Limited capturing of methane gas is taking place at West Elk Mine and proposed for Oxbow Mining. West Elk Mine is also looking into greatly expanding the amount of methane gas it could capture from gob vent bore holes. Currently, 7 million cubic feet of methane gas is vented into the atmosphere by the West Elk Mine each day. Methane gas is 21 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. That makes many environmentalists wanting to see Colorado mines capture methane gas and send it on in natural gas pipelines or into electrical grids to become a power source for towns. Recently, the road to accomplish that goal intertwines with the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, West Elk Mine, and Western Slope Environmental Resource Council (WSERC) all working in agreement to find solutions. However, progress seemingly stopped when Wildearth Guardians filed a lawsuit in federal court in Denver against the Forest Service and the Department of Interior last October. Their press release stated the two government agencies were "ignoring global warming impacts of enlarging the West Elk Coal Mine." According to Wildearth Guardians, "The Forest Service estimates that the amount of wasted methane would be enough to heat more than 34,000 homes for 12 years. Based on current natural gas prices, the methane's value would be approximately $21 million annually and more than $250 million over the life of the mine expansion." ;

  WSERC opposed the lawsuit and contacted Wildearth Guardians and explained the level of cooperation that had been achieved in pursuing capturing the methane gas at West Elk Mine.

  Jeremy Nichols of Wildearth Guardians said, "There has been great progress made and it certainly seems the mining company has been pushing to make this happen. Our big question now is what are the feds going to do to accommodate this good step forward." Wildearth Guardians are willing to settle the lawsuit, but added, "We are waiting to hear back from the Forest Service as far as how they want to respond to it. They have filed an answer to our initial complaint. Procedurally it's out there but nothing is going on yet."

  Nichols said they are hopeful a settlement could be reached "... Particularly since BLM has chosen to remove some of the bureaucratic hurdles to utilizing this methane. But so far the Forest Service has not sent signals they are interested in settling."

  Liane Mattson of the U.S. Forest Service noted at a January North Fork Coal Working Group meeting in Paonia, that because the lawsuit involves two government agencies, the Department of Justice is working on it. She had not heard of Wildearth Guardians wanting a settlement with the Forest Service and suggested they would have to speak with the Department of Justice. To her knowledge, that has never happened.

  The Bureau of Land Management had given West Elk Mine an addendum to their coal lease which would allow them to capture and use the methane gas as a by-product of the mining process. The mine is required to do this, if it is economically feasible for the mine to do so. BLM is working on a definition of what "economically feasible" would be in this instance.

  Prior to the addendum, West Elk Mine looked into acquiring a gas lease for the methane. A court decision in Utah nixed that plan. The judge in that case determined that the methane gas released in the longwall mining operation was no longer a deposit. As such, it was not a leasable mineral.

  West Elk could not obtain a gas lease. Rob Peters, executive director of WSERC, explained, "That's why the BLM did it as an addendum to the coal lease. That is better because if it would have been done as a gas lease, a gas lease is regulated by a different agency... The mine would have been regulated by one law, the gas regulated by another law. This is a really nice solution."

  With all the talk today about clean coal technology, Mountain Coal which operates the West Elk Mine and the parent corporation, Arch Coal in St. Lewis, are not talking about the plans to capture methane gas in Somerset. Kim Link, spokesperson for Arch Coal and West Elk Mine, said the reason for being reluctant to comment on West Elk's plans are due to the lawsuit. Link stated, "They were very serious about finding solutions smart for employee safety and good for the environment. They were exploring every possible option."

  When the lawsuit is settled and if capturing and using methane gas vented at the West Elk Mine is economically viable, they will be unique among the coal mines owned by Arch Coal and the first mine in the North Fork Valley to do so.

  Charlie Beecham, BLM branch chief for solid minerals, said adding the addendum did not involve any regulations being changed. Theoretically, nothing in the way of regulations are stopping the West Elk Mine from capturing and using the methane gas that is vented. Beecham said if it is economical for West Elk to capture it and sell it to Aspen, for example, BLM would get a 12-1/2 percent royalty.

  About the addendum he added, "This is a one shot deal currently that only applies to West Elk because of the situations involved. It is possible that other companies are capturing gas and doing things with it. Circumstances at West Elk were somewhat unique. The solution applies to only West Elk... As of now no other mines are being allowed to do this."

  According to Beecham, the 7 million cubic feet of methane gas being released each day by the mine is not unusual of other mines, and he is not worried by the size of the figure. "That number is somewhat misleading because what gets vented is fairly diluted, for the most part, because the mine itself has to ventilate the mine which is pushing a lot of cubic feet of air through the mine. The actual cubic feet of methane gas is fairly small. . . It's not the same quality of gas being ventilated through their system that a gas operator would drill and use. It is much more diluted. So it's a kind of apples and oranges comparison."

  Steve Wolcott chairs the WSERC committee that is promoting methane gas capture at the area mines. He frequently is giving PowerPoint presentations on the process and the future potential of methane gas capture and use. He points out that for the last several years, West Elk Mine has been capturing a small amount of methane from an abandoned section to heat the mine. The methane is from a section where they already own the gas rights. Secondly, West Elk has been using some of the waste gas to pump the gas out of the gob vent bore holes. BLM allows this because it is a non-commercial use. It is part of the mine operation and does not involve selling the gas commercially. When West Elk Mine investigated capturing the larger amounts of methane gas which results during the longwall mining operations and to sell it commercially, that's when they ran into problems.

