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British Petroleum is working with Synthetic Genomics to convert coal directly to methane (the cleanest burning of the fossil fuels) without ever digging the coal out of the ground.

A population of microbes can strip electrons from the coal and do the bioconversion deep underground, without any sunlight, air or thermal flux.

Here in the La Jolla labs, you see various columns of coal and microbial consortia under testing for their conversion capabilities. The natural gas bubbles into the plastic bags.

To gather the microbial consortia, they drilled into a pocket of water trapped in a coal seam. It was rich with life, with 200 species living off each other and happily eating coal a mile underground, with no light or contact with the world. From carbon dating, they concluded that this genetic time capsule has evolved in isolation for 135 million years.

P.S. EDGE has recently put 6 hours of HD video on synthetic biology online. The last two lectures seem the most forward looking. Topics: “What is life, origins of life, in vitro synthetic life, mirror-life, metabolic engineering for hydrocarbons & pharmaceuticals, computational tools, electronic-biological interfaces, nanotech-molecular-manufacturing, biosensors, accelerated lab evolution, engineered personal stem cells, multi-virus-resistant cells, humanized-mice, bringing back extinct species, safety/security policy.”

10 responses to “Biogenic CBM”

  1. angry shock Avatar
    angry shock

    Ok… I have to say it: that sounds like a big artificial GUT you are mimicrying there… Bringing out gas (methane) out of microbial decomposition.

    Am I THAT wrong in the resemblance? heheh…

    Reply
  2. Vanita Avatar
    Vanita

    I wonder what future earthlings will think to do with our million year old garbage seams.

    Reply
  3. -fCh- Avatar
    -fCh-

    Excellent, we are starting to see the silver lining of the recent crises…

    Reply
  4. aeroculus Avatar
    aeroculus

    maybe Thomas Gold will get the (posthumous) recognition he deserves after all

    Reply
  5. TomiTapio Avatar
    TomiTapio

    Wow.

    Reply
  6. rocketmavericks Avatar
    rocketmavericks

    While I am all for this kind of research, I guess I don;t understand the need. We all know that the permafrost layer in Siberia is loaded with so much methane already due to the rotting peat, that the global warming scientists have raised alarm bells that this methane is already being released into the atmosphere.

    http://www.planetextinction.com/planet_extinction_permafrost.htm

    http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-na-global-warming22-2009f...

    Why not just tap those deposits? Why create more of it by developing life forms that we inject into the deposits that are already stable?

    Reply
  7. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    We’d rather not burn fossil fuels, but until that transition happens, gas burns cleaner than coal. Gas kitchen stoves burn it indoors without a hood.

    For outgassing permafrost, I think the problem is capture. The melt is over a huge terrain (Canada and Russia) versus controlled drill holes, yes? it’s a disaster in the making… even vehicle access gets trapped in permafrost roads turned to mud.

    Some earlier discussion here and photos from up there:

    Over Hudson Bay Not so Permafrost

    Reply
  8. angry shock Avatar
    angry shock

    Very interesting last two post… The question of "making" energy, to me, comes to the fundamentals, always, of how much energy do you need to generate-extract-process-deliver that new form of energy? And money is one of the variables of "energy required", but not the only one. Feasablility of course then happens to intervene.

    But, taking the question of using the Siberian existing gas reservoriums, if it’s so complicated as Steve says, I wonder if the aggregate of fuel used by the vehicles needed to do the job of drilling out the gas, and other use of things that might be pollutants and/or scarce… will end up making it hugely inefficient?

    When I think about how inefficiently we generate energy and how even more inefficiently we use it, it’s terrible.

    Reply
  9. mikescottnz Avatar
    mikescottnz

    rocketmavericks makes a good point.

    Reply
  10. avlxyz Avatar
    avlxyz

    nature is pretty darned resourceful!
    somewhere out there is a bug that will eat anything u can think of 🙂

    Reply

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