TimmyHFuel from Coal-Eating Microbes
January 8th 2009 23:13
A process for converting coal into natural gas could help reduce emissions.
Luca Technologies, a startup based in Golden, CO, has raised $76 million to scale up a process that uses coal-digesting microorganisms to convert coal into methane. The process is designed to operate underground, inside coal beds. Methane, the key component of natural gas, can then be pumped out and used to generate electricity or power vehicles.
If the process proves economical, it could help reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, since burning natural gas releases half as much carbon dioxide as does burning coal. It could also reduce or eliminate the anticipated need to import natural gas in the future, says Gary Stiegel, the technology manager for gasification at the National Energy Technology Laboratory, in Philadelphia. As little as one-hundredth of 1 percent of the coal in the United States converted into methane by microbes would supply the country's current annual natural-gas demands, says Andrew Scott, a former professor of economic geology at the University of Texas at Austin. Scott is the founder of Altuda Energy Corporation, based in San Antonio, TX, which is developing a similar process.
By Kevin Bullis
READ MORE HERE
Really Long Link
Gas bugs: Methane-generating bacteria on a coal sample from Wyoming's Powder River Basin, viewed by scanning electron microscopy. Credit: Luca Technologies
If the process proves economical, it could help reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, since burning natural gas releases half as much carbon dioxide as does burning coal. It could also reduce or eliminate the anticipated need to import natural gas in the future, says Gary Stiegel, the technology manager for gasification at the National Energy Technology Laboratory, in Philadelphia. As little as one-hundredth of 1 percent of the coal in the United States converted into methane by microbes would supply the country's current annual natural-gas demands, says Andrew Scott, a former professor of economic geology at the University of Texas at Austin. Scott is the founder of Altuda Energy Corporation, based in San Antonio, TX, which is developing a similar process.
By Kevin Bullis
READ MORE HERE
Really Long Link
| 34 |
| Vote |
