Taking the fossil out of fossil fuel

Over 1.5 billion cubic metres of natural gas were extracted in New York state last year, yet there remains a certain element of mystery about the stuff’s origins. Conventional natural gas deposits are thermogenic, meaning they formed under intense heat and pressure hundreds of millions of years ago. McIntosh (pictured at work, below) is looking to see if the gas at this location is “biogenic”, created during the past 18,000 years by methane-making microbes, or methanogens.

… “Biogenic gas is a huge energy resource that could potentially be renewable on a human timescale.”

New Scientist