China, plans to spend 800 million yuan (100 million US dollars) over the next 10 years to study next-generation fuel, natural gas hydrates, that could possibly ease the nation's increasing reliance on oil imports in the long run, People’s Daily reported. The country expects technology to be viable between 2010 and 2015 for the trial exploration of the new energy source, a crystalline compound of water and natural gas with methane as its major ingredient, said the paper, quoted an industry report posted on the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) website as saying. Further technical breakthroughs need to be made before the fuel can be commercially developed. "Like hydrogen technology, the gas hydrates development is still at a very nascent stage, and we need to do a lot more work to get it onto the ground," said Ni Weidou, chairman of the Tsinghua-BP Clean Energy Research and Education Centre. "Meanwhile, we cannot rule out the possibility of finding another source which is competitive with gas hydrates in the future." Ni said coal-to-fuel technologies would be the most feasible to address concerns over the price of oil and dirty coal.