Combustible Ice - A resource that buys us more time or another step to doomsday?

Methane gas hydrate, also named "combustible ice" has been found in huge quantities in the south Chinese Sea bed and China plans to invest some 80 M€ for exploitation. It is also assumed that there are further large quantities of combustible ice in the permafrost of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The total resources are estimated to be twice as large as the total coal, oil and natural gas reserves in the world!  Exploitation is naturally very expensive, about 8 times compared to the natural gas in China today (1$ per cbm compared to 0,125 $ per cbm), but will presumably also have tremendous learning effects once it begins. On top of this China is considering extended use of the more traditional coal-bed methane.

The environmental threats from the use of these resources are however enormous. Both in the burning that inevitably releases more carbon-dioxide but maybe even more the risk of releasing methane to the atmosphere since it is a more powerful GHG than Carbon-dioxide.