Though gifted with beautiful scenery and many natural resources, South Korea is one of the countries that have little to no energy resources. Wood, if forsaking the cries of the trees and the natural habitat it creates, may be in supply, but other than that, South Korea has not even a trace of coal or oil. North Korea, it is rumored, has quite a supply of uranium and other mining resources, but let us set that issue aside as such resource is nearly impossible to receive. Still hard pressed to find suitable energy for our booming economy, the government finally discovered a new energy source near Dokdo, Methane Hydrate.

 Known as ?burning ice?, methane hydrate is a form of natural gas. It was created due to a combination of the fossils of marine creatures, methane gas and great pressure. Simply speaking, high pressure combined with freezing temperature formed ice cubicles each with encasing methane gas. Such formula is similar to dry ice; but when lit, methane hydrate burns, giving a peculiar impression that the ice itself is burning. It is in fact due to the fact that as the temperature rises, the gas could no longer be contained in such a small space. Since liquefied gas is compressed about 200 times, methane hydrate contains nearly 200L of gas in a single liter (It is rumored, that due to this trait, the disappearances of the infamous Bermuda Triangle are due to methane hydrate; even simple temperature rise results in gigantic amount of gas spill, lowering the buoyancy, resulting the ship to sink)

 As it is with nearly all natural gas, methane hydrate is very clean, producing not a large amount of CO2. Yet, extracting solid or liquid for of this gas from ice cubicles is a toiling job, requiring much money and time. Even more, as methane hydrate is normally located in deep seas, a small mistake in extracting the gas can result in a catastrophic disaster to the marine eco system. That is why, though having many advantages, methane hydrate is yet to be in practical use as an alternative energy.