Methane carbon cycle

Alternatives to fossil fuels, such as hydrogen, are explored in Box 6.2 and Section 14.3. Coal, which is mostly carbon, can be converted into fuels with a lower proportion of carbon. Its conversion into methane, CH4, for instance, would reduce C02 emissions per unit of energy. We can also work with nature by accelerating the uptake of carbon by the natural processes of the carbon cycle. For example, one proposed solution is to pump C02 exhaust deep into the ocean, where it would dissolve to form carbonic acid and bicarbonate ions. Carbon dioxide can also be removed from power plant exhaust gases by passing the exhaust through an aqueous slurry of calcium silicate to produce harmless solid products ... 

Compressed-air energy storage Corporate average fuel economy California Air Resources Board Coal-bed methane Combined cycle gas turbine Carbon/carbon dioxide capture and storage Clean development mechanism Chlorofluorocarbon Computable general equilibrium Compressed gaseous hydrogen Combined heat and power... 

The hydrothermal chemistry of methane also provides another buffering control on the global biogeochemical carbon cycle by serving as the site of reactions that act as sources and sinks of methane. Examples of source reactions are... 

Kvenvolden, K.A. (2002). Methane hydrate in the global organic carbon cycle. Terra Nova, 14 (5), 302-306. 

Bogner, J. E., and K. A. Spokas, Landfill Methane Rates, Fates, and Role in Global Carbon Cycle, Chemosphere, 26, 1-4 (1993). 

Figure 6. Effect of feed pressure on productivity and recovery for producing a 98 mol % hydrogen stream from a 33/67 mol ratio methane/hydrogen feed bed length, 4 ft exhaust pressure, 0 psig temperature, ambient adsorbent, 30/60 to 40/80 mesh activated carbon cycle, 0.5 sec feed—1.0 sec delay—5.0 sec exhaust...

Senum G.L. and Gaffney J.S. (1985) A reexamination of the tropospheric methane cycle Geophysical implications. In The Carbon Cycle and Atmospheric CO2 Natural variations Archean to Present (eds. E.T. Sundquist and W.S. Broecker), pp. 61-69. AGU Geophys. Monograph 32, Washington, D.C. 

Methane clathrate decomposition has been implicated in the Latest Paleocene Thermal Maximum (—55 Ma ago) by an extraordinary injection of isotopically light carbon into the carbon cycle (Dickens, 2000, 2001a) and in Quaternary interstadials as indicated by observations of isotopically light foraminifera in Santa Barbara Basin sediments (Kennett et al., 2000). Dickens (2001a) compares the functioning of the CH4 hydrate to a bacterially mediated capacitor. 

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