Green Sheet: Natural gas firms scale up conversion of methane from animals (and humans)

Green Sheet: Natural gas firms scale up conversion of methane from animals (and humans)

Natural gas firms scale up conversion of methane from animals (and humans). Companies in the U.S. natural gas industry have begun to scale up a program to sell methane that's recycled from sources like hog-feeding farms and sewage plants as a replacement for natural gas drawn from wells, E&E News reports. ". The result, after the gas was purified and concentrated to pipeline standards, was enough natural gas to power and heat 1,600 homes.. London-based think-tank Ember found in a report issued this week that China's use of coal increased from 2007 to 2019 to a point where the huge economy is now responsible for 50% of all coal-fired electricity generation.. The group reports that while U.S. coal-fired electricity generation has been cut in half since 2007, 65% of that capacity has been replaced by natural gas, with 35% being replaced by renewables such as wind and solar power.. The shift has resulted in a drop in greenhouse gas emissions of 19%, when the methane emitted by natural gas was factored in.. Rachel Koning Beals is a MarketWatch news editor in Chicago..