> >On Tue, 19 May 1998, Mark Jones wrote:
> >>
> >> Oh, right. Methane isn't a fossil fuel, I suppose? Gimme a break...
> >>
> >> John St Clair, are you really at the Department of Philosophy?
> >>
> >> Mark
> >>
> >
> >As you care so passionately about energy issues, I would have thought
> >you were better informed. Methane is commonly know as "swamp gas".
> >It is a product of vegetation rotting. Crude bio-mass generators can
> >generate methane -- there is nothing inherently "fossil" about it.
>
> But most methane that humans burn *is* a fossil fuel.
>
> There is nothing "inherently" "fossil" "about" "coal" "or" "oil" "either".
>
Nonsense. Coal and oil are formed geologically, and short of laboratory exercises in studying their formation, none is produced any other way. There are quite practical methods for generating methane outside of geologic processes.
--
Joseph Noonan jfn1 at msc.com