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Abstract
Underground coal mines are important global sources of methane, but emission estimates are uncertain. We show that emission estimates for individual mines from aircraft remote-sensing surveys in the United States agree within 40% with direct measurements used for national emission reporting (IPCC Tier 3 estimate). Such direct measurements are unavailable in most countries, which rely on estimated emission factors (EFs) applied to coal-production rates. We find that EFs from IPCC Tier 1 and the Model for Calculating Coal Mine Methane (MC2M) methods overestimate U.S. emissions 3-fold due to incorrect dependence on mine depth. An IPCC Tier 2 method using measured basin-specific mine gas content agrees with direct emission measurements but does not account for gob well emissions and requires gas content data that are generally unavailable. We show that aircraft remote sensing for a small sample of mines can successfully estimate basin-specific EFs for ventilation shafts and gob wells, enabling estimates of basin- and national-scale emissions. We discuss how the method can be applied with satellite remote sensing to quantify coal emissions worldwide.
Suggested Citation
Penn, E., Jacob, D.J., Bon, D.M., Howell, K., O’Neill, K., Scarpelli, T., Chen, Z., Field, R.A., Karacan, C.O., Roy, E., and Cusworth, D., 2026, Remote sensing enables basin-scale inventories of coal mine methane: Environmental Science and Technology, v. 60, no. 21, p. 14924-14933, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5c14976.
Study Area
| Publication type | Article |
|---|---|
| Publication Subtype | Journal Article |
| Title | Remote sensing enables basin-scale inventories of coal mine methane |
| Series title | Environmental Science and Technology |
| DOI | 10.1021/acs.est.5c14976 |
| Volume | 60 |
| Issue | 21 |
| Publication Date | May 19, 2026 |
| Year Published | 2026 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | American Chemical Society |
| Contributing office(s) | Geology, Energy & Minerals Science Center |
| Description | 10 p. |
| First page | 14924 |
| Last page | 14933 |
| Country | United States |
| State | Alabama, Colorado, Kentucky, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia |