News of colliery gas blasts is all too common in Zhao Guilin's hometown in an east China coal mine basin. So his fellow villagers were dumbstruck when they discovered Zhao was going to use killer coal bed methane (CBM) gas as household fuel.

Zhao cooked braised pork in his kitchen with CBM collected from a nearby coal mine.

Despite China's soaring mining casualty rate, many farmers in Zhao's hometown in Shangtang Township in east China's Jiangxi Province take jobs in local coal mines, because the market demand for coal is still strong.

China's domestic market demand for coal is estimated at 2.17 billion tons this year. In 2005, the country's total coal production reached 2.1 billion tons, according to the National Development and Reform Commission's statistics.

Colliery gas blasts are responsible for 80 percent of China's mining casualty accidents. In 2003, Zhao lost 52 fellow miners in a fatal blast in Fengkuang Coal Mine, which has an annual production capacity of 3 million tons.

A technician in the coal mine, Zhao was resolved to stop the nightmare from happening again. His endeavors meant that the amount of CBM extracted from the Fengkuang Coal Mine increased from 20 million cubic meters in 2003 to 93 million cubic meters in 2005.

The Chinese Government issued a circular in 2004 stipulating that CBM density in mining pits must be less than 1 percent before miners enter.

However, the implementation of the regulation has led to a dramatic rise in greenhouse emissions. When CBM is discharged, it produces 21 times more greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

At the Fengkuang Mine, 80,000 cubic meters of CBM was discharged into the air everyday without treatment, according to Zhao.

Liu Wenhe, a research fellow with the China Coal Information Research Institute, said CBM is the most reliable substitute for natural gas in China. The "No. 1 underground killer" could be harnessed and used commercially as a new energy source.

In 2004 alone, at least 14 billion cubic meters of gas were wasted at collieries across the nation, as against the 12 billion cubic meters total transmission capacity of China's west-to-east gas pipeline every year, according to official statistics.

With government funds available for technological innovation, CBM has been used for power generation and as cooking fuel in Fengkuang Mine. Similar uses of CBM are underway across the country.

China now has an installed CBM power generating capacity of 90,000 kilowatts. Projects being undertaken nationwide boost this figure to 150,000 kilowatts.

"At first, CBM was collected mainly out of concern for the safety of miners. But upscaling colliery gas collection has led to an energy reform across the country," said Zhang Shenyong, chief engineer of the Fengkuang Mine.

In Fengkuang Mine, a household pays only 14 yuan (some 1.75 U.S. dollars) per month to use CBM as cooking fuel, much less than canned LPG, which is currently priced at 90 yuan (about 11 U.S. dollars) per bottle.

In Shanxi Province, China's biggest coal production base, CBM is now the main fuel for some 100,000 households and over 200 companies in the mining area, where more than 200 taxi cars are CBM-fueled.

China's first commercial CBM production started with the launch of the Panhe CBM project in Shanxi in November last year. Panhe has the capacity to produce about 100 million cubic meters of CBM per year, making it the largest commercial CBM production and utilization center in the country.

China's 31.46 trillion cubic meters of CBM reserves - equivalent to 45 billion tons of standard coal - are the third largest in the world and are conveniently located in coal beds less than 2,000 meters underground.

Source: Xinhua