China Works To Control Environmental Pollution In The Pearl River Delta (Photo : Getty Images)
Indonesia became the latest Asian nation to tell China it is not about to yield territories in the South China Sea when President Joko Widodo visited the Natuna Island last week.
However, even with the U.N.’s Permanent Court of Arbitration set to rule by July 7 the question who owns Scarborough Shoal, the discovery by the China Geological Survey of combustible ice in South China Sea would surely make Beijing insist more that disputed islands in the regions belong to China.
South China Morning Post reported that the survey found the fire ice near the mouth basin of the Pearl River. The discovery could be a major step in the development of the ice, a highly pure fuel, as a potential energy source for China.
Estimates placed the volume of natural gas in the area at 100 to 150 billion cubic meters. It is in an area about 350 square kilometers with cold springs 1,350 to 1,430 meters below the sea surface.
Three missions by the survey since May 2015 led to the discovery of the natural resource. Mostly found on the edge of continental shelves where the seabed dips sharply into the ocean floor, methane hydrate, or combustible ice, are ice crystals with gas trapped inside.
Since it is compressed, one cubic meter would actually contain 164 cubic meters of regular natural gas. To explore the area, the survey deployed Seahorse, a vessel capable of diving 4,500 meters.
According to Inhabitat, in 2010, China also discovered fire ice on the tundra of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The find was equivalent to at least 35 billion tons of oil, sufficient to supply China 90 years worth of energy.
