For the past nine years, IRG has served as a prime contractor supporting USEPA's public-private partnership program with the coal industry. Specifically, IRG identifies and promotes opportunities for increasing the extent to which coal producers in the United States and around the world can capture and use coal mine methane (CMM). The tasks IRG is implementing to achieve this goal include: identifying and disseminating information on new technologies and approaches to capture and productively utilize methane emissions from underground coal mining; preparing technical documents and conference papers on CMM project structure, finance, and markets; analyzing the US energy sector's abatement of methane emissions; managing CMOP's database of collaborator contct information; and supporting technical analysis of ventilation methane emission mitigation. In the process, IRG has established a close working relationship with most of the major coal industry partners in the program. IRG's analysis of technologies for beneficially using CMM includes both evaluation of a given technology's performance expectations under field conditions as well as the economics of technology deployment. Such economic analysis typically necessitates an identification and evaluation of local markets for CMM project output (natural gas for pipeline injection, thermal energy, electric power) as well as of potential revenues that may be generated theough the sale of carbon emission reductions.

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IRG provides expert training design, implementation, and related logistics focused on capacity building and instituitional strengthening in support of USAID/Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance's strategic objectives. These services target the needs of vulnerable groups in emergency situations and increase the asoption of mitigation measures in countries at greatest risk of natural and human-made disasters.

A senior IRG staff member served as the primary system coordinator for the International Energy Agency's Energy Technology Systems Analysis Progrm (ESTAP), corrdinating all research activities and providing global support to the MARKAL communitiy. IRG's responsibilities included MARKAL-MACRO model development and technical and remedial support for its use, future development, and requirements for new applications.