An Inexhaustible Source of Energy from Methane in Deep Earth

Untapped reserves of methane, the main component in natural gas, may be found deep in Earth’s crust, according to a recently released report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). These reserves could be a virtually inexhaustible source of energy for future generations. The team of researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory, Harvard University, Argonne National Laboratory and Indiana University, South Bend, through a series of experiments and theoretical calculations, showed that methane forms under conditions that occur in Earth’s upper mantle.