The time's come to see how the modern world can benefit from a wide global deployment of Underground Coal Gasification. UCG is an energy-producing technology that can bring the value of underground coal seams to the consumer, without the pain and expense of actually mining the coal. There is none of the lunar-like craters of open-cast mining; none of the tailings of underground mines; no ash dams and coal crushing; no trains transporting coal; no lives lost to underground floods, methane explosions, fires, or deadly pneumoconiosis. The enormous energy that was previously locked up and lost in unmined and unminable coal deposits can now be released and delivered to the surface in the clean and convenient form of pure, rich combustible gas. It's a safe, clean, controlled operation with a great variety of industrial applications, and above all, a low, very competitive cost.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Underground Coal Gasification
An LLNL research program on Underground Coal Gasification. "Gasification is a process by which coal or other hydrocarbons are converted into a synthesis gas (syngas) at elevated pressures and temperatures, usually in a commercially purchased gasifier. Gasification can be used to create many products (electric power, liquid fuels, hydrogen, synthetic gas) and provides great opportunities for pollution control, especially sulfur, nitrous oxides, and mercury. Underground coal gasification (UCG) converts coal in-situ into a synthesis gas through the same chemical reactions. Because this process gasifies coal at depth under many different geological circumstances, UCG could increase the coal resource available for utilization enormously. A 300-400% increase in coal reserves and even greater increase of gasification is possible...."
Fire in the Hole: Underground Coal Gasification
"WORLDWIDE coal reserves are vast, over 10 trillion metric tons, but unless cleaner and cheaper ways can be found to convert coal to gas or liquid fuels, coal is unlikely to become an acceptable replacement for dwindling and uncertain supplies of oil and natural gas. Mining coal is dangerous work, coal is dirty to burn, and much of the coal in the ground is too deep or too low in quality to be mined economically. Today, less than one-sixth of the world’s coal is economically accessible. However, Livermore is helping to revive an old technology that offers promise to substantially increase usable coal reserves and make coal a clean and economic alternative fuel. Known as underground coal gasification (UCG), this technology converts coal to a combustible gas underground...."