Shallow Engineered Geothermal Systems (SEGS) Using Naturally Burning Underground Coal Seam

Abstract

There are over 600 burning underground coal seams in the United States and we are simply wasting the heat from them and allowing the CO2 and other toxic gases to emit. A group of professionals who have different interest in the burning underground coal is proposing a unique and sustainable way to harness this wasted heat. We plan of conducting a feasibility study on utilizing the heat from burning coal fires to generate geothermal power. This adds an additional category to the conventional definition of an Engineered Geothermal System. The burning underground coal seams usually occurs at a depth of tens of meters to hundreds of meters and it is much shallower than the depth that is required to make the conventional EGS utilization possible. The saving of the drilling cost itself may justify of considering this unique way to produce geothermal power.