Methane Farming?

There is news from Wyoming of two companies that are seeking approval for "methane farming", which involves injecting several types of microbes into coal seams.  The microbes convert the coal to methane gas. At a time when minable coal seams are getting harder to find, this may be good news for Appalachia.  There is lots of coal in West Virginia and elsewhere that is  unrecoverable because it is in seams that are too thin to mine underground, and are under too much cover to strip mine economically.  The Casper Tribune reports on the two processes:

Two companies, Luca Technologies and Ciris Energy Inc., are preparing to employ the process in Wyoming. Both use processes that accelerate methane production by microbes that feed on coal beds. But there are differences between the two: While Luca pumps nutrients underground to the gas-producing microbes, Ciris uses a process that breaks down coal into a solution for easy feeding by the microbes. Unlike Luca, Ciris plans to use an above-ground facility.

Business Week also had a report on it.