Luca Technologies is a privately held Colorado based company engaged in the development of technology that utilizes the ability of anaerobic microorganisms (bacteria that live in the absence of oxygen) to metabolize oil, organic-rich shale and coal into natural gas. In 2004, Luca announced a breakthrough discovery. The company has proved the amount of natural gas in Wyoming's Powder River Basin is constantly increasing. This led to a discovery that processes, thought to have only occurred in the ancient times, are still present in hydrocarbon rich coal, oil and shale deposits. The anaerobic microorganisms residing in such areas metabolize the hydrocarbon sources and create natural gas - methane. Moreover, all this activity occurs in real time and so fast it can potentially be used as a source of renewable energy.
The company implies an idea to use this real-time gas production ability to convert the under-utilized domestic oil, shale and coal resources into clean and renewable energy. The United States has huge amounts of hydrocarbon reserves many of which cannot be developed in economically or environmentally kind way using existing technologies. Luca's researches might currently be one of the most potential approaches to utilize such resources. This would not only provide additional energy, but also, considering the possible massive application, leverage the U.S. dependence on foreign energy supplies.
The natural gas is considered to be least polluting and most energy efficient of all hydrocarbon fuels. The company expects to force the natural process of methane production to occur in hydrocarbon deposits in which such processes currently do not manifest naturally. Ideally the process could be controlled by altering the microbe access to water and nutrients thus allowing producing required amounts of methane.
The technology still would not solve the problem of finite energy resources however it would prolong the usage of such deposits.
Such experiments however require significant and constant money infusions. The company is currently financed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. However, we could not find information on the exact amount of capital the company has to continue their ambitious experimentation.
On the other hand - despite the potential - the company has been in a development stage for already 4 years since the first discovery of real time biological methane production possibility. Luca hasn't released any new regarding the ongoing research for more than a year now. This raises a question hard to answer right now - are they on the step of breakthrough or the revolution is still miles and miles away?
Referencehttp://www.lucatechnologies.com/
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers website
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