Environmental concerns of underground coal gasification

Underground Coal Gasification is the conversion of solid Coal to gas in-situ by heating the coal and injecting oxidants air/oxygen to cause the gasification by partial combustion instead of complete combustion of coal. UCG is the promising technology having a lot of health, safety and environmental advantages over the conventional mining techniques; the major motivational aspects of UCG involves increased worker health and safety by using no man underground, no surface disposal of ash and coal tailings, low dust and noise pollution, low water consumption, larger coal reserves exploitation, and low volatile organic components, methane and green house gases emission to atmosphere. UCG is an inherently clean coal technology as it reduces deadly sulfur and nitrogen oxide emissions to very low levels. Total solid waste from UCG is typically half the volume generated by conventional coal plants and water use is substantially lower as well. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.