We have many times extolled, and documented, the rather vast utility of Methane.
It is, for instance, a key component of "tri-reforming" technology, such as described best and most lately, as we've documented, by scientists at Penn State University, wherein it can be reacted with reclaimed Carbon Dioxide and made thereby to synthesize liquid hydrocarbons.
Further, in fact, via separate dispatch today, we are sending along report of: United States Patent Application: 0100105962; "Hydrogenation of Carbon Dioxide into Syngas Mixture", wherein Saudi Arabian and Texas scientists, in the employ of the oil industry, disclose that Methane can be utilized in the conversion of Carbon Dioxide into a synthesis gas suitable for catalytic condensation into Methanol and other hydrocarbon fuels.
Herein, to confirm a number of our earlier reports, we see that a once-major Ohio corporation, Midland-Ross, "a diversified manufacturer of consumer and industrial products, aerospace and electronic components", which, prior to it's dissolution and takeover in the mid-1980's, had, according to Cleveland's own history of it, as available on the web, 19 divisions and subsidiaries operating 57 plants in 18 states and 9 foreign countries", explained, with US Patent Office affirmation, that Methane can be efficiently synthesized from Coal.
Comment follows excerpts from:
"United States Patent 3,970,435 - Apparatus and Method for Methanation
Date: July, 1976
Inventors: Thomas Schultz and Klaus Hemsath, OH
Assignee: Midland-Ross Corporation, Cleveland
Abstract: An improved process and apparatus for upgrading coal gas to methane is provided by a simple and efficient methanator comprising an open-ended enclosure submersed within a liquid bath and carrying a catalytic insert having increasing degrees of controlled reactivity which the said gas contacts as the gas travels through the enclosure. In the presence of the catalyst, heat is generated from the methanation reaction at a controlled rate and substantially dissipated by the liquid bath so that substantially all the gaseous reductants, CO and H2, are reacted to methane at a relatively low controlled temperature.
Description: This invention relates generally to an improvement in the art of manufacturing synthetic gas and, more particularly, to a catalytic reaction chamber wherein gases are exothermically reacted to produce the synthetic gas.
(And, the) invention is particularly applicable to the production of synthetic methane gas from coal."
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Further excerpts seem unnecessary, since the technology disclosed only confirms others we have referenced for you, wherein Coal can be converted into Methane.
The innovation seems to lie in new equipment design that enables better management of the heat generated by some of the exothermic chemical reactions involved; and, again as we have indicated in earlier reports to be feasible, utilizing that heat energy within the total process.
Regardless:
If we want and need Methane, and there are compelling reasons, related especially to the recycling of CO2 as to why we would, then, we can make all of the Methane we might need, as herein, from Coal.