Is some of the New Nat. Gas in PA being generated from coal giving off methane over time? I was in Puxatany and they were drilling all over the place.

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Trailers for rent 50 cents,No house no home no rent, 3rd boxcar destination Bangor Maine

I know starting in the 70's they started to bleed off methane by drilling boreholes before they mined an area ( soft coal only). Served two purposes, one made it a little safer as some of the methane was taken out of the vein. And also they sold the methane. Only thng is methane has some impurities that natural gas doesnt. And it cant be removed. Methane can only be burned alone. Cant be mixed with natural gas, as the impurities affect the burn process. The person I heard this from went into great detail, but thats the jist I got from the conversation.

I would imagine you could have a lot of impurities mixed in the methane which is piped off from coal mines which would need to be removed for it to be considered usable in homes. It is air from a mine, so it really could have any number of varying impurities. You probably also have a little carbon monoxide from operating equipment and blasting in there as well, since carbon monoxide is lighter than oxygen and carbon dioxide. Maybe even coal dust depending on how they extract it..

Refined natural gas from gas wells, used in most people homes and businesses, is generally purified methane. Through the refining process, they remove most of the contaminants and the end product is pretty much pure methane. Pure CH4...

Depending on your gas wells, natural gas in it's unrefined form contains 70 - 90% methane. You generally run into varying amounts other impurities such as ethane, propane, butane, carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and other gases.

Miner Greg