Microbes + Coal = Natural Gas

I just returned from the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit where I moderated a panel on Cleantech. The topic was "Where's the leverage in Greentech?" and the panelists were Steve Jurvetson (DFJ), Bill Green (VPVP), Erik Straser (MDV) and Hale Boggs (Mannatt). The discussion was primarily around the trends in the industry and the perspective of the venture community. We talked about renewable fuels, electric vehicles, the solar industy and some other sectors. We only had 45 minutes which is definitely not enough to discuss leverage in cleantech.

One of the discussion topics which really caught my attention was the work of mother nature and the effect of synthetic biology on the future of energy. Steve Jurvetson said that its possible today to feed microbes to coal beds in order to produce an endless supply of methane gas. Of course, due to time constraints, we couldnt discuss it in a lot of detail, so I first caught up with him backstage and then rushed home that evening to do a lot of my own research (For those of you who dont know me, I am a big fan of biology).

It turns out that a conversion of just 3% of hydrocarbon substrates to methane can produce as much as 1000 Trillion Cubic feet of natural gas which is almost 40 years worth of U.S. natural gas supply!!

Here is how that works. In the absence of oxygen, a water-saturated environment and an abundant coal-bed, the natural populations of some of the oldest living micro-organisms, which have evolved over billions of years and currently exist in many deposits, feed on complex hydrocarbon molecules to yield methane (natural gas). If this science is successful on a mass scale, we will be surely on our way not only to an abundant supply of natural gas but also to the hydrogen economy; as the most cost-effective way to extract hydrogen is to remove carbon from the methane (CH4) molecules.

There are several companies working on enhancing the microbial process at different identified sites in the US. One of these companies is Synthetic Genomics which is based in San Diego and DFJ is an investor in the firm.

The Stanford discussion can be viewed at:- http://alwayson.goingon.com/page/display/28097?param=session/321. Also, check out the provocative comments by Bill Green about achieving our energy independence in 10 years and hear Erik Straser talking about an opportunity to get some libraries and schools named after you.