The Ice That Burns

Really, its called methane hydrate and is methane gas trapped in ice crystals and is a vast new form of potential energy reserves found in the earth's crust and once again Alaska has it in abundance. It is natural gas locked in a previously unexplored form and the potential is there for there to be far more of it than any other form of conventional oil or gas. This is fascinating stuff and I am surprised I had not heard of it before today, thanks to Ed Morrisey I now have. The commenters also left some very interesting links to government sites about the ongoing R&D into this resource, this one in particular.

Natural gas burns much cleaner than traditional gas or coal and requires less expense to refine for consumption with a far higher energy return. Traditional internal combustion engines can be converted over to run on natural gas. T. Boone Pickens' plan dovetails nicely with this as it called to convert much of our auto fleet to natural gas and that would work if we also move to nuclear power for the bulk of electricity production and not wind as his plan suggested. Heck if France can generate 70% of its electricity with nuclear power then why can't we?

The energy sector alone can generate hundreds of thousands of new high paying jobs and keep hundreds of billions of dollars in our economy instead of sending them overseas. The best way to stimulate our economy would be to set the energy sector free and remove the tax of high energy prices from the producers. We can do this and take care of the environment at the same time.