Issued on: February 21, 2008
United States, China Announce Joint Coal Mine Methane Project
Effort Targets CO2 Emissions Through Clean Power Development
Washington, D.C. - The Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy announced today a joint venture between U.S. and Chinese companies to extract coal mine methane at the Hebi coal mines in the Henan Province in China. The project is being coordinated by Tulane University's U.S.-China Energy and Environmental Technology Center (EETC).
Central China Sakel Technology, Inc. is the managing partner of the consortium that was formed to develop combined U.S./China projects. Other participants include CMM Energy, LLC (Lake Oswego, Oregon) and Milestone Consulting, LLC (Frederick, Maryland). The $2.8 million investment follows a feasibility study that will define project parameters and the project will begin in mid- to late-2008.
Initial plans call for the installation of twenty-two (22) 500kW generators to use the coal mine methane drained from the Hebi mines and creation of a ventilation air methane oxidation facility at one of the mines. In the U.S. alone, the greenhouse gas methane in ventilation air constitutes approximately five percent of all U.S. methane emissions and is the equivalent to about 32 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year. Coal mine methane has more than 20 times the warming potential of CO2.
To receive Certified Emission Reduction credits, the equipment must be verified and approved by the United Nations. When work is completed, China Sakel will be creating approximately 250,000 CER credits as required by the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol. One CER is equivalent to the reduction of ton per year in CO2 emissions.
The EETC, funded by the Office of Fossil Energy and established in 1997, is a facilitator for the transfer of clean energy technology between the two countries and is presently working to fund a sister Center at Tsinghua University in Beijing. It is instrumental in introducing new technology to the Chinese market. Six countries - Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea and the United States - comprise the APP partner countries. They account for almost half of the world's population; supply 48 percent of the world's energy; and emit 51.5 percent of the world's CO2 emissions.
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- Mike Jacobs, FE Office of Communications, 202-586-0507
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