Japan has moved closer to unlocking a potential new energy source, after a research group extracted methane gas from frozen undersea deposits for the first time. 日本一个研究机构从冻结的海底沉积物中首次提取出了甲烷气体，这意味着日本距离开发一种潜在新能源又近了一步。

Japanese officials hope the achievement, in a test conducted off Japan’s central Pacific coast, will win their resource-poor nation a measure of energy independence. It was announced a day after the second anniversary of the Fukushima earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis that crippled the country’s atomic power industry and exposed its lack of domestic energy sources. 这一实验在日本太平洋海岸中段附近展开，日本官方期待这一进展能令资源匮乏的日本获得一定程度的能源独立性。公布这一消息的前一天正值日本福岛地震两周年纪念日，日本福岛地震引发的海啸和核危机对日本原子能工业造成了巨大打击，暴露了日本国内缺乏能源的现状。

The Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation said yesterday it had successfully extracted gas from deposits of methane hydrate, a hyper-abundant mix of frozen water and methane sometimes called “fire ice”. Countries including the US and Canada are also conducting research on methane hydrate, which experts say is at least twice as plentiful as all known reserves of natural gas. 昨天，日本石油天然气金属矿产资源机构(JOGMEC)宣布，该机构已成功从含有甲烷水合物的沉积物中提取出天然气。甲烷水合物是一种由冻结的水与甲烷组成的混合物，有时被称为“可燃冰”(fire ice)，这种水合物储量极其丰富。包括美国和加拿大在内的国家也在开展有关甲烷水合物的研究，专家表示这种资源的储量至少是所有已知天然气储量的两倍以上。

Prospects for commercial extraction remain far from certain. But Ryo Minami, director of the oil and gas division at Japan’s Agency for Natural Resources, compared methane hydrate to shale gas, the once-marginal resource which is transforming the US energy market: 甲烷水合物的商业开采前景还远不够明朗。不过日本自然资源与能源厅(Agency for Natural Resources and Energy)石油天然气司主任Ryo Minami将甲烷水合物与页岩气相提并论，页岩气也曾是一种被边缘化的资源，如今却在改变美国的能源市场。

With virtually no conventional fossil fuels of its own and a nuclear industry crippled by Fukushima, Japan has been keen to develop sources of energy, however speculative. The methane trapped in the Nankai trough could replace up to 11 years of LNG imports. 由于日本自身几乎没有任何常规化石燃料，而核能工业又受到了福岛核事故的严重打击，日本一直热衷于开发各种能源，不管有多冒险。对日本来说，南海海槽的甲烷蕴藏量或许可以代替11年的液化天然气进口量。