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Microbes possibly feeding on the remains of an ancient forest may be generating billions of tons of methane deep beneath Antarctic ice, a new study suggests. The amount of this greenhouse gas — which would exist in the form of a frozen latticelike substance called methane hydrate — lurking beneath the ice sheet rivals that stored in the world's oceans, the researchers said. If the ice sheet collapses, the greenhouse gas could be released into the atmosphere and dramatically worsen global warming, researchers warn in a study published in the Aug. 30 issue of the journal Nature. "There could be...

An international team of researchers has discovered a methane-consuming microorganism that lives in extremely acidic conditions. The bacterium could one day be used to reduce methane gas emissions from landfills. It could also help to cut methane emissions from geothermal power stations. Aerobic methanotrophic bacteria (methanotrophs) consume methane diffusing away from methane-producing zones of soil and sediment. Some environments with active methane cycles—such as marshes and peat bogs—are very acidic; however, no cultured methanotroph grows optimally below pH 5. By contrast, the new bacterium is extremely acidophilic, and grows optimally at pH 2.0-2.5. Unlike known methanotrophs, which belong to the...

Ever since M. King Hubbert in the 1950s convinced a lot of people with his "peak oil" theory that production would collapse and we'd eventually exhaust our crude supplies, the clock has been running. And running. And it will continue to run for some time, as technology and new discoveries show that there's still an ocean of oil under our feet. [snip] A BP official told the magazine that "energy resources are plentiful. Concerns over running out of oil and gas have disappeared." Things are so good, in fact, that Engineering and Technology says "with the use of the innovative...

===================================================================================================================== Textbooks on methane-metabolising organisms might have to be rewritten after researchers in a University of Queensland-led international project today (23 October) announced the discovery of two new organisms. Deputy Head of UQ's Australian Centre for Ecogenomics in the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences Associate Professor Gene Tyson said these new organisms played an unknown role in greenhouse gas emissions and consumption. "We sampled the microorganisms in the water from a deep coal seam aquifer 600m below the earth's surface in the Surat Basin, near Roma, Queensland, and reconstructed genomes of organisms able to perform methane metabolism," Associate...

Living deep underground ain't easy. In addition to hellish temperatures and pressures, there's not a lot to eat. Which is why oil reservoirs are the microbes' cornucopia in this hidden realm. Microbes feast on many oil reservoirs, but it has been unclear how the microorganisms got to those locales. One proposal has been that the microbes colonize a pool of dead algae corpses and then go along for the ride as the pool gets buried deeper and deeper and the algae slowly become oil. That's the so-called "burial and isolation" hypothesis. But under that set of rules each pool of...

Explanation: What's creating methane on Mars? Recent measurements from the robotic Curiosity rover currently rolling across Mars indicate a surprising 10-fold increase in atmospheric methane between measurements only months apart. Life is a major producer of methane on Earth, and so speculation is rampant that some sort of life -- possibly microbial life -- is creating methane beneath the surface of Mars. Other possibilities do exist, though, with a leading model being the sudden release of methane produced by the mixing of specific soil chemicals with underground water. Proposed origins of Martian methane are depicted in the featured illustration. The...

Geologist: Earth has lots and lots of oil SPOKANE, Wash., Oct. 20 (UPI) -- A University of Washington economic geologist says there is lots of crude oil left for human use. Eric Cheney said Friday in a news release that changing economics, technological advances and efforts such as recycling and substitution make the world's mineral resources virtually infinite. For instance, oil deposits unreachable 40 years ago can be tapped using improved technology, and oil once too costly to extract from tar sands, organic matter or coal is now worth manufacturing. Though some resources might be costlier now, they still are...

OTTAWA — You will have noticed the marked decline these days in the number of "peak oil" people making cataclysmic pronouncements. Global oil production set records throughout 2006 -- for all-time highest production day, month, quarter and year. For the single-year record, production reached 31.3 Gb (billion barrels), an average of 85.2 million barrels a day. Affirming the trend, production set a new global single-day record before the end of January, 2007. Along with record-setting production came record-setting increases in reserves -- moving "peak oil" deeper into the century and ultimately beyond. The "peak oil" hypothesis, relentlessly propounded for decades,...

The debate over "Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil" has begun to take familiar lines. "Peak oil" adherents continue to insist that oil resources worldwide are depleting. This mantra is repeated almost like an article of faith. Ever since M. King Hubbert drew his first "peak-production" curve, statements of this tenet are easy to find. Typically, the "Peak-Production" theory is articulated as so well established that further proof is not needed. "Peak production" statements abound in publication. Consider this example written by an energy consultant in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Petroleum reserves...

