Assessment of underground coal gasification in bituminous coals. Volume I. Executive summary. Final report

Technical Report · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1981

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/5454633· OSTI ID:5454633

This report describes the bituminous coal resources of the United States, identifies those resources which are potentially amenable to Underground Coal Gasification (UCG), identifies products and markets in the vicinity of selected target areas, identifies UCG concepts, describes the state of the art of UCG in bituminous coal, and presents three R and D programs for development of the technology to the point of commercial viability. Of the 670 billion tons of bituminous coal remaining in-place as identified by the National Coal Data System, 32.2 billion tons or 4.8% of the total are potentially amenable to UCG technology. The identified amenable resource was located in ten states: Alabama, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia. The principal criteria which eliminated 87.3% of the resource was the minimum thickness (42 inches). Three R and D programs were developed using three different concepts at two different sites. Open Borehole, Hydraulic Fracture, and Electrolinking concepts were developed. The total program costs for each concept were not significantly different. The study concludes that much of the historical information based on UCG in bituminous coals is not usable due to the poor siting of the early field tests and a lack of adequate diagnostic equipment. This information gap requires that much of the early work be redone in view of the much improved understanding of the role of geology and hydrology in the process and the recent development of analytical tools and methods.

• Research Organization: Williams Bros. Engineering Co., Tulsa, OK (USA). Process Div.
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC21-80MC14584
• OSTI ID: 5454633
• Report Number(s): DOE/MC/14584-1193-Vol.1; ON: DE82014584
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT
010404* -- Coal
Lignite
& Peat-- Gasification
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
294001 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Coal
BITUMINOUS COAL
BLACK COAL
BOREHOLE LINKING
CARBONACEOUS MATERIALS
COAL
COAL DEPOSITS
COAL GASIFICATION
COAL SEAMS
DIMENSIONS
DIRECTIONAL DRILLING
DRILLING
ECONOMICS
ENERGY SOURCES
EXPLORATION
FIELD TESTS
FOSSIL FUELS
FUELS
GASIFICATION
GEOLOGIC DEPOSITS
GEOLOGIC STRATA
GEOLOGIC STRUCTURES
GEOLOGY
HYDROLOGY
IN-SITU GASIFICATION
IN-SITU PROCESSING
INCLINED STRATA
MATERIALS
MINERAL RESOURCES
NORTH AMERICA
PROCESSING
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
RESOURCES
TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT
TESTING
THERMOCHEMICAL PROCESSES
THICKNESS
USA