Methane cracking for clean energy

Monica, the ecotricity link is about renewable energy. It's a brilliant idea, making green gas from grass.

But what happens when supplies of gas start declining? We are best putting all our money and research into developing renewable energy resources.

Remember, fine though this technology is, getting the methane necessary (unless we can generate and collect (that is the difficult part) naturally produced methane - and gather enough), must come from gas and that will require fracking, using onshore supplies of gas, whether they are in national parks or not.

Developing the technology is one part, the other nine parts are the application of it and all the other things associated with producing feedstock.

www.ecotricity.co.uk/our-green-energy/our-green-gas

From grass.

Thank youcrun It did sound as though they could be using as much energy as they produced.

" I did wonder ("This reaction occurs at high temperatures (750°C and above)") what fuel they used to provide those high temperatures"

It doesn't really matter, but hydrogen would be the obvious choice. Once the reactor is hot it won't take much energy to keep it hot as long as it's well insulated, and the heat is pumped from the products and re-used.

Trapping the methane released by individual cattle could be an interesting process. Equip them all with fart bags?

An ingenious experiment that shows that it can be done, but I did wonder ("This reaction occurs at high temperatures (750°C and above)") what fuel they used to provide those high temperatures? Or did I miss something?

Maybe we should use cattle as the source of methane .

Interesting piece of research in the link.