Energy & Green Tech

Cow manure fuels French tractors

A French farmer steps away from his barn and fills up a tractor with fuel made from the manure of his cows, an attempt to put their climate-damaging methane to good use.

Energy & Green Tech

A natural gas bridge to net zero?

Destenie Nock, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and engineering and public policy in Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering, has co-authored a study that helps illuminate the future ...

Energy & Green Tech

Increasing methane yield from biogas plants

Biogas plants produce methane along with more than 40% CO2 which has been released into the atmosphere in conventional biogas plants. Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Microengineering and Microsystems IMM have ...

Energy & Green Tech

Reducing methane emissions at landfills

The second-largest driver of global warming is methane, a greenhouse gas 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Landfills are a major source of methane, which is created when organic material decomposes underground.

Energy & Green Tech

'Serious threat' of fugitive emissions with hydrogen plan

Australia's plans to produce hydrogen using fossil fuels carries significant risks and could create an industry that leads to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) ...

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Methane

Methane is a chemical compound with the molecular formula CH4. It is the simplest alkane, and the principal component of natural gas. Methane's bond angles are 109.5 degrees. Burning methane in the presence of oxygen produces carbon dioxide and water. The relative abundance of methane and its clean burning process makes it an attractive fuel. However, because it is a gas at normal temperature and pressure, methane is difficult to transport from its source. In its natural gas form, it is generally transported in bulk by pipeline or LNG carriers; few countries transport it by truck.

Methane was discovered and isolated by Alessandro Volta between 1776 and 1778 when studying marsh gas from Lake Maggiore.

Methane is a relatively potent greenhouse gas with a high global warming potential of 72 (averaged over 20 years) or 25 (averaged over 100 years). Methane in the atmosphere is eventually oxidized, producing carbon dioxide and water. As a result, methane in the atmosphere has a half life of seven years.

The abundance of methane in the Earth's atmosphere in 1998 was 1745 parts per billion, up from 700 ppb in 1750. Methane can trap about 20 times the heat of CO2. In the same time period, CO2 increased from 278 to 365 parts per million. The radiative forcing effect due to this increase in methane abundance is about one-third of that of the CO2 increase. In addition, there is a large, but unknown, amount of methane in methane clathrates in the ocean floors. The Earth's crust contains huge amounts of methane. Large amounts of methane are produced anaerobically by methanogenesis. Other sources include mud volcanoes, which are connected with deep geological faults, and livestock (primarily cows) from enteric fermentation.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA