On a ‘clean coal’ mission

Part of the Western Australian Department of Mines and Petroleum, the CFG is involved in examining a number of clean coal technologies and alternatives in order to contribute to the long-term viability of the coal industry.
The group is focused on encouraging two clean coal technologies in particular: gasification and geosequestration.
In conjunction with Landcorp, CFG has funded a land assembly for what will become Shotts Industrial Park. The park will host Perdaman Industries’ Collie Urea Plant, an operation utilising environmentally friendly, world-leading gasification technology to produce its fertiliser.
Gasification involves converting solid coal to synthetic gas, with the gas then used as feedstock for synthesis of various chemical products such as ammonia and methanol, or directly as a fuel source for power plants.
CFG project manager Dominique Van Gent said Perdaman was encouraged to establish its operation by the results of pilot scale gasification trials of Collie coal.
He said the trials were conducted by the Cooperative Research Centre for Coal in Sustainable Development, supervised by the CSIRO and funded by the CFG.
“Perdaman’s $3.5 billion project will help to encourage low-emission use of coal that is ‘sequester ready’ for when carbon capture and storage becomes available on a commercial scale,” he said.
“It is a prime example of the type of new investment in the coal industry that Western Australia can attract.”
Van Gent said CFG was also working on research into the most appropriate locations for geosequestration in the Southern Perth basin.
“After CFG commissioned a preliminary study into potential geosequestration potential, we identified that the Southern Perth Basin between Bunbury and Mandurah has the greatest potential for geosequestration.
“CFG is now working on testing the validity of these sites to establish a geological model for injectivity and migration behaviour of carbon dioxide involving a desktop analysis of all the available data relating to the onshore Perth basin.”
Van Gent said that once a location is determined, there will be a need to trial the site by test bore and an injection, monitoring and verification program.
“Once a site is proven, captured carbon dioxide from industrial processes will be transported via a series of pipelines directly to the injection site.”
On another kind of mission, a team of researchers recently visited Australia on the invitation of the British High Commission to network and exchange information on clean coal technologies.
Rohan Courtney, founding director of the UCG Partnership and executive chairman of Clean Coal Limited, spoke to The Australian Journal of Mining about the visit.
“Australia is clearly at the forefront of research and development in clean coal technologies and we were all very impressed with the volume and advancement of a host of work in post combustion capture and low emission technologies ranging from monitoring storage of Co2 to experiments in dealing with Co2 at source and public perceptions.
“We each gave presentations on work being undertaken in the UK and it was very clear to all of us, both hosts and visitors, that this initiative…should be a precursor to a more formal and on-going jointly financed research and development activity,” said Courtney.
The team visited CSIRO’s Energy Centre in Newcastle and the Priority Research Centre for Energy at Newcastle University and the CSIRO/Delta Post combustion capture pilot at Munmorah Power Plant.
In Brisbane, the group toured several research facilities and attended a specially organised “United Kingdom/Australia Clean Coal Technologies Symposium”.
In all, Courtney describes it as a “hectic” visit with 55 presentations packed into five days in four different locations.