japan because it followed the production technique by continuous extraction of gas, Japan is planning to do so in few weeks.
China also built a land platform in Tibetan Plateau which is known to have abundant methane hydrate trapped under the snow.