Remote sensing enables basin-scale inventories of coal mine methane

Elise Penn; Daniel J. Jacob; Daniel M. Bon; Kate Howell; Kelly O’Neill; Tia Scarpelli; Zichong Chen; Robert A. Field; C. Ozgen Karacan; Elfie Roy; Daniel Cusworth

doi:10.1021/acs.est.5c14976

Remote sensing enables basin-scale inventories of coal mine methane

Environmental Science and Technology

By: Elise Penn, Daniel J. Jacob, Daniel M. Bon, Kate Howell, Kelly O’Neill, Tia Scarpelli, Zichong Chen, Robert A. Field, C. Ozgen Karacan, Elfie Roy, and Daniel Cusworth

https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5c14976

Metrics

Web analytics dashboard Metrics definitions

Links

More information: Publisher Index Page (via DOI)
Download citation as: RIS | Dublin Core

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, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5c14976.

Study Area

Additional publication details
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
Edition	Online First
Publication Date	May 19, 2026
Year Published	2026
Language	English
Publisher	American Chemical Society
Contributing office(s)	Geology, Energy & Minerals Science Center
Country	United States
State	Alabama, Colorado, Kentucky, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia