I see coal industry inertia and industry "status quo" as the biggest impediments to ucg progress.
I have posted before on this, but I have read that ucg is best viewed as "virtual coal mining" rather than as a gas alternative. Coal utilisation is higher than with conventional long wall mining and extraction energy expenditure is significantly lower.
If you had billions invested within the existing coal industry (as a miner, transporter, combuster etc) how benevolent would you feel towards the ucg industry?
Ucg can restrict the need for new mines, can severely curtail the coal transport industry, can make existing coal fired power stations look very redundant and can also make much of the existing coal industry infrastructure redundant.
My point is that it will probably take political intervention/assistance to encourage early headway with ucg. Alternatively, it will require innovative companies to see investment in ucg as a sensible hedge to their existing activities. Why not an energy distributer like Origin or an oil producer like BP or an oil refiner like caltex or a fertiliser producer like Incitec?
Bring on the Lib/Lab funding promise slugfest I say lol.
Dex
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