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Realtime gas formation discovered
(11/16/2004 - OGI: Denver) Researchers at LUCA Technologies revealed today
their discovery regarding natural gas production in Wyoming's Powder River
Basin that they say could lead to a renewable source of energy for
generations to come.
LUCA said evidence shows that the Powder River Basin (PRB) coals are
generating natural gas in realtime through the ongoing activity of anaerobic
microbes (bacteria that live in the absence of oxygen) resident in those
coalfields. The company has termed sites where this microbial conversion of
hydrocarbon deposits (coals, organic shales, or oil) to methane occurs
"geobioreactors," and believes the careful management of such sites may
offer a new long-term solution to energy needs.
Robert Pfeiffer, LUCA Technologies president and CEO, said, "Our research on
native coal, water, and microbial samples from the PRB has determined that
PRB coals can produce natural gas in realtime. This finding suggests that
the gas in the PRB need not be an ancient remnant of microbial activity, as
generally believed, but instead is being actively created today. Moreover,
we can increase or decrease methane production by PRB microbes by altering
their access to water or nutrients, or halt gas production entirely by
exposing the organisms to oxygen or heat sterilization. This finding holds
the potential of turning what is today thought to be a finite energy
resource into a renewable source of natural gas that could potentially go on
for hundreds of years."
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LUCA laboratory researcher. |
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Coalbed methane rig in Powder River Basin. |
LUCA believes that in order to attempt to maximize the ultimate recovery of
methane from this potentially enormous natural energy resource it will be
necessary to amend certain current operating practices as well as review
current legal and regulatory underpinnings of energy development. The
company is currently discussing its findings with Wyoming and US national
agencies, as well as with major energy companies working in the PRB region.
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Gas generating bacteria on Powder River Basin coal sample. |
Microbial methane production from coal
It has long been known that certain ancient microorganisms are
"methanogens" -- microbes that generate methane by metabolizing other
hydrocarbon sources. While it has also been generally accepted that much of
the methane resident in coal fields was produced by such organisms, most of
this production was thought to have occurred millions of years ago, when the
hydrocarbon deposits were less mature and closer to the surface of the
earth.
More recently, however, research has suggested that living methanogenic
organisms may be present and actively forming methane within some major
coalfields. LUCA scientists, employing the tools of modern biotechnology and
genomics, have confirmed the presence of such microbes within anaerobic core
samples from the PRB. In addition to demonstrating that methane production
by these microbes can be stimulated by the introduction of additional
nutrient compounds, or suppressed by heat sterilization or the introduction
of oxygen, LUCA has shown that radio-labeled CO2 (carbon dioxide) introduced
to these PWB core samples is converted to radio-labeled methane. This
demonstrates that the methane formation is the result of a biological
process occurring today.
"The United States has enormous amounts of buried hydrocarbon reserves, many
of which cannot be extracted in an economically or environmentally benign
fashion with current technologies and production practices," said Pfeiffer.
"Any of these settings, given the right set of conditions, has the potential
to produce biogenic methane in a long-term, sustainable fashion."
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