Prospects of coalbed methane in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula: A review

초록

Methane in coal has traditionally presented miners with at best a nuisance and at worst a major explosion hazard. Coalbed methane can be, however, utilized as an energy source that (1) is environmentally more acceptable than the mining and combustion of coal, (2) can partly replace coal as a fossil energy source, and (3) sometimes occurs where other conventional resources of oil and gas are not present. The Republic of Korea does not hitherto produce any oil and natural gas, but it has a considerable number of coalfields whose total resources of low- and high-rank coals are estimated to be more than 1.6 billion metric tons. The Tertiary coals appear to contain types II and III kerogen with moderate atomic ratios. Therefore, they might have generated sufficient accumulations of methane-rich gas. A few methane emissions in some of the coalfields advocate that coalbed methane has been generated in those coalfields. It is therefore commended to formulate a strategy to explore and exploit the resources of coalbed methane.

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