Real-Time Methane Production

LUCA Technologies has discovered that, contrary to current thinking, many hydrocarbon deposits such as coal beds, organic-rich shales and oil fields currently are, or have potential to produce large amounts of methane on an ongoing, real-time basis. This ongoing methane production is the result of naturally occurring populations of anaerobic microorganisms that exist within many of these deposits. In the absence of atmospheric oxygen, these underground communities of organisms feed on the complex organic molecules that make up the coal or oil, yielding methane as a metabolic byproduct.

These communities of microorganisms or "consortia" represent some of the oldest living organisms on the planet, which evolved hundreds of millions, if not billions of years ago, at a time when there was no free oxygen in the earth's atmosphere. Today, they are restricted to anaerobic (oxygen-free) environments such as deep in the earth's crust. LUCA Technologies has coined the term "Geobioreactors" to refer to these large, naturally occurring bioreactors (containers in which microorganisms are used to perform chemical reactions), and to differentiate them from the human-engineered conversion of plant materials into methane that is currently done on a small scale.

Through a series of carefully controlled laboratory experiments, LUCA has shown that coal samples extracted from a number of suspected Geobioreactors will produce methane on an on-going basis. Moreover, this methane production can be stimulated by the introduction of additional nutrient compounds, or suppressed by heat sterilization or the introduction of oxygen, both of which will kill anaerobic organisms. Furthermore, LUCA has shown that radio labeled CO2 (carbon dioxide) introduced to these samples is converted into radio labeled methane, indicating that the methane formation is the result of a biological process.

How a Geobioreactor Functions

The biogenic creation of methane from a higher molecular weight hydrocarbon source is a multi-step process, most likely accomplished by a consortium of microorganisms acting together in a symbiotic fashion. Through a series of steps, various organisms in the consortium breakdown the large hydrocarbon molecules in coal or oil into intermediate, water-soluble compounds, which are then reduced to even smaller hydrocarbon molecules, and finally metabolized into methane by a group of organisms known as methanogens.

In order for a Geobioreactor to function, the appropriate environmental conditions must be present, including an abundant hydrocarbon substrate (such as a coal bed), a water-saturated environment, a complete absence of free oxygen, and the presence of the correct consortia of organisms.

Potential U.S. Geobioreactors

The United States has enormous amounts of buried hydrocarbon reserves, many of which cannot be extracted in an economical or environmentally benign fashion with current technologies and practices. These include deeply buried coal beds, organic-rich shales, and previously tapped oil reservoirs - almost all of which still contain most of their original hydrocarbon energy source due to extraction technology which still leaves most of the hydrocarbon behind. Any of these settings, given the right set of conditions has the potential to produce biogenic methane in a long-term, recoverable fashion.

To date, LUCA's core drilling and laboratory analysis program has identified several sites around the country that the company believes are active Geobioreactors. LUCA has also identified several more sites that they believe have the potential to become Geobioreactors with the controlled introduction of the appropriate microbiological consortia and/or stimulating nutrients.

The most thoroughly studied region so far is the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. This region has seen extensive development for natural gas in the past decade. LUCA believes it to be an actively functioning Geobioreactor with the capability to produce significant amounts of methane for the foreseeable future, if managed properly.

Economic Potential of the Powder River Basin Geobioreactor

The Powder River Basin, located in Northeast Wyoming, is one of the most promising coal bed methane deposits currently under development in the United States today. The basin covers an area of over 12,500 square miles, and has the estimated potential to yield around 30 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of natural gas during a projected lifespan of 15-20 years, using traditional extraction techniques. This total projected basin yield, however, amounts to only slightly more than one year's total domestic consumption of natural gas at current rates of use.

Unfortunately for the methane-producing organisms that LUCA has identified within this region, these traditional extraction techniques entail pumping groundwater out of the coal beds to enable recovery of the gas sequestered within them. A damaging and heretofore unforeseen consequence of this pumping is that it can allow the influx of air, which contains abundant free oxygen that is toxic to the methane-producing microorganisms. This practice also removes water, which is damaging to the microorganisms.

Although the actual rate of biogenic methane production in the Powder River Basin is unknown, LUCA Technologies estimates that -- assuming a 1% conversion of coal into methane -- the basin has the capacity to produce 86 TFC of methane over the same 15-20 year period if gas collection methods leave the bioreactor intact and healthy. This is an increased yield of approximately 650% over traditional extraction procedures for the same time period. 

Application to Other Hydrocarbon Reservoirs

Although some hydrocarbon deposits are currently functioning Geobioreactors, most are probably not. This may be due to a number of reasons, including the lack of a functional microbiological consortium, the lack of key nutrients required for certain members of the consortium, the presence of a functioning consortium who's metabolic pathways lead away from a methane end-product, or the presence of poisons or inhibitors such as free oxygen in the substrate. Engineering these inactive reservoirs to induce biogenic methane production has the potential to greatly increase our natural gas reserves, ultimately to the point of making the United States an energy self-sufficient country.

To this end, LUCA Technologies has established an intensive program to collect and characterize these little-understood microorganisms. The company is assembling an ever-growing library of anaerobic core samples from known and suspected Geobioreactors for study and experimentation, employing the tools of genomics and modern biotechnology. The company hopes that developing a better understanding of the biology and ecology of these organisms will lead to the ability to create functional Geobioreactors from currently barren or non-methane-producing hydrocarbon reservoirs.

Benefits to Proposed "Hydrogen Economy"

Hydrogen is the ultimate "clean" fuel - when combusted with oxygen the only byproducts are heat and water. Much has been said lately about the benefits of converting to a "Hydrogen Economy," but there are significant obstacles, both in terms of cost and available technology. One of the main problems is securing a cheap, abundant supply of hydrogen - a gas that is almost always compounded with other elements here on earth. Currently, the most cost-effective way to produce free hydrogen is to remove the carbon from methane molecules, which leaves only hydrogen. In order for hydrogen to make an impact on our current and projected energy needs, a source of methane will be needed on a scale only Geobioreactors have the potential to meet. LUCA believes that well managed, functional Geobioreactors not only have the potential to meet that methane need, but that it may also be possible to genetically engineer methane-producing organisms to instead produce free hydrogen as their final product.