conceptually comparable to long wall mining

Ergo Exergy is in the thick of it ... in South Africa ... and they should be able to deliver some early mover advantages to CXY's Kingaroy project with reduced lead in times imo.
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Eskom’s project revolutionises clean coal technology

Saturday 20th January 2007 marked the first flaring of gas from the Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) Pilot Project at Majuba Power Station near Volksrust in Mpumalanga. The pilot is capable of producing enough gas for the cooking and heating requirements of approximately 1000 medium sized houses.

The UCG technology application is a first for Africa and the frontrunner in terms of Eskom’s research and development of clean coal technologies.

UCG is a process where coal is converted underground into a synthetic gas, which can be used as fuel for power generation or a raw material for chemicals. A network of wells is drilled into the coal seam, and the coal is ignited with air that is pumped underground. Fire is essentially used to “mine” the coal, which Eskom plans to use initially as a fuel for Majuba power station’s boilers.

The technology opens the door to the next generation of power generating technologies, which combines high efficiency gasification technology with gas turbines to yield one of the cleanest coal technologies presently available. It holds promise for significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions, which has significant implications for global warming.

The UCG technology provider is Ergo Exergy Inc. (Canada), who has worked with Eskom for four years to develop the technology for South African application. The scope, scale, quality and pioneering nature of this UCG project hold no parallels anywhere in the world.

UCG technology is comparable to conventional longwall underground mining in concept, but very different in execution. UCG technology has been proven to provide very high coal extraction efficiencies of greater than 95%. The overall resource extraction efficiency shows potential to far exceed that of conventional underground mining.

The Eskom Pilot Project will be expanded in a staged manner, based on the success of the each preceding phase. The aim is evaluate process parameters, and analyse the resulting gas, byproducts and possible environmental impacts at a 6 MWth scale over a six-month period.

The ultimate objective of the project is to fully evaluate the technology and produce a business case for co-firing of 1 200 MW of electricity at Majuba by 2010, at an anticipated cost considerably less than current coal prices. The project will be developed in a phased manner, with gas production at each phase increasing progressively.

Gas production and supply using UCG will assist in alleviating coal supply problems presently experienced at Majuba. The spin-off environmental benefits are also significant.

The natural progression for UCG proceeds into Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (UCG-IGCC), and into other unminable coal resources in South Africa. Eskom‘s preliminary estimates show that there is 45 billion tons of coal in South Africa that is presently regarded as unminable with currently available technologies, but is still suitable for UCG. This will create a new energy source for Eskom that will enable the present generating capacity of 41 GW to be increased nine fold.

Says Dr Steve Lennon, Managing Director (Resources & Strategy): “The Eskom pilot project is a first for Africa. The gas produced enables Eskom to leap-frog existing coal technologies, placing it amongst the leaders in the world in the implementation of the next generation of clean coal technologies. As such it plays a key role in Eskom’s sustainability programme.”

Ends

For further information:

Chris Gross
Corporate Consultant (Generation Research)
Tel: (011) 629-5012
Email: [email protected]