Development potential evaluation of CO₂‐ECBM in abandoned coal mines

Abstract

Environmental problems such as the greenhouse effect have forced countries to consciously reduce the use of coal, and many coal mines have been forced to close. However, most of the abandoned coal mines have not been redeveloped or utilized, resulting in a huge waste and idleness of resources. Abandoned coal mines may also cause subsequent safety, environmental, and social problems. In particular, China has closed a large number of coal mines in recent years, and most of these mines are high‐gas mines. Furthermore, CO2 emissions are still increasing as the global primary energy consumption continues to grow. Because abandoned coal mines are no longer mined, this study proposes the application of CO2‐enhanced coalbed methane drainage technology (CO2‐ECBM) to abandoned coal mines in China for coalbed methane (CBM) extraction and simultaneous CO2 storage. China is the largest coal consumer and CO2 emitter, and the potential capacities for both methane extraction and CO2 storage in China's abandoned mines are evaluated in this paper. This work analyzes the characteristics and development status of abandoned coal resources in China. Then, the amount of CBM and coal resources in the closed coal mines in Chongqing since 2015 is counted, and the CBM production, CO2 storage, and production costs and profits required for CO2‐ECBM technology are calculated. Finally, taking the Chongqing area as an example, the CBM production and CO2 storage potential of abandoned coal mines in China are estimated. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the potential and economics of using CO2‐ECBM technology in abandoned coal mines. The results provide a reference for the development of abandoned CBM and CO2 underground storage. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Optimum Layout of Multiple Tree-type Boreholes in Low-Permeability Coal Seams to Improve Methane Drainage Performance

“…Over the past few centuries, coal has been one of the world's primary fossil fuel energy sources (Gyamfi et al, 2021;Li et al, 2021;Tsaa et al, 2021). Although many countries are currently reducing their coal consumption to decrease carbon dioxide emissions (Karacan and Warwick 2019;Adedoyin et al, 2020;Ge et al, 2020;Magazzino et al, 2020;Udi et al, 2020), coal still accounted for 27.2% of total global energy consumption in 2020 (BP 2021). During the formation of coal from plant debris, large volumes of methane are produced and sequestered, mainly by sorption.…”