Why is it a greenhouse gas and not a green plants yummy gas?
Methane, the major component of natural gas, is one of the building blocks of our world, and the world supply of methane is of such stupendous proportions, it dwarfs almost every other energy source/storage medium.
Let’s see, there are pockets of methane gas trapped in layers of shale, which is now finally yielding up through the technology of fracking. Then there is biomass decomposition form thousands of landfills. Almost every oilfield has, in addition to the petroleum, additional vast quantities of methane, but much of this is simply burned off at the wells as it serves its function to force the petroleum up and out of the underground reservoirs. Then we move to the tundra in Arctic and Antarctic regions where a solid known as Methane Hydrate exists as a frozen ice-like mineral, which upon warming, goes through a phase change into water and methane gas, which has to be captured before it escapes to the atmosphere. Then, in every ocean depth of over about 500 meters or so, and where the sea water is at about 4 degrees Centigrade, methane forms an amorphous solid form of this Methane Hydrate, which being heavier than the saline water of the ocean, collects on the bottom either mixed in the sedimentary ooze, or as a distinct layer on the ocean floor. Until 10 years ago, hardly anyone had heard of methane hydrates. But now these chemical compounds in the sea floor are touted to be an energy source of the future. The amount of hydrate-bound methane far exceeds the reserves in conventional deposits.
Fossil fuel companies have not forgotten and they are extremely interested in finding an economical way to extract it from the sea floor. The reason is that the latest estimates put the amount of methane hydrate at 700,000 trillion cubic feet, or more energy than all oil and gas that has ever been discovered.