Final report for the Indiana University portion of the CCTTSS project.

Biogenic methane is a common constituent in deep subsurface environments such as coalbeds and oil shale beds. Coalbed methane (CBM) makes significant contributions to world natural gas industry and CBM production continues to increase. With increasing CBM production, the production of CBM co-produced water increases, which is an environmental concern. This study investigated the feasibility in re-using CBM co-produced water and other high sodic/saline water to enhance biogenic methane production from coal and other unconventional sources, such as oil shale. Microcosms were established with the selected carbon sources which included coal, oil shale, lignite, peat, and diesel-contaminated soil. Each microcosm contained either CBM coproduced water or groundwater with various enhancement and inhibitor combinations. Results indicated that the addition of nutrients and nutrients with additional carbon can enhance biogenic methane production from coal and oil shale. Methane production from oil shale was much greater than that from coal, which is possibly due to the greater amount of available Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) from oil shale. Inconclusive results were observed from the other sources since the incubation period was too low. WRI is continuing studies with biogenic methane production from oil shale.