Talk:Underground coal gasification

Advertisement / PR style

Large section of this page read like an advertisement or a PR brochure. Company names and trade marks are mentioned several times (e.g. Selexol, Laurus Energy, Ergo Exergy), although they don't have a monopoly on this technology. So if this text is influenced by commercial interests the description of this technology is probably overly optimistic.

Agreed that much of this sounds like a stealth pitch for the tech. But more importantly, there was a glaring omission: the production of CO2 gas! (I've now included this in the article.) Hopefully this omission was unintentional, although I have my doubts! (It would definitely serve the promoters of this technology well to have that 'inconvenient truth' missing...) In any case, the second para. in the environmental impacts section mentioned CO2 capture, which might have (previously) left an attentive reader confused/wondering why there would be the need for CO2 capture when CO2 wasn't listed as a product gas!

Now the page repeatedly refers to the company Linc energy, is one of the editors affiliated with this company? I have added a POV template to the article until these concerns about neutrality and advertisement-style are addressed:

1. Several statements like "Compared to the traditional coal mining and gasification, the UCG has less environmental and social impact" appear to be an unsubstantiated opinion, unless sources can be provided.
2. UCG generates more CO2 per unit energy produced than traditional coal mining, while the article seems to state the opposite .
3. The article is biased towards the benefits of this technology, and plays down the environmental impacts, despite the fact that these are a large reason for the slow adoption of this technology.
4. Only Linc energy is listed despite other companies running similar projects (Cougar Energy, Carbon Energy)

Bvvad (talk) 04:20, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Concerning your last point, do you refer to the infobox or the article in general? If to the infobox, the reason is that the Linc's Uzbekistan's subsidiary is the only company which utilize UCG commercially versus test/demonstration/pilot projects by other companies. I fully agree if you add also other companies running most advanced projects into the infobox, if mentioned also in prose of the article. The Linc's name appears mainly in the Economics section and this section needs extensive cleanup. The whole article needs copyediting for the style. Beagel (talk) 10:08, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

References

Opening comments

Can someone please explain / add to this article, why it makes sense to start a new underground coal fire when so many are already burning out of control (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Mountain)? That is, please include a simple explanation in this article about what makes one different to the other. Beroccaboy 03:34, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

thanks for the question Beroccaboy, it is an intelligent question and one that deserves an intelligent answer. To be expected to use wikipedia as a forum to go off to company websites to trust their answers without question is not good.

Simply stated: one is carefully controlled process the other is not.

In my opinion, additional explanation on this area is no more justified than virtually every other area of the UCG process, being as the article is only quite brief at the present moment. Having authored the article, I see no reason to edit it soley on the said basis.

Mate, there are too many things in this world and too many people for it to be anywhere near reasonable an expectation to maintain that someone should take the time to explain to you the areas of knowledge in which you lack and to reconcile those with your existing ideas, beliefs and accumulated knowledge which may or may not be correct. That there are natural occurances of coal fires is a given and, while I do not know of the area which you reference, I do know of a number of other such circumstances and, similarly, of circumstances where human activities have instigated such by error, neglect or other.

As you do not know much about UCG yet have a desire to learn, I would recommend you to Ergo Exergy's site www.ergoexergy.com, where you will find sufficient information to expand the base of reference from which your comments have been made.

The world in which we live provides a great many examples of mankind utilising the almost limitless forces of nature and, it is arguably the application of intellect and invention towards the harness and control of these forces which provides us the many many luxuries and comforts not available to those of our cave dwelling ancestors whom likely huddled together for warmth, surviving in ignorance of the relative discomforts of their primitive disposition.

129.31.240.193 (talk) 15:01, 5 October 2008 (UTC) I think that this article should include some reference to the potential damage to the climate from UCG without the application of CCS technology, it is relentlessly upbeat and mentions few of the potential risks129.31.240.193 (talk) 15:01, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

Request move per WP:MOS.Beagel 17:33, 11 November 2007 (UTC) This article has been renamed as the result of a move request. Vegaswikian 20:05, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Sulfur dioxide

The article currently states, "When coal is combusted underground, NOx and SO2 atmospheric GHG emissions are lowered..." I think this is a mistake, as SO2 is not a greenhouse gas. It certainly has a sizable effect on climate change, but its presence reduces warming by reflecting sunlight away from Earth, as opposed to a GHG that traps outgoing radiation and induces warming. Wouldn't it be more accurate to slightly reword the article to say something like, "When coal is combusted underground, NOx and other atmospheric GHG emissions are lowered, as are those of SO2"? 67.240.202.58 (talk) 19:37, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

 Done Removed "atmospheric GHG" from this sentence. Beagel (talk) 20:19, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

CSIRO Recommendations

The CSIRO article with recommendations for ideal sites for UCG states:

Between 100-600m underground (prefer >300m) Coal seam thickness >5m Ash content less than 60% Minimal discontinuities in seam No good water aquifers

However the wikipedia article states:

Depth of 100–600 metres (330–2,000 ft) Thickness more than 5 metres (16 ft) Ash content less than 60% Minimal discontinuities No nearby aquifers (to avoid polluting supplies of drinking water).[8]

This is paraphrasing and changing the authors words which changes the meaning in the ideal range for the seam (prefer > 300) as well as "no nearby aquifers". Also the phrase, "to avoid polluting supplies of drinking water", is not written in the article, neither is, "water pollution", or even the word, "pollution". You can not cite a reference to an article when the text does not appear in the article at all.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.104.147.198 (talk) 10:59, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Role of Ergo Exergy

The statement at Projects seems to imply that Ergo Exergy's input was pivotal to the success of the projects. In fact, the agreement between Linc Energy and Ergo was terminated in 2006. I think some editing needs to take place to properly reflect the roles.--Graham Proud (talk) 06:47, 22 January 2014 (UTC)