USING METHANE TO GIVE OCEAN ROBOTS A POWER BOOST MAY SOUND LIKE SCI-FI, BUT RESEARCHERS AT WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION AND HARVARD UNIVERSITY ARE CLOSE TO MAKING IT A REALITY. With support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), they're collaborating with Maritime Applied Physics Corporation (MAPC) on a system that converts methane produced by deep-sea microbes into electricity. The plan is to supply this energy to power-hungry robots as they explore the most remote parts of ocean.

"Deep-sea microbes make tons of methane each year," says WHOI adjunct scientist and Harvard professor Peter Girguis. "So, we're developing harvesting systems to see if we can generate electricity from this methane."

Advances in battery technologies and low-power instrument design have already spurred the launch of new...