Methane-Eating Bacteria Could Combat Global Warming

realwx writes "New Zealand scientists have found a bacterium, named 'Methylokorus infernorum,' that eats a key global warming chemical. Found in a hot spring, the bug lives off of methane emissions from geothermically active areas. A scientist quoted in the article stated that a cubic meter of liquid containing the bacterium would consume about 11kg of methane each year. 'But Dr Stott cautioned that such an application was probably some years into the future. He said it was unlikely the micro-organism, which prefers acidic conditions of about 60C, could ever be added to sheep or cows' food to stop the animals releasing methane.'"

Comments

Just burn it?

[BlueParrot]

Wouldn't it be better to just collect the methane and burn it to displace coal/oil? Sure, you still get CO2 , but methane has the highest energy yield per CO2 yield of all the hydrocarbons, and it is orders of magnitude cleaner than Coal.

Re:Just burn it?

[vvaduva]

That would make too much sense :) Actually a lot of waste dumps are already collecting the methane released and using it for those purposes. Let's face it - this is BS propagandistic garbage; most likely coming from the same people saying that farting cows are destroying the world. First it was CO2, then it was freon, now it's methane, next will be rich capitalists who need their money taken away as punishment. Nobody is offering any real solutions, only blame. It's politics more than it's real concern for the problem.

Re:Just burn it?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is already being done wherever it makes economic sense. These bacterium would come in handy for those situations where a cheap alternative is needed to simply reduce emissions. I'm sure there are plenty of them out there... Of course, you probably knew this already, but in typical slashdot comments fashion this article provided you the perfect opportunity to to bestow your knowledge of methane burning efficiency upon the rest of us. We thank you oh great keeper of methane knowledge. What a wonderful idea!

Re:Just burn it?

[dinther]

Indeed. Just have a look at the decay on the forest floor of all those pristine tropical jungles. I propose we clear those jungles as soon as possible and instead grow corn for Ethanol. As for the rest of the world we need that de-leafing agent "What's the name again?" to clear trees of their leaves in spring so we won't those leaves rotting and emitting greenhouse gasses that kill Polar bears. We all need to do our bit to stop the world from rotating, uh, I mean stop the tide. Oops, I mean stop climate change.

Sounds promising...

[explosivejared]

...but it's still going to be producing some sort of waste. The article didn't mention at all what the bacteria produced as a byproduct of it's methane consumption. It doesn't do us a whole of good if it pops out radioactive sludge now does it. I don't think it should be written off as "vaporware" but this is obviously still very much in it's infancy. The article was very sparse on specifics other than putting out the sensational headline about curing global warming. Check back in a few years.

A Cows Stomach

[elzurawka]

"Which prefers acidic conditions of about 60C"

So, im not Biologist, but wouldn't the inside of a cows stomach have lots of acid? And the internal body temperature of a cow is probably similar to a humans. So we have the acid, and we are off by about 20 degrees. I'm sure some geneticist somewhere can figure out how to adapt it to these conditions.

Another idea may be to put these bacteria into the pools where the manurer is left to decompose?

old news

[h2k1]

i though that was common sense in the scientific class that the early earth atmosphere composed essentially by metane and other greenhouse-effect gases was modified by these bugs who fixated the gases from the air. maybe one day when the ocean water become 60C these bugs could come to the surface and to the trick again.

Re:here's a shocker

[4D6963]

Here's another shocker. Planting trees isn't always a good solution, and it can sometimes contribute to the problem. Not all forests release more O2 than they store CO2, plus they decrease the Earth's surface albedo. Fortunately most tropical forests do release more O2, except new forests (young trees release more CO2 it seems).

Re:Solution #2

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the GP's point was that there's already a perfectly good word - "quixotic". Saying "quixotian" is just about as silly as using buzzwords like "incentivise" instead of "encourage".

Re:How about going (near) vegetarian?

[goombah99]

Do you really think any beef you eat nowadays ate grass only for a couple of years? Those days are long over.
Better check your facts. A pure corn will kill a cow in less than a year. The typical cow spends less than a fraction one season on a feedlot. It costs way more to feedlot a cow than to let it eat grass for most of it's life. Only in the final stages of fattening up is it productive. No sane person would grain feed anything over most of it's life. So if you base your conclusions on what you believed was a fact you need to reassess them.

Beef requires 25 kilocalories fodder input for 1 calorie meat output, _that's_ wasteful. Instead of producing beef fodder, you could feed 25 times more people with vegetables and they would live decades longer on top.
I'd like to see your facts. It takes prodigious amounts of water and energy to raise a vegetable and deliver it to you. Moreover, cows eat grass on rangelands where the land can't support growing crops and if it could there's no water. So every calorie you get from that is one you never could get from a vegetable. None of the cow is wasted, while most of the vegetable is. Moreover, where do you think they get the fertilizer to grow the crops? It's not the slightest bit wasteful.