Lake Kivu holds about 2.22 trillion cubic feet of methane gas — as well as significant volumes of carbon dioxide — some 1.58 Tcf of which is recoverable, writes Iain Esau.
It is the only lake in the world where methane is released from the lake bed into the waters, where it collects in a layer.
Rwanda shares this gas resource with the Democratic Republic of Congo, although only the Kigali-based authorities are commercialising it at present, mainly as feedstock for power plants.
