The Department of Energy has successfully completed an unprecedented test of harvesting the vast storehouse on Alaska’s North Slope of methane hydrate, essentially natural gas locked in ice crystals under the permafrost.

 Producing methane hydrate is still a long way from being commercial, but the potential is huge.The DOE said there is the potential that the technique  eventually unlock massive reservoirs of methane hydrates believed to exist under the ocean floor in places like the Gulf of Mexico.