It looks like natural gas is the way to go. That being said, watch out for the usual suspects trying to throttle its development in the name of 'safety'.

Maybe they could just feed the coal to cows.

I can turn a bowl of baked beans into methane. I not sure how they could harvest it though.

There have been a few books and movies in which someone invents a bacteria which eats plastic waste or oil spills, and then the bacteria gets loose with predictable results. Expect to see a lot more if this looks as if it well take off. A few of the Greenies have been honest enough to admit that their worst fear is clean, safe power.

There is a lot of potential here. These organisms probably are creating the next gen oil and gas fields. It does'n't hurt to figure out a way to accelerate these processes.

Good point about cows (and termites). If you could use the bacteria and stuff in cows and termites, you might find a really efficient way of getting methane from grass, corn, wood, etc. I read an article in some paper about a Canadian scientist who is working on reducing the methane produced by cows. It turns out that cows finished with corn (to fatten them up fast and increase marbling) create much more methane than grass fed cattle and that 75% of the methane from the cow is belched out and not farted out. So I'm thinking that instead of trying to reduce the methane from cows, why not work on breeding cows to maximize methane output then train them so that when they feel a belch or fart coming on they can run up to a methane gathering station where they can stick their arses up against a methane gathering device optimized for cow backsides and fart intake and then they can stick their heads into a similar belch methane gathering device. We'd then have natural gas until the cows come home.

Cconn, quick, open the windows. I think you have been breathing too much of Largs' baked bean methane. Besides, it is better to pipeline the gas from the cows than bring them home.

Actually, ccon, something not too far removed from what you suggest has already been successfully tried in some cattle/dairy operations; using fermenting manure, some operations have been able to generate enough gas to run their own electrical utilities AND feed excess back into the grid. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to capture burps/farts within a large barn or shelter to add to that as well.

SDC but that isn't nearly as funny.

This is exactly why grand government schemes to save the environment should be immediately scrapped and all the money used to support them returned to taxpayers.

We really have no idea what the future will bring but we can be sure that future will not be brought to us by a bunch of bureaucrats.

If we're going to re-engineer cows, I say make 'em all delish USDA Prime/Canada AAA and eliminate the possibility of lower grades.

This discovery has promise and if practical will be squashed with all the political and corporate might the pan-global CO2 grifter's syndicate can summon. If it can be utilized to alleviate the political stress and economic plunder exerted on middle class resource consumption, it will be suppressed for several reasons:

* Green sustainability tech that actually works is the antithesis of green-sustainability political intent. The agenda is to use climate and resource fear mongering to make the western middle class economically and politically DEPENDENT not INDEPENDENT. Any technology that allows the middle class to retain control over their lifestyle and property must be squashed by climate politics.

* There is no profit in solutions, only in crisis. Crisis-shortage-guilt creation and the subsequent economic and political looting it affords the crisis makers, is the NEW capitalism. There is no room for positive innovation, which sells on the self-confident guiltless response, in a market place that sells on the unconfident guilt -fear response.

* A cheap, abundant and easy to access energy source means more energy freedom and, by extension, a subsequent increase in population that consumer technological innovation always brings. The core concept behind sustainability fascism is incremental depopulation. So any technology that creates a comfortable lifestyle for most people must be opposed.

* Because green politics has not yet learned that the Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stones, true innovative end user driven technological evolution will be repressed.

* Sustainability politics promote technologies driven by desperation, when reliable solutions have always come from technology driven by innovation. Innovation is a byproduct of broad demand capitalism where desperation tech is a product of command economics. Command economics have historically failed as predictably as the mediocre technologies they create.

* Conceivably, genetic tech innovation could create specialized micro organisms which could make usable energy from any organic or inorganic refuse. This literally solves the sustainability issues of resource cataclysm which spawned green authoritarianism. However, the control freaks in the climate-green doom cult have the trump card - carbon creation. Since we have allowed politically corrupted science to demonize CO2 as a toxic substance all forms of organic energy exchange were stigmatized as sources of poison gas which is killing the earth. That includes human respiration and organic decay from microbial metabolic output. The CO2 dooms day hypothesis which regulators, taxers and law makers dote on, condemns the entire bio mass as a [culprit] source of climate catastrophe.

You just can't please the climate cult as long as you are alive.

Craig Venter, the controversial American scientist who helped decode the human genome, has announced the discovery of ancient bacteria that can turn coal into methane, suggesting they may help to solve the world’s energy crisis.

Meanwhile, Al Gore, the controversial American gas-bag who says he didn't raise funds at the White House, has announced that turning coal into methane isn't a good idea, because he won't get as much press.

