Re: China's Energy Plan for The Next Two Hundred Years!
- From: PaPaPeng <PaPaPeng@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2006 04:51:03 GMT
On 14 Feb 2006 19:37:06 -0800, "NYC XYZ" <jack_foreigner@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I just heard on The Beep that China's long-term plan for its
ever-growing energy needs involves mainly COAL -- the CONVERSION of
coal into gas! Anyone know any more details?
I mean, is this present technology, or it's something that's supposed
to go online sooner or later? Is this an environmentally good thing,
converting coal into some kind of gas for fuel? (I mean, it's still
fossil fuel, right? Though cleaner, I guess....)
Hey! Weren't the German Nazis manufacturing some kind of oil out of
coal or something during WWII??
Etc.
TIA!
This link should give you a good idea of the technology. There is an
illustration in the webpage.
http://carbonsequestration.us/News&Projects/htm/IEAGreen-ecbm.htm
There are vast, deep coalbeds in Alberta, Canada which are unmineable
but contain trapped methane. The Alberta Research Council (ARC) is
leading a group of provincial, national and international
organizations to exploit the coalbed methane by testing a novel
process of injecting carbon dioxide. This process is called Enhanced
Gas Recovery (EGR). It is similar to the established practice of using
CO2 injection to enhance production from oil reservoirs. With EGR, the
injected CO2 is adsorbed in the coal, to be stored in its pore matrix,
releasing the trapped methane that can be collected and sold.
Future work in this area could lead to the design of efficient
null-greenhouse-gas emission power plants that would be fuelled either
by mineable coal or by methane released from the deep unmineable coal.
In such a process, the CO2 produced from power plant would be injected
into the coalbeds to produce more methane, so continuing the cycle. In
addition, a geological sink would be established in the coalbeds,
virtually eliminating any release of CO2 to the atmosphere. An
abundance of deep coalbeds in Canada and the USA makes geological
storage of CO2 applicable to many areas where coal-burning power
plants are located.
(more)
----------------------------------------------------------------
The technology is still fairly new and the Alberta Research Council
effort is one of the world's leading authority on the subject.
What is commonly overlooked is that many of the world's coal deposits
are not coomercially extractable on account of thin seams, too deep
deposits, poor quality, etc. This new technology to convert that
coal into gas in situ makes their extraction as fuel viable. No
mining is required and therefore no massive investment in mining
equipment. The danger mining accidents and loss of life is eliminated.
China is particularly interested in this technology as she has perhaps
the world's largest deposits of coal. Many of China's coal mines do
not lend themselves to industrial scale mechanized mining. The small
mines where coal is extracted by pick axe kills hundreds of miners
each year..
.
- Prev by Date: Success is a state of mind
- Next by Date: Re: Criticizing China to make it a better place
- Previous by thread: Success is a state of mind
- Next by thread: Re: China's Energy Plan for The Next Two Hundred Years!
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
