ucg in south africa

Eskom explores water - power symbiosis

Eskom is exploring clean coal technology - once this is proven commercially it will be the world?s lowest clean coal technology available.

"That?s underground coal gasification where we?ve been producing gas from a coal field next to our Majuba power station for the last three years now. Just a few weeks ago we started putting gas into one of the boilers at Majuba - a very small amount of gas - that?s aimed at proving this technology. Eventually we will be driving gas turbines with it. What that does is it releases enormous reserves of coal that are currently un-mineable in the country. There?s been some discussions recently about coal reserves and how long will coal in South Africa last? We are confident that with the existing commercially exploitable reserves that will meet the requirements of our existing fleet. What this technology does is it opens up massive additional reserves that currently can?t be accessed through conventional mining techniques," Lennon told Summit TV.

Eskom is also vulnerable to the price of coal and some of the things its looking at is how to improve the heat rate of its existing coal fired power stations.

"One of the projects we?ve just gone out on enquiry is to look at where we can solar-preheat water in our coal stations where obviously that will reduce our carbon footprint and the amount of coal we use as well. We?re also looking at biomass coal-firing where you feed in biomass that?s generally wood and various other forms of biomass with the coal and burn that in the plants - once again you're getting more non-fossil energy into the plants - so there is a big thrust looking at how we can use our existing coal resources better to extend the life of those resources and enable us to produce electricity cheaper," he said.