The mine is deserted into a fuel mine by bacteria

Scientists at the University of Arizona (USA) have discovered an interesting thing, in an old coal mine in Louisiana state, CO _2- based bacteria and coal have produced natural gas (CH ₄ ).

This finding has special significance. CO2 does not appear naturally. In the 1980s, an oil company tried to pump CO ₂ into deep underground tunnels in the hope that after a while they could exploit crude oil from here.

After that, this cellar was abandoned. Since then, the bacteria have been "busy" working with the amount of CO2 we emit, along with some hydrogen atoms from coal seams, some nutrients . With all these things, they have turned CO2 and coal into fuels that we can burn for energy.

This offers an interesting ability. Instead of doing the same as before, it is destroying coal mines, burning it so that they will emit huge amounts of CO ₂ into the atmosphere. Now, we don't just leave it in its original state but we will feed it with bacteria and CO2. From there, we can turn large coal mines on the planet into renewable energy supplies.

Abandoned mines can now make use of a "nursery" for bacteria to create natural gas.

According to Peter Warwick, of the US Geological Survey, about 20-25% of the world's natural gas is generated by underground bacteria. He commented: 'We will never do better than them. This is because today's mining activity has drained methane reserves that have accumulated for thousands of years. '

The results of the research by scientists at the University of Arizona surprised the scientific community, when no one had thought of this before: bacteria could convert CO2 into natural gas at a rate sufficient to become a useful energy source for modern society.

In addition, the study has also attracted a lot of interest, especially biologist Craig Venter, who has been studying the development of bacteria that speed up the process.

However, this process requires many other factors. The first is the amount of nutrients that bacteria need to produce CO2: that is to add acetate and hydrogen. In addition, their ability to operate increases rapidly when the amount of groundwater seeps through the rock at an appropriate rate.

Warwick said: 'Many commercial companies are hoping to seek profits from this new research. I must say, it's easy to dig coal mines and burn it. But now, we need to wonder, why not inject carbon dioxide into bacteria to produce fuel '.

Source: Discovery