New Scientist 15 February page 36.
A proposal to create lots of gas for energy. Turns out that the most common fossil fuel is coal, and no more than 30% of coal beds are accessible to conventional mining, due to cost, hazards etc. For example, there are extensive coal beds under shallow seas. But this proposal will permit extraction of energy in vast amounts from these difficult coal beds.
If you burn coal, in the middle of a coal bed, with minimal oxygen, the heat of combustion will also drive off lots of volatile and flammable gases. These can be extracted by sucking them up a pipe, and then a suitable refinery can turn them into useable methane and other materials. So the plan is to drill pipes into the inaccessible coal beds. Air is pumped down one pipe, and the coal set afire. Other pipes suck up the volatiles.
Obviously this will make vast amounts of the greenhouse gas, CO2. So they plan to pump the CO2 back down into the area which was coal, but is now open due to the coal being burned. They even suggest the volatiles be burned to generate electricity, and the waste CO2 sent back down into the coal bed.
What do you guys think of this plan?