The Toronto Star reports on a Canadian and Japanese team that has successfully removed gas from methane hydrate. This by itself isn't news -- the gas releases itself at room temperature. What is news is how the team has managed to get a sustained flow of gas from the material, making it usable.

Heat or unsqueeze the hydrate and gas is released. Hold a core sample to your ear and it hisses.

More significant is the fact that gas hydrates concentrate 164 times the energy of the same amount of natural gas.

And gas hydrate fields are found in abundance under the coastal waters of every continent. Calculations suggest there's more energy in gas hydrates than in coal, oil and conventional gas combined.

I'm reminded of Curtis Rist's Discover article in 1999 about how we'll never run out of oil. Hilariously, oil is now more than $100 a barrel.