Posted on 10/09/2009 1:36:34 PM PDT by thackney
An Anchorage Native corporation said this morning it aims to build a new electric power plant on the west side of Cook Inlet -- using coal instead of the region's dwindling natural gas supply.
The 100-megawatt plant would rely on an emerging but proven technology that doesn't require the coal to be mined. Instead, the coal would be transformed into gas underground, according to officials from Cook Inlet Region Inc., which owns several hundred thousand acres in the vast Beluga coal fields.
CIRI proposes drilling wells into coal seams, then injecting oxygen into those wells, causing the coal to combust and become liquid gas. CIRI would then convert the gas into electricity at the new power plant, and sell the power to buyers in the region, such as utilities. In the future, the CIRI project or similar projects in other Alaska coal fields could be used to produce natural gas for heating or export outside of Alaska, CIRI said.
If the project is feasible and obtains regulatory approval, CIRI hopes to start producing gas in 2014. If the company can meet that aggressive timeline, CIRI's would be the first "underground coal gasification" (UGC) plant in the country, said Ethan Schutt, the company's senior vice president for land and energy development.
UGC plants have been built in Australia, South Africa and Eastern Europe. In North America, UGC projects are also planned in Wyoming and Alberta, Canada.
CIRI began weighing the possibility of producing gas from Beluga coal roughly a year ago, after some developers approached the company to discuss UGC technology, Schutt said.
At the same time, CIRI is planning for another local-energy project: developing a wind farm on Fire Island, near Anchorage's main airport.
CIRI is looking at a mix of energy projects...
(Excerpt) Read more at adn.com ...
How do they control the combustion rate? Air tubes/pockets will eventually form rendering an out of control process.
I guess they haven’t heard of underground coal seam fires in Alaska like the ones we have here in Pennsylvania.
REALLY bad idea.
Color me skeptical
Might form to the surface, depending on the depth. Might not.
I believe the Beluga fields are below the water table and not breached to the surface.
Well, at least not until they set them on fire.
For those interested in more information about Underground Coal Gasification:
http://www.coal-ucg.com/publishedarticleonucg.html
http://www.undeerc.org/programareas/undergroundcoalgasification.aspx
I guess they haven’t heard of underground coal seam fires in Alaska like the ones we have here in Pennsylvania.
Centralia, Pennsylvania was the first thing I thought of, too.
That underground fire started way back in 1962.
The place is a Ghost Town now. The Post Office even revoked its zipcode in 2002.
They say they don't expect the fire to die out for another 250 years!!!
Alaskans better watch out.
An underground coal fire is bad enough, but if it spreads to their oilfields, they're in mighty deep doo-doo!
They were just the ones I had in mind when I read the article.
DOn’t worry, this will never happen.
THe same outfit, that time with Shell - wanted to open a crummy little 40 sq mi strip mine to make syngas out of coal and sell it as a replacement for the NG that is running out.
The Greenies came flooding out of the woodwork. Killed it dead.
Coal fied power? I hear the GreenPeace ‘activists’ flocking to the airport now..... not going to happen.
Oddly, just a few miles away is a lake perfect for hydro power (300 MW) and 40 miles fromthe exsiting Beluga power plant. Not been developed? Why?
The &%*$^# State of Alaska will not issue the permits needed!
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