Back to Archived News
Luca Technologies Receives U.S. Notice of Allowance for Key Patent Covering the Company’s Technology for Microbially Enhanced Methane Production
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Analogous New Zealand Patent Issues
Golden, CO -- Luca Technologies Inc. (Luca), a green energy production company focused on the clean, sustainable generation of natural gas via the microbial cultivation and harvesting of methane from underground hydrocarbon resources, today announced it has received a Notice of Allowance from the U.S. Patent and Trade Office for a patent fundamental to the Company’s microbially enhanced methane production methods.
The patent, entitled "Biogenic Fuel Gas Generation in Geologic Hydrocarbon Deposits" (US 12/136,728) covers methods of cultivating methane production from geologic deposits such as coal, oil or shale by:
- collecting a methanogenic (methane-producing) bacterial consortium from water extracted from an underground hydrocarbon formation (i.e. under anaerobic (oxygen-free) conditions,
- using that anaerobic microbial concentrate to inoculate another geologic hydrocarbon deposit, and then
- harvesting the methane that the consortium produces over time from anerobic water within the deposit or from the well headspace.
Luca also noted that an analogous patent, covering the same aspects of its microbially enhanced methane production methods, has issued in New Zealand (Patent No. 5638868).
"We are very pleased to see the approval of these patent applications, both of which cover central elements of our technology for the microbially enhanced production of methane," said Robert Pfeiffer, Luca’s president and chief executive officer. "Based on our initial successes with these methods in cultivating methane production under field conditions in the Wyoming coal beds, we believe this technology offers the potential for long-term, sustainable energy generation on a very large scale."
About Luca Technologies Inc.
Luca is a green energy production company focused on the environmentally clean and sustainable production of natural gas via the microbial cultivation and harvesting of methane from underground hydrocarbon resources. The company has developed and is implementing in the field, technology that harnesses and actively manages the natural biologic conversion of such resources as coal, shales and oil reservoirs into cleaner-burning natural gas, which Luca then harvests and transports using conventional energy infrastructure. Luca’s approach has the potential to significantly extend the productive life of depleting oil and gas fields, return already depleted fields to production, and utilize domestic coal resources with minimized environmental disruption and greatly reduced greenhouse gas emissions. For more information on Luca Technologies, please visit our web site at http://www.lucatechnologies.com.
Back to Archived News
