"Anything that you can use in space from those elements that are already there, it creates an advantage," said Angel Abbud-Madrid, director of the center for space resources at Colorado School of Mines.

"There are certain conditions inside the coal that make the coal spontaneously combust," said Jurgen Brune, a professor in mining engineering at the Colorado School of Mines.

"The climate emergency is already here," 19-year-old Jeeva Senthilnathan, an engineering student at the Colorado School of Mines, told ABC News. "We're seeing the entire climate emergency in front of our eyes."

“There’s not much you can do from the outside to stop these fires because often the coal produces enough oxygen, in the coal bed itself, to keep those fires going,” said Jurgen Brune, a professor in mining engineering at the Colorado School of Mines ....

Brad Handler, a researcher at the Colorado School of Mines’ Payne Institute for Public Policy, says that “in a way, private companies have often proven to be more stable operators, more consistent operators than public ones. … They don’t have to ....

The transition will require mining massive quantities of metals and minerals, a practice that carries its own pollution, said Jordy Lee, a program manager at the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines.

Bobby White and Josh Trujillo were backcountry skiing the popular Berthoud Pass area in Colorado when they saw a cloud of snow erupt -- a sign of an avalanche occurring -- at least a thousand feet away.

Professor Morgan Bazilian, a member of the Climate Change Advisory Council, said the fire was unlike anything seen before in the state.

“Simply knowing the existence of a mineral deposit that’s attractive geologically does not guarantee commercial viability,” said professor Rod Eggert, deputy director of the Critical Materials Institute at the Colorado School of Mines.

It’s the end of the fall semester at Colorado School of Mines in Golden, and all the makings of a classic science fair are on campus. For their final projects, groups of seniors were asked to figure out solutions to problems that included making ....