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The UCG thread...

Posted: 08 Oct 2012, 21:16
by mobbsey
18 licences already awarded, only one firm proposal so far for Swansea Bay. Now there's a new application for the Loughor estuary, and even more pristine environment than Swansea Bay.

...thought it was about time to start the 'UCG thread'!

Plus the fact that the "information" in the article below is complete crap!

P.

http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Coal- ... story.html

Coal firm's bid to produce energy from under estuary

South Wales Evening Post, Tuesday 25th September 2012


A COMPANY wants to investigate whether coal under the Loughor Estuary can be "gasified" to produce energy.

Cluff Coal has applied to the Coal Authority, which owns the UK's coal seams, for a conditional underground coal gasification licence.

It's still very early days, and the Coal Authority is waiting for more information from the London-registered company before determining the application.

If it awarded Cluff Coal a conditional licence, the company would have to satisfy local authorities and the Environment Agency, among others, of its plans before being able to test drill.

A Cluff Coal spokesman said: "The Government is keen to look at all sorts of different technologies to produce gas. We think underground coal gasification is something that can be progressed."

Cluff Coal has applied for 18 licences in different parts of the UK. Underground coal gasification, said the spokesman, had been demonstrated on a commercial basis in the US.

{SNIP}

Posted: 09 Oct 2012, 07:19
by ziggy12345
If we knew what UCG was we could comment

Posted: 09 Oct 2012, 08:09
by PS_RalphW
underground coal gasification ?

Posted: 09 Oct 2012, 11:40
by emordnilap
University College Galway

Posted: 09 Oct 2012, 11:56
by emordnilap
"The Government is keen to look at all sorts of different technologies to produce gas."
I do like beans. Maybe I could eat more and get some government subsidies.

Posted: 09 Oct 2012, 12:37
by adam2
ziggy12345 wrote:If we knew what UCG was we could comment
Unconventional Gas ?

Posted: 09 Oct 2012, 18:39
by mobbsey
ziggy12345 wrote:If we knew what UCG was we could comment
The funniest I've heard thus far -- "UCG" are the A-level results you need to get into London Metropolitan University :wink:

Seriously though, the restriction on UCG has always been that it doesn't work. Now, with politcos so desperate for any energy source to keep the growth machine working, UCG is on the agenda even though each place they've experimented with it (including the UK in the 1950s) the results have been rather ghastly! :( -- most recently in the Australian state of Queensland.

Then again, we shouldn't forget that the instigator behind the whole idea was (allegedly) Lenin! -- because he didn't want to send Russian workers into dangerous coal mines, and he demanded a technical solution to mining coal without putting people in danger (although they probably were not thinking of climate change at that time).

Posted: 10 Oct 2012, 10:37
by ziggy12345
Didnt the Russians also experiment with atomic bombs to extract gas or oil?

I think the EROIR would be in the negative :D