Underground Coal Gasification and Combustion

Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) is carried out in unmined coal seams, using wells drilled from the surface and converting coal into synthesis gas. The gas can be used for power generation and synthesis of automotive fuels, fertilizers and other products.

UCG offers financial, social, and environmental benefits over conventional coal extraction and utilization methods and may play a critical role in ensuring energy security in the future.　

Underground Coal Gasification and Combustion　provides an overview of underground coal gasification technology, its current status and future directions. Comprehensive in approach, the book covers history, science, technology, hydrogeology, rock mechanics, environmental performance, economics, regulatory and commercial aspects of UCG projects.

The first book on the subject in forty years, it is unique in analysing more than a century of global UCG developments by experts from Australia, Canada, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, United Kingdom, the USA and Uzbekistan.

• Provides researchers, engineers, industry, educators and regulators with an authoritative overview of science and practical applications of underground coal gasification technologies
• Offers insight into efficiency, environmental performance, costs, permitting issues and commercial aspects of UCG projects
• Written by scientists and practitioners of UCG technology sharing hands-on experience of step-by-step UCG implementation

Researchers, engineers, executives, regulators, geoscientists, students, environmentalists and general public interested in energy security, coal mining, gasification technologies, clean coal options, alternative mining methods, and protection of groundwater. Investment professionals with an interest in energy, power generation and petrochemicals. Students of engineering, hydrogeology, rock mechanics and geology departments.

1. Introduction to Underground Coal Gasification and Combustion
2. Early development and discoveries in underground coal gasification
3. History of UCG Development in the USSR
4. Underground Coal Gasification Research and Development in the United States
5. European underground coal gasification (UCG) tests
6. The Development of UCG in Australia
7. Gasification kinetics
8. The Role of Groundwater as an Important Component in Underground Coal Gasification
9. The Effects of Rock Deformation in Underground Coal Gasification
10. Underground coal gasification modelling and analysis
11. Environmental Performance of Underground Coal Gasification
12. What Makes a UCG Technology Ready for Commercial Application?
13. Underground Coal Gasification to Products: Designs, Efficiencies, Economics
14. Majuba Underground Coal Gasification Project
15. UCG Commercialisation and the Cougar Energy Project at Kingaroy, Queensland, Australia
16. Underground Gasification of Oil Shale
17. Underground coal fires
18. Soil remediation by underground fires
19. Advanced underground measurement and monitoring techniques