MARGINALIA
Old Gas, New Gas
Methane—made and taken apart by microbes, in the Earth, by people
Roald Hoffmann
At the wellhead, natural gas is 70 to 90 percent methane. The gas we
use at home—expensive, this winter—is nearly pure
methane. That simple, archetypical organic molecule, CH4,
methane, has a carbon bonded to four hydrogens at the corners of a
tetrahedron. And methane's structure is the only simple thing about it.
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