Consol Energy and SES investigate gasification of waste coal
10-SEP-2007
Consol Energy Inc., one of the USA's largest bituminous coal production companies, and Synthesis Energy Systems, Inc. have entered into an agreement to investigate the development of coal-based gasification facilities to produce feedstock for various industrial chemical manufacturers. The collaboration will also investigate the feasibility of producing substitute natural gas (SNG) to meet the demand for clean, affordable energy.
'If this agreement develops as we hope,' said J. Brett Harvey, president and chief executive officer, 'it will expand significantly our total energy production profile and will meet our continuing objective of capturing the full value of all our assets. In this case, the achievement of the goal is amplified because the process creates an asset of a waste stream that would otherwise be on the balance sheet as a liability.'
Under the agreement, Consol Energy and SES will analyze the feasibility of projects that would use coal gasification technology to convert coal from preparation plants tailings into higher-value products including: methanol, ethanol, mixed alcohols, ammonia and SNG. The project initially will focus on the Consol Energy's Northern Appalachian mine sites in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.
Consol Energy mining complexes produce an estimated 20 million tons (over 17 million metric tonnes) per year of coal preparation plants tailings: such material could be used to make valuable liquid and gas products rather than be landfilled as waste.
SES owns an exclusive global license for U-Gas(R) gasification technology that has been developed over the past 30 years by the Gas Technology Institute, and was designed especially to convert low-rank waste coal, which would otherwise be disposed in landfills, into synthetic gas (syngas). The syngas produced is a valuable feedstock that can then be used to produce liquid transportation fuels, bulk chemical commodities, and other energy products
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