Could it be an energy game changer? China‘s maritime aggression in the South China Sea, part of its “ocean power” strategy, is about controlling major untapped undersea resources as much as it is about military positioning.
And in addition to a wealth of minerals such as cobalt and nickel, vital for electronics, batteries and renewable energy technologies, one other resource in particular has intrigued scientists.
In 2015, Chinese researchers identified massive deposits of potent methane hydrates, or “flammable ice,” beneath the South China Sea that exists as an ice-like solid of frozen methane and water.
As Popular Mechanics explains:
When the ice is burned to release the gas, it releases 50 percent fewer carbon emissions than coal, making it preferable to traditional fossil fuels like coal and oil. However, methane is also a greenhouse gas that could significantly speed up climate change if it’s accidentally released in large quantities. Since finding large deposits of the trapped gas, China has been working on formulating a way to extract it carefully. It could take several years to figure out a way to safely remove flammable ice for industrial use…
If properly mined for safely and efficiently burning, the frozen fossil fuel could be an energy breakthrough, propelling China into a global energy leader.
The Chinese government believes there are 70 billion tons of methane waiting to be tapped at that sea bottom.
If they could access that, it would boost their current gas and oil reserves by half.
And to achieve that, China is building the world’s first deep-sea manned exploration and monitoring station a mile deep (6,500 ft) in the contested South China Sea to, among other scientific projects, explore and exploit that fuel.
This could cement China as a maritime and energy powerhouse.
Due to its depth and remoteness, researchers involved in the project are calling the lab, which is expected to be operational by 2030, a “deep-sea space station.”
The facility, weighing 600 tons, known as the Research Facility of Cold-seep Ecosystem, is being developed by the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
No light reaches this depth, and pressure there is 200 times that at sea level. Scientists, who will spend a month undersea at the station, will need a long-term life support system that can work within these extreme conditions.
And it will be tied into China’s sprawling fiber-optic web that is laid across the seabed. Scientists have not revealed how they will power the huge facility, but nuclear energy is a possibility.
It is still uncertain exactly where China intends to anchor the submersible, but if it is in the South China Sea (SCS), it could cause severe tensions with the U.S. and other nations keen on denying China claims over the whole of SCS.
Popular Mechanics concludes:
Ultimately, the base could provide the country an additional, powerful tool to control maritime operations in the South China Sea, where several neighboring countries jockey for power, including Vietnam, Taiwan, and the Philippines. If China establishes a permanent underwater presence, it will be a way to justify long-term military operations to protect these assets, which could further escalate geopolitical tensions. And, the combined monitoring power of the station could give China greater maritime surveillance capabilities to track movements of other countries’ vessels in the sea.
