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Underground Coal Gasification:- An alternate, economical, and viable solution for future sustainability.

By Kumar Abhishek posted 01-26-2015 04:03 AM

  

As per estimated data the world’s recoverable coal reserve will last about 150 to 200 years at the current production rate. Mining is the typical method of extracting coal, with these traditional methods only 15% to 20% of the total coal reserve is recoverable. If unrecoverable coal is considered as resource, the lifetime of coal will be extended by perhaps a couple hundred years. Mining involves a lot of man power, high cost of machinery, changes in landscape and post extraction transportation.

A new type of coal extraction method, known as Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) addresses most of the problems of coal mining and is being implemented globally. UCG is a gasification process applied to in situ coal seams which are often located deep below the earth surface and are uneconomic to be extracted by traditional mining methods. UCG is very similar to surface gasification and produces syngas through same chemical reaction which take place in surface gasifiers. The produced syngas can be used as a fuel to generate electricity or steam, as a basic chemical building block for a large number of uses in the petrochemical and refining industries, or for the production of hydrogen. UCG when combined with carbon capture and storage techniques proves to be a clean energy source. When linked with modern combined cycle turbines, gasification is one of the most efficient, environmentally effective means of producing electricity from solid or liquid feed stocks. This paper is an attempt to present that UCG is an effective, economical, and viable solution for conversion of unrecoverable coal resources to useful reserves hence lead to future sustainability.

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