Biothermica to test methane mitigation in Alabama

Montreal-based Biothermica Technologies announced today that it received U.S. government approval to begin a coal mine methane mitigation project in Alabama.

Biothermica said the U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration gave the go-ahead for the project, to be operated at Jim Walter Resources' coal mine no. 7 in Brookwood, Ala.

The company said it would use its Vamox regenerative thermal oxidation system to destroy ventilation air methane, or VAM, before greenhouse gas is released to the atmosphere.

The demonstration project is expected to achieve greenhouse gas emission reductions of 40,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually, according to Biothermica.

Guy Drouin, president of Biothermica, said "we will be the first company to oxidize VAM at an active coal mine in America."

The company said VAM constitutes 60 percent to 70 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions from underground coal mines, and that in 2007, VAM emissions made up 5 percent of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

"Historically considered as waste, ventilation air can now turn into a valuable asset that can be sold as carbon credits on the market" said Thomas McNider, general manager of mining engineering at Jim Walter Resources.

Biothermica said it plans to develop VAM oxidation projects based on the monetization of carbon credits under greenhouse gas emission reduction schemes such as the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol.