This multidisciplinary volume covers everything from exploration of coalbed gas to its transport in pipelines and tankers, from the formation of peat to coal's utilization in thermoelectric power plants. In this book you will find topics on the local to global environmental and groundwater impacts from the development of coal and coalbed gas as well as discussion of global climate change due to CO 2 and CH 4 emissions from power plants, coal mines, and peatlands. The future of organic-rich horizons such as coal is also examined and how innovative uses of solid carbon ore sourced from coal can contribute to a global net-zero carbon emission world. Coal and Coalbed Gas: Future Directions and Opportunities, Second Edition, introduces the latest in coal geology research and the engineering of gas extraction. Importantly, the second edition examines how research during the past decade has changes both focus and location. This shift essentially depicts "a tale of two worlds"-one half (Western Europe, North America) moving away from coal and coalbed gas research and production toward cleaner energy resources and the other half (Asia-Pacific region, Eastern Europe, South America) increasing both research and usage of coal. These changes are marked by a precipitous fall in coalbed gas production in North America, however, at the same time there has been a significant rise in coal and coalbed gas production in Australia. China, and India. The driver for increased production and its associated research is a quest for affordable energy and economic security that a large resource base brings to any country such as the world's first large-scale coalbed gas to liquid natural gas projects in Australia supplying the demand for cleaner burning LNG to the Asia Pacific region. Since the previous edition of this book, global climate change policies have more forcibly emphasized the impact of methane from coal mines and placed these emissions equal to or even more harmful than, CO 2 emissions from fossil fuels in general. Governmental policies have prioritized capture, use, and storage of CO 2, burning coal in new highly efficient low emission power plants, coal mine closures, and gas pre-drainage of coal mines. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries and China are also introducing new research into alternative, non-fuel uses for coal, such as carbon fibers, nanocarbons, graphene, soil amendments, and as an unconventional ore for critical elements. New to this edition: Each chapter is substantially changed from the first edition including expanded and new literature citations and reviews, important new data and information, new features and materials, as well as reorganized and redesigned themes. Importantly, three new chapters cover global coal endowment and gas potential, groundwater systems related to coalbed gas production and biogenic gas generation as well as the changing landscape of coal and coalbed gas influenced by global climate change and net-zero carbon greenhouse gas emissions. Key features, Covers changing applications, products, and uses of coal and coalbed gas driven by global climate change policies, Includes new case studies, field and laboratory data, model examples and procedures from previous studies and latest investigations, Provides the background and basic science about coal and coalbed gas so that scientists, regulators, managers and students have facts to make their own assessments of papers, policies, and the daily news, For those who wish to dig a bit deeper, each chapter is replete with new references, peer reviewed in journals of the highest quality, Accessible to a large multidisciplinary market, written by two of the world's foremost experts on coal and organic rich sediments