<p>On April 16, Newsday, the Long Island newspaper, published a startling report that old oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico were somehow being refilled. That is, new oil was being discovered in fields where it previously had not existed.</p>

Following the publication of "Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil," Craig Smith and I have received e-mails from Alexander A. Kitchka, a Russian research scientist who is a member of the National Academy of Science in the Ukrane and the secretary of the Association of Ukranian Geologists. Kitchka's research strongly supports the abiotic, "Deep-Earth" theory of the origin of oil. In October 2005, Kitchka co-chaired a half-day international conference, titled "Origin of Petroleum Conference," held during the annual meeting of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, in Calgary, Canada, June 19-25, 2005. The three...

The ancient sea floor was discovered in southwest Greenland A sliver of four-billion-year-old sea floor has offered a glimpse into the inner workings of an adolescent Earth.The baked and twisted rocks, now part of Greenland, show the earliest evidence of plate tectonics, colossal movements of the planet's outer shell. Until now, researchers were unable to say when the process, which explains how oceans and continents form, began. The unique find, described in the journal Science, shows the movements started soon after the planet formed. "Since the plate tectonic paradigm is the framework in which we interpret all modern-day geology,...

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. - (KRT) - Scientists may have discovered a new source of fuel far below the Earth's surface. Fossil fuels get their name from the ancient plants and animals that decayed to form oil, gas and coal. But now scientists have created methane gas without any biological matter, suggesting that the fossil fuel supply may not be entirely dependent on fossils after all.The research opens up the possibility of a vast reservoir of methane gas more than 60 miles below the Earth's surface and could also help scientists hunting for signs of life on Mars and other planets."There...

As the great research ship Chikyu left Shimizu in January to mine the explosive ice beneath the Philippine Sea, chances are good that not one of the scientists aboard realized they might be closing the door on Winston Churchill’s world. Their lack of knowledge is unsurprising; beyond the ranks of petroleum-industry historians, Churchill’s outsize role in the history of energy is insufficiently appreciated. Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911. With characteristic vigor and verve, he set about modernizing the Royal Navy, jewel of the empire. The revamped fleet, he proclaimed, should be fueled...

Rapidly rising gas prices at the pump have turned up the heat on Barack Obama.  Interestingly, the Administration that just three years ago said it was committed to policies that would cause energy prices to “skyrocket” and get our gas prices “to the levels in Europe,” now says there isn’t much they can do about rising costs to consumers. One of the many falsehoods that the President and his anti-fossil fuel allies like to perpetuate is that the U.S. is about run out of reserves.  “But you and I both know that with only 2% of the world’s oil reserve,...

BASEL, Switzerland (AP) When tremors started cracking walls and bathroom tiles in this Swiss city on the Rhine, engineers knew they had a problem. "The glass vases on the shelf rattled, and there was a loud bang," recalled Catherine Wueest, a tea-shop owner. "I thought a truck had crashed into the building." But the magnitude 3.4 tremor on the evening of Dec. 8 was no ordinary act of nature: It had been accidentally triggered by engineers drilling deep into the Earth's crust to tap its inner heat and thus break new ground — literally — in the world's search for...

The oil and gas that fuels our homes and cars started out as living organisms that died, were compressed, and heated under heavy layers of sediments in the Earth's crust. Scientists have debated for years whether some of these hydrocarbons could also have been created deeper in the Earth and formed without organic matter. Now for the first time, scientists have found that ethane and heavier hydrocarbons can be synthesized under the pressure-temperature conditions of the upper mantle —the layer of Earth under the crust and on top of the core. The research was conducted by scientists at the Carnegie...

<p>It is hard to imagine how our grandparents and great-grandparents lived at the end of the 19th century. The United States was still largely a rural society, and the amenities we take for granted today were unknown then.</p> <p>Most people lived on farms. Few Americans had running water, bathtubs, hot water, or flush toilets. Central heating, electricity and telephones were rare. There were no antibiotics. Infant mortality was high, and life expectancy was 30 years lower than it is today. For most people, educational opportunities were very limited. In 1890, only 5 percent of the eligible population attended high school.</p>

In a world running low on oil, several countries are still sitting on massive supplies. If only they could get to them. The Ferdows, Mound, and Zageh Fields Location: The Persian Gulf, off the coast of southern Iran Estimated Reserves: 38 billion barrels Details: Discovered in 2003, these three interconnected fields are among the largest oil deposits ever found. Ferdows is the largest, with 30.6 billion barrels. This figure may seem astounding, but it’s usually not possible to extract all the oil from a field due to technological and financial constraints. Plus, assessing how much oil these deposits can actually...

You’ve heard that we’re running out of oil. You’ve heard that natural gas has a finite and ever-shortening supply. The media has been reporting on Peak Oil for decades, and the peak has always been just around the next corner. But what if that weren’t true, and for practical purposes, the US has an unlimited supply of fossil fuel for its energy needs? Would that not undercut the entire notion of an energy crisis, except as self-inflicted?Get ready for a paradigm change, courtesy of … Salon? (via Ace) Are we living at the beginning of the Age of Fossil Fuels,...