Coals as methane bioreactors: significance of microbial methane generation in coal seams for coal seam gas (CSG) production and CO2 geosequestration (2011-2014)

The project seeks to use coal seams as bioreactors to replenish gas drained during coal seam methane production, generating methane from coal as the substrate. An option is that carbon dioxide injected into the coal could be reduced to methane, providing a convenient route for CO2 recycling. The outcomes will be the engineering requirements to implement the concepts, based on investigations of the deep subsurface microbiological ecosystems and the geological and geochemical controls that determine methane evolution. This will increase gas reserves by up to $100 billion, provide geosequestration capacity of up to 4.3Gt additional CO2, and decrease the number of gas wells that need to be drilled by half or more and hence reduce gas costs.