a most flexible gas

I am increasingly amazed at the potential uses and impacts ucg syngas can offer ...

ALMOST A GIVEN is electricity generation, diesel production, ammonia based fertiliser production and supposedly other petrochemicals productions.

LESS CERTAIN from PetePumkin's thread today is the potential for almost pure hydrogen production.

Ucg could in many cases be a compelling justification to decommission a significant proportion of aging coal fired power stations and reconfigure them run on cleaner burning syngas (on the assumption that most are located in close proximity to mined coal, suggesting suitable opportunities for syngas production).

Ucg could be a hedge for existing petroleum refiners to morph into sustainable businesses (despite impending peak oil) by "refining" a range of synthesised liquid fuels from syngas.

With suitable foresight and planning, ucg syngas could power up large, energy hungry, complex industrial developments like aluminiun smelters and steel furnaces as well as a range of transport solutions run on syngas generated electricity or synthesised fuels.

All this from coal deposits that cannot be mined by conventional methods and from reserves that are not yet included in any analysis of long term national or global energy security.

And 99.99999999% of the world's population only currently know the "black stuff" as just dirty, polluting coal and don't yet see a cleaner, greener transitionary fuel.

Dex