Microbes can produce abundant source of methane as fuel

September 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Soon, the pavement material that cars drive on may wind up in their fuel tanks, thanks to scientists eyeing a key component of asphalt as a new fuel source. According to the cover story in the current issue of Chemical and Engineering News (C and EN), scientists are seeking ways of transforming asphaltenes - the main component of asphalt - into an abundant new source of fuel.

September 3rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Melting permafrost in arctic regions, triggered by global warming, will release underground methane. Once released, methane would speed up global warming by trapping the earths heat radiation about 20 times more efficiently than the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.

August 13th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has concluded that if there's any life on Mars, it's not likely to exist on or just below the planet's surface because rapid destruction of methane would make the Red Planet's environment too hostile to support life. The discovery of rich plumes of methane on Mars earlier this year fed theories that the planet could host underground colonies of microorganisms.

June 20th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of scientists has found that the highest microbial life on Earth appears to be in South America, around vents near the rim of the Socompa volcano, which sits on the border between Argentina and Chile in the Atacama Desert. The newfound creatures, at a height of almost 19,850 feet (6,050 meters) above sea level, are the highest-altitude microbial communities known, Steve Schmidt, a microbiologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, US, told National Geographic News.

May 11th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists in California, US, are reporting the use of a new bioprocess that could help pave the way for producing biofuels from agricultural waste, easing concerns about stress on the global food supply from using corn and other food crops. The bioprocess involves a first-of-its-kind approach to craft genetically engineered microbes with the much-sought ability to transform switchgrass, corn cobs, and other organic materials into methyl halides - the raw material for making gasoline and a host of other commercially important products.

May 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - University of Alberta researchers have developed a formula to reduce methane gas in cattle, which is a threat to the environment. By developing equations that balance starch, sugar, cellulose, ash, fat and other elements of feed, a Canada-wide team of scientists has given beef producers the tools to lessen the methane gas their cattle produce by as much as 25 per cent.

April 27th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers in the US have made a new electrical device that could improve fuel cell technology by turning carbon dioxide (CO2) into methane, a potential biofuel. According to a report in ABC News, the technique won't combat global warming directly, since both CO2 and methane are potent greenhouse gases, but it could help store alternative energies such as wind and solar more efficiently.

April 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new research by an international team of scientists has determined that an expansion of wetlands and not a large-scale melting of frozen methane deposits is the likely cause of a spike in atmospheric methane gas that took place some 11,600 years ago. The international research team was led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC (University of California) San Diego.

April 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a new research of ice cores by scientists, it has been revealed that a vast, potential source of the potent greenhouse gas, methane, is more stable in a warming world than previously thought. The finding includes Australian contributions from CSIRO and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO).

April 9th, 2009 SYDNEY - The death of methane-producing microbes, among the earth's earliest life forms, gave us oxygen and life in all its complexity, according to a new study. Because they produced methane, a gas which reacts with oxygen, these early microbes prevented the earth's early atmosphere from being oxygenated, said the study's co-author Mark Barley, professor at University of Western Australia's (UWA) School of Earth and Environment.

April 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a new research, scientists have found that a drop in the level of dissolved nickel in seawater may have caused the "Great Oxidation Event" 2.4 billion years ago, in which oxygen levels increased dramatically. The Earth's original atmosphere held very little oxygen, but this began to change around 2.4 billion years ago when oxygen levels increased during what scientists call the "Great Oxidation Event." "The Great Oxidation Event is what irreversibly changed surface environments on Earth and ultimately made advanced life possible," said research team member Dominic Papineau of the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory.

March 31st, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a new research, a team of Penn State engineers has identified a tiny microbe that can take electricity and directly convert carbon dioxide (CO2) and water to methane, producing a portable energy source with a potentially neutral carbon footprint. "We were studying making hydrogen in microbial electrolysis cells and we kept getting all this methane," said Bruce E.

March 30th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a new study, researchers from University College Dublin have achieved a reduction in the amount of methane released by cattle, by including 2 percent fish oil in the diet of the animals. The benefits to animals of omega 3 fatty acids in fish oils have been well documented - helping the heart and circulatory system, improving meat quality and reducing methane emissions.

March 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers have reported that gas hydrates, known as "ice that burns", which is derived from chunks of ice that workers collect from beneath the ocean floor, show increasing promise as an abundant, untapped source of clean, sustainable energy for the future. These so-called "gas hydrates," a frozen form of natural gas that bursts into flames at the touch of a match, may one day may fuel cars, heat homes, and power factories.

January 15th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of NASA scientists has found proof of the existence of methane gas on Mars, raising questions about the possibility of life on the red planet, the US space agency said Thursday. In an article published in the journal Science, researchers said they found seasonal variations in methane in the planet's atmosphere that could be evidence of geological or biological processes.