No, this isn't another bean post on beans. . .

Methane Madness: A natural gas primer

Perhaps the best short intro to a complex subject, but it clearly explains why natural gas prices will continue to climb.

Robert Waldrop energy conservation info

-- Anonymous, April 14, 2001

Answers

Thanks for the info and site...I personally researched the Texas stats quoted several months ago. It was staggering, almost 10,000 new wells in the last few years to maintain 1990 production levels. We are in for a costly awakening.

Dennis

-- Anonymous, April 14, 2001

Methane is a terrific energy source and has not been utilized in a serious way for many years. We are only now starting to really pay attention to it. A lot of it is going to waste too, we can still see oil well heads that are just burning off the methane rather than piping it to consumers.

From what I gather, the present natural gas wells are only tapping a small portion of what is available. They are relatively shallow wells and some scientists speculate that tremendous volumes of methane are available when we go deeper, down to 20,000 feet and more. Also, there is credible reason to believe that methane is *not* a fossil fuel and is being created every day as a result of natural processes that go on deep within the earth's mantle.

The traditional thinking has been that hydrocarbons are all a result of organic (fossil) decay, hence fossil fuels was the term coined. Methane is the simplest hydrocarbon, CH4. Others are oil, and even coal. All these are actually the result of ongoing natural processes within the earth, and only in rare cases have anything to do with fossil decay, according to Dr. Thomas Gold. He wrote a book on this in 1999, The Deep Hot Biosphere. There is an updated sequel about to be published.

Dr. Gold has all the credentials that anyone could ask for and has published many ground breaking papers in numerous areas of science. This book is must reading for those who are willing to be introduced to an entirely different perspective on the future of methane, as well as other hydrocarbons.

Link

-- Anonymous, April 14, 2001