China "Methane to Markets" Project Nears Completion
Date: 24-Oct-06
Country: CHINA
The project at the Jincheng coal mine in China's northern province of Shanxi will produce 120 megawatts of electricity and reduce 40 million metric tonnes of carbon equivalent over its 20-year lifetime.
"The project has been funded and will soon be constructed and implemented," Bill Wehrum, of the US Environmental Protection Agency, told reporters.
Wehrum, in China for a regional conference on air pollution, said the EPA had provided advisory and technical assistance to the project.
The project developer, Jincheng Anthracite Coal Group Co. Ltd., will capture coal mine methane and use it for power generation at the Sihe coal mine in Jincheng city, to be fed into the local power grid, the World Bank's Carbon Finance Unit said on its Web site.
US machinery maker Caterpillar Inc. will provide 60 methane-gas-powered generator sets to produce the power at the Sihe mine.
The project comes under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism, which means the mine should be able to sell credits for the carbon reductions on specialised exchanges in richer nations or directly to firms that overshoot government emissions targets.
Nearly two-thirds of China's energy needs are met by coal-fired power stations, which cause heavy emissions of acid rain-causing sulphur dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions such as methane.
Methane to Markets is an international initiative aimed at recovering the emissions to use as an energy source.