  Wolcott said West Elk Mine has produced 7 million cubic feet of methane gas each day for the last four or five years. That would be enough gas to convert to electricity for 40 percent of the Delta-Montrose Electrical Association's load.

  If and when West Elk could sell their methane gas, DMEA is reportedly interested in buying it, but their current contract with Tri-State would not permit that. Wolcott said perhaps in the future Tri-State will want to buy power through the DMEA grid. If selling to DMEA won't work out, another option would be to send the electricity through the DMEA power lines to the Holy Cross electrical co-op which serves Aspen.

  Why are the mines producing so much more methane gas than previously? Longwall operations mine coal faster and deeper. Shallower coal has less gas because it has already escaped through the ground over millions of years. For the deeper coal, the methane gas is mostly still trapped. Wolcott explained that methane is in the sandstone right above the coal not actually in the coal itself. "The longwall mining method does a better job of fracturing the rock strata that has the gas in it," Wolcott said.

  Because traditional ventilation to get the methane out for employee safety was not sufficient, mines had to drill gob vent bore holes. These are drilled from the surface straight down into the gob which is the collapsed part of the mine behind the longwall. The methane is pumped from the gob so it will not penetrate into where the miners are.

  The old method to get the methane out was to use big fans at the portals. The gas blown out in that fashion has under 1 percent methane, which doesn't burn under normal conditions. When they started using the gob vent bore holes, the gas contained 50 to 60 percent methane. West Elk can't put the methane gas they capture in a pipeline because it would need to be 95 percent methane. It can be used for an electrical grid.

  Methane gas is being captured and used in many coal mines back east. Wolcott notes the difference in their situation and the one in Somerset comes down to being privately owned and not on federal land. Also, back east the gas is in the coal. "They are drilling gas wells into the coal seam and extracting the gas five to seven years before they mine the coal," Wolcott explained. "They can put it into gas lines or electricity depending on the spot prices of gas and electricity." Using the methane gas is a proven money maker back east. It would be nice if that situation could exist here.

  Methane gas capturing in China is financed by European carbon credits. The European Union has a cap and trade carbon market in order to try to reduce global warming. According to Wolcott, there is a voluntary carbon trading market in the U.S. where corporations buy carbon credits for the public relations benefit that they are reducing their carbon footprint. A cap and trade program could possibly finance this project at the West Elk Mine. West Elk Mine is about 1.3 percent of Colorado's total carbon footprint. One project could have a quick and significant impact, Wolcott said.

  Wolcott added that for those who don't believe in global warming, capturing methane gas still has the benefit of using a presently wasted resource. "We are already paying too much for gas and electricity, and it doesn't make sense to waste electricity and gas," he said.

  In order for West Elk Mine to capture methane gas they must design a collection system. Generator sets would need to be located near the portal where the powerline and substation would be located. But the gas is coming out from the gob vent bore holes several miles away on a mountain. Wolcott is guessing that buried plastic pipeline could get the gas down to the portal. Once the West Elk Mine designs the collection system, they would have to apply to the Forest Service for permission to put in the system.

  The hold up for methane gas capturing is not just with the single lawsuit by Wildearth Guardians. Some environmentalists would have a problem with the collection system being in roadless area. Roads that coal mines were able to use while drilling the gob vent bore holes would have to be kept open longer to collect the gas. WSERC's idea is to have an exception in the roadless regulations for mines capturing methane gas.

  WSERC has been in the unique position of being opposed by environmental groups who champion protection of roadless areas. Environmental groups which focus on reducing global warming, on the other hand, like what WSERC is doing. The West Elk Mine could capture 40 percent of the methane they vent.

  The other mine in this area which is seriously looking into capturing and using methane gas is Oxbow Mining. "We've looked at capturing gas at the Sanborn Creek Mine in partnership the other owners of the gas, Vessels Coal Gas. They have been communicating with DMEA on being able to produce power from gas in the mine," said Jim Kiger, environmental manager for Oxbow. The Sanborn Creek Mine is now sealed.

  "If we use any gas that would be BLM federal gas, Gunnison Energy, a sister organization of Oxbow, owns the gas. We don't have the same issues as West Elk Mine does as far as unleased gas," Kiger explained.

  Oxbow has no timetable to capture the gas. "It's evolving. We are continuing to look and Vessels is looking closely and working on the economics to develop a project."

  Oxbow's methane gas capture project is still in its initial stages. They have no estimate on what the costs of a project such as this would be.

  Kiger explained, "We are interested in the beneficial uses of methane where we can make it work. It's an energy resource and we believe in trying to use the energy resource anyway that we can."

  When all the mines in this area have been fully mined and closed as Sanborn Creek Mine is closed, they will be sealed and contain a methane gas resource which potentially could be used in the future for electricity or gathered and put into a pipeline. "I think we are all hopeful that this gas will be available for future use," Kiger shared.