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from a biological process as a result of microbial action or from a thermal process as a result of increasing heat with depth of the coal. Often a coal seam is saturated with water and methane is held in the coal by the pressure of the water. Currently, natural gas from coal beds is approximately 7% of the total natural gas production in the United States, nearly onethird of the estimated 184 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Rocky Mountain Region is in coal seams. An estimated 24 TCF of recoverable CBM resources may lie below the Powder River basin of Montana and Wyoming. Where does coal bed methane exist? According to the CBM Association of Alabama, 13% of the land in the lower 48 United States has some coal under it, and some of this coal contains methane either in the form we know as traditional natural gas or as CBM. According to the United States Geological Survey, the Rocky Mountain Region has extensive coal deposits with significant storage of coalbed methane gas. Untapped resources of coal bed methane exist in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana, the Greater Green River Basin of Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, the UintaPiceance Basin of Colorado and Utah, and the Raton and San Juan Basins of Colorado and New Mexico. It is estimated the Rocky Mountain region has about 3058 trillion cubic feet of recoverable CBM. How do gas panies extract the methane from the coal seam? Methane travels with the ground water being pumped from the coal from a well drilled and pleted in a coal seam that contains methane and fixed with a water methane has very low solubility in water it separates from the water in the well before the water enters the pump. The extraction of CBM involves pumping the available water from the coal seam aquifer in order to reduce the water pressure that holds the gas in the coal seam. CBM producers try not to dewater the coal seam. The goal is to decrease the water pressure in the coal seam to just above the top of the seam. However, sometimes the water level drops into the coal seam. Water moving from the coal seam to the well bore encourages gas migration toward the well. As this water pressure is released, the gas will rise and is separated from the water and be piped away. How much methane gas do they estimate will be extracted from the Powder River Basin? Estimates on the amount of methane gas in the Powder River Basin vary and the estimates are often recalculated. There are several methods to estimate the amount of recoverable gas from a coal seam。through soe form of irrigation equipment some water is used for irrigation. ? Other uses CBM product water is also used for dust control, and in some cases is being used by coal mines. Another option being proposed for disposal of CBM product water in eastern Wyoming and Montana is to reinject the CBM product water back into