The example is evidence that the idea of a gas-to-electric conversion is not new, yes. Such evidence is trivial to find, so I didn't think it worth pointing out

The example is evidence that the idea of a gas-to-electric conversion is not new, yes. Such evidence is trivial to find, so I didn't think it worth pointing out a specific example. If you want a concrete example, here's a newspaper article from 1993: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2457&dat=19930921&id=hJ4zAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7TgHAAAAIBAJ&pg=1384,1657576&hl=en https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2457&dat=19930921&id=... . Looking over it now, very little has changed about the overall procedure.