Bacteria Found Turning Coal and Carbon into Cleaner Natural Gas
Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - 10:50
in Earth & Climate
It's been a big week for bacteria. Last week, a Canadian geo-scientist proposed using carbon-eating, methane-excreting microbes to turn crude into cleaner natural gas while still in the well. Now, researchers have found similar bacteria rapidly turning a CO2-filled coal mine into a veritable methane factory, blending CO2 and hydrogen atoms in the coal into natural gas, sans environmentally harmful mining.