The Environmental Protection Agency in the United States is award of US$2 million for projects that will enhance the capture and use of methane in China and other countries.

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas twenty times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. The primary component of natural gas, methane is also a valuable and clean-burning energy resource. China, Russia, Argentina, Brazil, India, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria and Ukraine will have projects funded under the auspices of the Methane to Markets Partnership, an international effort promoting near-term, cost-effective projects that capture and use methane as a clean-energy source.

Projects funded by these grants will support a variety of partnership activities designed to remove technical or informational barriers to successful methane capture and use projects. These activities include, among others: training, development of databases on potential project sites, feasibility studies, technology transfer, and project expositions.

In China, the China Coal Information Institute is receiving US$100,000 for a demonstration project of power generation using low quality coal methane at a coal mine in the Anhui or Henan coal mining areas. Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization is receiving US$200,102 for a feasibility study on mitigating and utilizing diluted mine methane by using a monolithic catalytic combustor at Tiefa, and Guizhou International Cooperation Center for Environment receives US$63,503 for a coal mine methane recovery and use initiative at mines in Guizhou province.

The Methane to Markets Partnership, launched by President Bush in November 2004, brings twenty partner countries together with more than 600 project network members from the private and public sectors to harness this important energy resource and protect the global climate.

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