It is estimated that the coal resources of Pakistan were more than 185 billion tonnes. The present net demand of coal in the country was about 10.1 million tonnes out of which 4.1 million tonnes were produced locally and 6 million tonnes were imported.
To increase the coal production by 20 percent the Coal Sub-Group proposed that focus must be made on the improvement of underground transportation of coal and construction of roads from coal bearing zone to the market.
Daily Times adds:
The Coal Sub-Group emphasised on greater exploitation of the indigenous energy resources, which was an important strategy in Energy Security Action Plan, which envisaged the share of coal from the 6 percent to 19 percent in 2019, the sources maintained.
The group was of the view that the provincial governments were unable to provide the requisite assistance to the private coal miners to overcome the difficulties.
The sources said that in January 2007, Energy Logistic Committee (ELC) was constituted under the chairmanship of the secretary Petroleum and Natural Resources and the ELC constituted three sup-groups on coal, gas and oil, headed by respective director generals.
In order to achieve the objectives of the ELC, the Coal Sub-Group proposed that focus must be made on the improvement of underground transportation of coal and construction of road from coal bearing zone to the market through an umbrella PC-I.
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Energy, Fuel, Infrastructure, coal
Keeping coal as an abundant source of power means slashing the amount of carbon dioxide it produces. That could mean new, more efficient power plants. But trapping C02 from existing plants—about two billion tons a year—would be the real game-changer.
Source: Vattenfall
Carbon dioxide is removed from smokestack gases and compressed. It’s then pumped deep underground and stored in porous rock formations.
Techniques for modest-scale CO2 capture exist, but applying them to big power plants would reduce the plants’ output by a third and double the cost of producing power. So scientists are looking into experimental technologies that could cut emissions by 90% while limiting cost increases.
Nearly all are in the early stages, and it’s too early to tell which method will win out. One promising technique burns coal and purified oxygen in the form of a metal oxide, rather than air; this produces an easier-to-capture concentrated stream of CO2 with little loss of plant efficiency. The technology has been demonstrated in small-scale pilots, and will be tried in a one-megawatt test plant next year. But it might not be ready for commercial use until 2020.
Via WSJ
Clean Technology, Energy, Environment, Renewable Energy, coal, power
Could this new technology lead the way to a new and cleaner coal? Here’s Technology Review’s article about this.
The industrial boomtown of Dongguan in southeast China’s Pearl River Delta could soon host one of the country’s most sophisticated power plants, one that uses an unconventional coal-gasification technology to make the dirtiest coal behave like clean-burning natural gas. Its developers, Atlanta-based utility Southern Company and Houston-based engineering firmKBR, announced the licensing deal with Dongguan Power and Chemical Company this month.
Dongguan Power plans to implement the gasification scheme at an existing 120-megawatt natural-gas-fired power plant, turning it into an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant that uses cheap, moisture-laden lignite coal. The retrofit should be operating in 2011. That will provide its developers with a demonstration to determine whether technology will work in larger IGCC plants and whether it is a process suitable to integrate carbon capture and storage technology, according to John Thompson, director of the Coal Transition Program for the Clean Air Task Force, a nonprofit environmental consulting firm based in Boston. “They want to show that this works,” says Thompson.
Southern and KBR’s gasification design can use dirty coal because, compared to other gasification reactors, it uses a relatively slow, low-temperature process. Conventional gasifiers, such as General Electric’s and Shell’s, rely on temperatures around 1,500 ºC to turn finely ground coal into a combustible mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen known as syngas. Unfortunately, such temperatures melt ash and other mineral contaminants in the coal, forming a glassy slag that eventually eats through the ceramic tiles that protect the reactors’ steel walls. Even reactors using high-quality coal have to be taken out of service for installation of new tiles at least every three years. They are thus ill-adapted for lower-quality coals that would produce several times more slag.
Clean Technology, Environment, Infrastructure, Innovation, coal
Prime Minister of Pakistan has expressed confidence that Thar Coal reserves will be an important source for resolving energy crisis. “Thar Coal has reserves of over 185 billion tons; besides electricity. It will also be a source of diesel and help reduce POL import bill”, the Prime Minister said in a policy statement on energy crisis in the Senate on Friday.
This important natural resource has been completely ignored during the last 62 years and the nation was deprived of an opportunity to develop it, he said. He said that the present government has constituted Thar Energy Development Board (TEDB) for one-window operation for investors, with Chief Minister of Sindh as its chairman.
Pakistan, coal, power
