National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Monday, November 23, 2009

Photo: Fertilized Microbes Make Natural Gas Fast, Study Says


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Tar sand deposits in Alberta, Canada—such as those pictured—could produce methane gas in a matter of years, according to scientists who say the finding may lead to an extraordinary increase in the amount of usable energy known to lie under Earth's surface.

The method involves feeding fertilizer to oil-fermenting microbes.

Photograph by Ian M. Head, Nature