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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.'"
my wife would appreciate some methane reducing lifeforms to combat my post-Thanksgiving gas venting. I've literally been a musical instrument all day long.
From TFS: "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."
No, that's what this is for!
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.
In other news, scientists also discover a way of combatting another major greenhouse gas - carbon dioxide. This newly discovered group of organisms, tentatively called "plants", not only absorbs the carbon dioxide gas, but also produces oxygen AND SOME can be quite tasty in a stir-fry. Further research is continuing, with the hopes these so-called "plants" becoming commercially viable by 2010.
Because other experiments in the past to release some kind of life form to combat something we deem as inconvenient has worked soooooo well: * introducing rabbits in Australia * introducing foxes to eat said rabbits * crossing European and African honey bees to get the best of both worlds... * snakeheads in Eastern USA * american frogs in europe And about another 1000 examples of introducing animals outside their natural habitat have all worked out so well. So, yeah, let's release those bugs!
Yes, solutions that start with "force everyone to" are not very helpful.
How we know is more important than what we know.