Financial Times: Explosive potential of coal bed methane
Coal bed methane is one of several different kinds of unconventional gas that have attracted huge interest from energy investors in recent years.
Known as firedamp in the mining industry, methane released from coal is explosive when mixed with air, and its presence still causes tragic accidents in countries with big coal industries such as China, Russia and Ukraine.
But elsewhere, it has successfully been extracted as an energy source. The US has been producing coal bed methane – or CBM – in large quantities since the 1950s, and it now accounts for about 10 per cent of domestic gas supply. MORE