Eric Edwards, right, Tom Vessels and Eugene Vessels, in rear, inspect one of the generators at the Elk Creek mine on Wednesday, March 17, 2021. The generator uses the captured methane gas to create electricity which then goes into the power grid.
The Elk Creek mine above the town of Somerset may have closed years ago, but methane gas still silently seeps out of its collapsed walls and into the atmosphere.
Tom Vessels, a former gas executive turned entrepreneur, is on a mission to eliminate that gas from closed or abandoned mines and prove doing so can slow down global warming.
For the last nine years, Vessels has captured the mine’s methane and used it to generate electricity for residents in the surrounding valleys. This has removed 250 billion cubic feet of methane annually equivalent to taking more than half a million cars off the road for a year, according to a February report from Aspen Skiing Company, the project’s backer.