China eyes coalmine killer gas for new energy source

As China speeds up exploitation of coal mines to satisfy increasingly thirsty demand for energy, the country’s gas emissions keep growing. In 2004, China’s coal mines pumped out 14 billion cubic meters of gas and experts say that will increase to 17 billion by 2020.

Coal-bed methane, more commonly known as “coalmine gas”, can be deadly. China has the highest number of coalmine accident fatalities in the world, with about 80 percent of casualties attributable to gas explosions, causing direct losses of 93 million U.S. dollars a year, said Sun Maoyuan, general manager of China United Coal-bed Methane Corp.

However, the No.1 “coalmine killer” is also a sort of clean energy.
Industry experts believe coal-bed methane will become a practical and reliable substitute energy resource for natural gas as the global shortage of energy resources worsens and conventional natural gas supply falls short of market demand.

China boasts 37 trillion cubic-meter reserves of coal-bed methane, the third-largest in the world, next only to Russia and Canada, according to the latest statistics from the China Coal Information Research Institute. They are equivalent to 45 billion tons of standard coal. Sixty percent of the gas is stored in coal beds over 1,500 meters deep, easily mined and developed.

Xinhua