[XaspR8d]

Well I think thebmax is joking about how all fossil fuels are effectively dense, underground storage of solar energy. ;)

(But your information on methane is interesting. I somehow didn't realize it was the biggest component in natural gas; I guess I had assumed it was a more complex hydrocarbon and not considered it further.)

[thebmax]

That was what I was getting at ;). I had an old boss who used to call hydrocarbons 'Mother Nature's Battery'. Its almost a miracle when you think of it. Millions of years of solar energy stored in solid, liquid, and gas forms, available for the ingenuity of man to extract and use to power the marvels of the modern world.

For all the hate that hydrocarbons get they are probably the main reason most of us aren't still living a very primitive existence.