This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I project will investigate the feasibility of generating electricity from existing fires in abandoned coal mines and waste banks. These can be high temperature fires (charted in excess of 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit) that have been burning for decades and will continue to burn long into the future. There are currently over 600 fires associated with past coal mining activity. Millions of dollars have been spent trying to extinguish these fires only to find that there is no practical and cost effective solution. We will drill into burning coal seams and install a thermal extraction system that would tap into these unutilized heat sources and in turn, convert these otherwise wasted energies into a useful product commercially viable electricity. This research may lead to the construction of commercial power plants at sites now regarded as unproductive liabilities. The generally shallow depths and high temperatures of these fires lead to the belief that commercially competitive power plants can be built and operated at these sites. These factors, as well as others, should lead to lower costs in construction and in higher efficiencies of the power plants as compared to already proven power plants in the geothermal industry.
