the mind just boggles ...

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:IdZKancfLyUJ:www.ias.ac.in/currsci/may102007/1242.pdf+m+b+green+underground+coal+gasification&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=au

The above article gives a pretty recent (mid May 2007) overview of coal bed methane (CBM), coal mine methane (CMM) and underground coal gasification (ucg). It also is the first reference I have found for integrated projects utilising initially CBM and then ucg in the same field.

The potential energy utilisation for an integrated project is truly mind boggling ... consider this;

. The calorific value of methane represents typically only about 5% of the total calorific content of your garden variety gassy coal seam ... 95% is obviously embedded within the coal itself.

. EPG's Lorraine permit, excluding the southern extension, has coal bed methane GiP of about 980PJ for 15% of its area which prorata including the southern extension is abt 14,000PJ.

. Whilst its fanciful, ucg as a secondary utilization of EPG's Lorraine coal seams once all CBM has been depleted could potentially produce a further 225,000 PJ (or thereabouts ... I kid you not) of Syngas for gas fired power generation or conversion to diesel. This is based on a ucg being able to utilize 80 to 85% of the calorific value (including methane) within a coal seam.

. With just CBM from Lorraine (and the yet to be confirmed Lons le Saunier I think I recall from a previous post of mine) its feasible that EPG could replace up to 15% of Russian gas imports into Europe over a period of 3 to 4 decades.

. Secondary ucg projects in the same permit areas can theoretically keep that up for 200 to 300 yrs!

Coal bed methane is going to be big business in Europe. For some left field excitement how about some of you have a look at underground coal gasification (ucg) ... its a nascent clean coal technology of significant scale. ASX listed LNC, CXY and MEE are into ucg.

And finally, ucg projects are becoming more viable with the adoption of horizontal in seam drilling to aid coal oxidation and gas extraction. Each of EPG's wells in the proposed 30 well program has up to 2km length of horizontal lateral offtakes ... so it just may be that within 5 to 10 short yrs as EPG's initial wells begin to deplete that we have some ready made ucg projects to fire up.

The mind just boggles at how wasteful actually mining coal for 100's of years has been and just how unnecessary nuclear power may yet prove to be.

Poyndexter