Underground Coal Gasification (UCG)

Another source of energy to keep track of.

Link here to Forbes.

Coal Gasification is a well-known, tried and true technology, dating back to the mid-1800s.  Town gas, as it was then known, lit the streets of London and other cities in the 1860s, (thereby helping to save the sperm whale – whose oil was used in lighting municipalities around the globe – from extinction).

UCG essentially involves a process that captures the imagination: heating underground coal seams to the point of combustion.  It involves drilling two wells – at some distance from each other – into the coal seam.  The first well supplies oxidants (a mixture of water and air or water and oxygen), which are injected into the location where the process is actually occurring.  The second well permits the syngas produced to escape under pressure to the surface.  This gas contains approximately 80% of the original energy content of the coal, and is a combination of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and methane.