The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in support of GMI, collaborated with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe to develop a tool to gather information and estimate annual methane emissions from underground coal mines. The Excel-based template simplifies collection of measurement data and provides equations that calculate total annual emissions for a single facility (i.e., underground coal mine). This template is intended to help companies better understand emissions from individual coal mines to identify mitigation options. It can also help governments refine their national-level emissions reporting to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), i.e., by providing a mechanism to support a Tier 3 approach for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. The template can be modified as appropriate; for example, changing from monthly data collection to a different frequency. It provides space to record additional information, such as from remote sensing campaigns.
May 2025: Version 1.2 updated instructions and column headings for clarity. Specifically, the edits clarified instructions for tabs 3 and 4 to state that methane calculated is liberated (rather than emitted) through the mine’s ventilation and degasification systems. The resulting methane liberated values are then used in the cumulative mass balance equation (equation 7) on tab 8 to calculate total methane emitted by the facility. Additionally, some column headings in tabs 6, 7, and 8 were changed to indicate that methane utilized on site should be included in the appropriate tables along with methane destroyed. Finally, an entry for pump stations was added to the drop-down list of utilization methods in A3 of tab 6.