Not surprised at the "discovery". The timeline to commercialization could be very long indeed. Mechanical and chemical means of in situ production of gas fromcoal seem much morelikely in the near-term.

I think this microbiological tactic of obtaining methane gas from coal bed seams is known. But as with all technologies, there are complex issues involved.

These coal beds are frequently associated with deep water aquifers and the extraction of the gas co-produces the water which then affects crop irrigation - as the water gets an overconcentration of saline and sodium.

And using the microbiological organism produces, if I have read previous articles correctly, large amounts of...CO2, that infamous evil of the AGW crowd.

I can see it now. Suzuki wanting to tax bug farts. Watch for it.

Ventor is controversial because he founded a private firm to sequence the human genome.

I remember being in academia at the time, in the field and all the academics were annoyed because this guy had solved the genome in much much less time than the public system was doing it.

Instead of applauding him for his efforts there was a lot of jealous condemnation.

voltaire, you bastard - you nailed it but good !!

"These organisms probably are creating the next gen oil and gas fields."

Posted by: cconn at June 29, 2009 8:21 AM

Sounds like you've bought into a theory, similar to the old abiotic oil fantasy. There is no next generation of oil and gas fields. When it's gone, it's gone. Oil, and human existence, have an expiry date.

The problem will be delivering the bacteria to the production zone. The speed they break down the coal, and the size of the zone will determine the volume of gas produced.

Natural gas is easy to produce, because it's under extreme pressure. Methane produced from coal is very low pressure. How will they get it to the surface, and into pipelines?

Don't worry, there are answers to these questions. I'm sure there are plans already in place. Encana, and others, have invested in coalbed methane exploration, in Alberta. Most of the original excitement has fizzled, because of low prices, but the technology is there. They drill into naturally occuring methane within the coalbed. Perhaps this bacteria could be used to speed up the process?

One advantage to coalbed methane is, it usually isn't "wet". Natural gas tends to collect water from deep, salt water formations. It has to be re-injected, at fairly high cost. These formations should not be confused with fresh water aquifers used for human consumption.

It's wise to keep in mind, the yield is going to be fairly low. It's expensive, and energy consuming, to produce this methane. At today's price, and with demand low, the cost is prohibitive.

This is just an evil plot by algore to destroy all the coal with monster bugs so we have to buy windmills off his carbon offset company.

Algore: the first Kyoto billionaire.
Public: the first casualty.

;)

Just as long as the bacteria doesn't wipe out all the coal we should be good.

Also, what's all this talk about methane? We've seen in movies how well this capturing of animal methane leads to wonderful progressive societies.

Who rules Bartertown?

Largs, you do not turn beans into methane, bacterias in you colon do.

Other than that, this story is exciting. But realistic? Probably not. If these bacteria are so good, there'd be no coal left, only gas.

[quote]This discovery has promise and if practical will be squashed with all the political and corporate might the pan-global CO2 grifter's syndicate can summon[/quote] Voltaires Bastard

Yes! but think of the poor bastard underwriting Carbon Credits.... gore just took a hit.. more to come... hurry! hurry! watch the Obama man go into the vortex. This is the Night Mare when positive Scientific News will destroy(long)speculators

Good thing the MSM has shit in thier nest...(They would have to kill Science)...so sad!

What's hilarious in all this is the basic atmospheric science involved. CO2 is of no concern because its effects are at saturation, while those of CH4 are not. If a human-induced atmospheric warming effect can be created at all, it's by methane release, not CO2 release.

In short, in the AGWer's context, this proposes to take a harmless gas emission and release a much more potent one. Unless of course you believe that all of the methane will be captured and none will be released. Oh, and I've got a TransCaucasus pipeline for sale.

What's singularly missing in all this of course is any good estimate of either scale or cost. After all, if it turns out you can only produce tea-cup amounts, it's irrelevant. Might want to look out for side effects too. It's probably a bad thing if the micro-organism turns out to have human health consequences.

dp, the gas will have to be sucked out by compression; hence there may be considerable cost to this even if it has a net energy benefit.

It's just a matter of time before eco-terrorists sabotage coal bed deposits with millions of crushed-up "Beano" tablets. You heard it here first.

Tregonsee
***......A few of the Greenies have been honest enough to admit that their worst fear is clean, safe power......***
Therein lies the problem!!!!!!

If anyone who has not seen the TED talks, here is one with Venter, and a second related one with Juan Enriquez

http://www.ted.com/talks/craig_venter_is_on_the_verge_of_creating_synthetic_life.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriquez_wants_to_grow_energy.html

voltaire, you bastard you said it perfectly and great too