Much cheaper to make liquids from UCG syngas. CSG is mostly...

Much cheaper to make liquids from UCG syngas. CSG is mostly methane, while syngas is methane plus hydrogen (and other gasses).

With UCG syngas there is no need for the steam reforming step that is 50% of conventional GTL cost. Syngas is already close to the right composition for Fischer-Tropsch.

But even with these advantages, a UCG coal to liquids plant would not be cheap. This report from the SyngasRefiner suggests capex cost of $40K b/d for a UCG-CTL plant: $4 billion for a 100 k b/d plant.

see page 11

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/conf/pdf/cornitius.pdf

These kind of costs are why CXY is going to do power generation first.

And speaking of vision. Sure looks like CNX and LNC are belatedly coming around to Len's view that power generation is the least risky path to commercialize UCG.