The graph to the left is from 2020.
China is both the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal. (click here) Methane can continue leaking long after mines have been closed or abandoned.
A massive plume of methane, the potent greenhouse gas that’s a key contributor to global warming, has been identified in China’s biggest coal production region.
The release in northeast Shanxi province is one of the largest that geoanalytics company Kayrros SAS has so far attributed to the global coal sector and likely emanated from multiple mining operations.
Details captured in European Space Agency satellite data show the plume about 90 kilometers (56 miles) east of Shanxi’s capital Taiyuan, in Yangquan City. The area has 34 coals mines, according to the Shanxi Energy Bureau.
Shanxi’s Department of Ecology and Environmental, the province’s Energy Bureau and China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The emissions rate needed to produce the plume observed in the June 18 satellite image would be several hundred metric tons an hour, according to Kayrros. For comparison, a 200-ton per hour release would have roughly an equivalent climate warming in the first two decades as 800,000 cars driving at 60 miles an hour, according to the Environmental Defense Fund....
Coal mine methane is emitted from five sources:(click here)
- Degasification systems at underground coal mines (also commonly referred to as drainage systems). These systems may employ vertical and/or horizontal wells to recover methane in advance of mining (known as "pre-mine drainage") or after mining (called "gob" or "goaf" wells)
- Ventilation air from underground mines, which contains dilute concentrations of methane
- Abandoned or closed mines, from which methane may seep out through vent holes or through fissures or cracks in the ground
- Surface mines, from which methane in the coal seams is directly exposed to the atmosphere
- Fugitive emissions from post-mining operations, in which coal continues to emit methane as it is stored in piles and transported
