| Sourced From |
A research team has succeeded in converting carbon dioxide into methane, the primary ingredient of natural gas, in subterranean conditions, it has been announced.
The discovery, made by a team led by the University of Tokyo’s Department of Systems Innovation professor Kozo Sato and revealed at the 2009 Japan Geoscience Union Meeting, could be applied to carbon dioxide that has been captured and sequestered underground. Carbon capture and sequestration has caught the attention of many nations as a method of reducing the amount of CO2 — the main culprit behind global warming — released into the atmosphere.
“We can now see it may be possible to create a system that captures and then recycles carbon dioxide emissions into an energy resource,” says Sato.
The research team used a type of bacterium called methanothermobacter, found in dried up oil wells, which converts water and carbon dioxide into methane. If six conditions are maintained, including a temperature of 65 degrees Celsius and a CO2 concentration of 80 percent, the bacteria will produce methane.
Research results delivered a methane production rate about 3 percent lower than what could be expected under optimal conditions. However, the team believes that if the bacteria were introduced to Akita Prefecture’s Yabase oil fields, which could sequester an estimated 6.2 million tons of CO2, around 2.25 million tons of methane could be produced over an eight year period. That is around equal to the amount of natural gas extracted domestically in a single year, and about 8 percent of the natural gas manufactured in Japan annually, including from imported liquefied natural gas.