I am pleased to see companies of the calibre of RIO and BP making clean coal initiatives. Surface gasification to produce hydrogen rich syngas is proposed for up to 500MW generating capacity at Kwinana I understand.
However, surface gasification still requires the coal to be mined (energy expenditure) and transported (energy expenditure), the resultant solid wastes to be transported and managed (energy expenditure) and carbon dioxide sequestration (energy expenditure).
The same or similar gasification process can be undertaken underground insitu in a process called underground coal gasification (ucg) that doesnt require the coal to be mined. There are essentially no energy expenditures associated with mining, transporting and managing the coal and its wastes and I am pretty sure a significant proportion of the produced carbon dioxide is naturally sequestered in the process, leaving only the carbon dioxide produced at the surface when finally combusting the syngas to deal with (which is about 30% less than burning coal for the same energy output).
The three companies into ucg that I am aware of are LNC, CXY and MEE ... I own shares in CXY but watch LNC closely too.
