Given the ever increasing appetite for oil and gas, efforts to find new sources of energy have picked up considerable pace in recent times. The developed countries especially have been looking to become independent on the energy front. While the Middle East remains dominant in oil and gas production, mounting geopolitical risks in those regions means that many countries are looking for alternate sources of energy. The shale gas revolution in the US is one such example. And now Japan has moved closer to unlocking a potential new energy source. This is the extraction of gas from the deposits of methane hydrate. The latter is a mixture of frozen water and methane and is sometimes called 'fire ice'. However, whether this prospect is commercially viable is the key question for Japan. One estimates production costs for methane hydrate-derived gas at about nine times the US benchmark for LNG. Japan, however, can take hope from the fact that the same doubts had earlier lingered over shale gas extraction and which is now being commercialized. Either way, Japan does not consider itself having too much choice. The country has no conventional fossil fuels of its own. Plus its nuclear industry has been in shambles on account of the earthquake and tsunami.