Free Republic

Recent news that a gas project in Queensland has been charged with environmental harm has put the spotlight on underground coal gasification, or UCG. Linc Energy’s Chinchilla project was a pilot UCG project which was completed in October 2013. Following a nine-month government investigation, the project now faces a potential fines of A$2 million over alleged “serious environmental harm”. The company has vowed to fight the charges, and claims regulation favours the rival coal seam gas industry. UCG, like coal seam gas (CSG), is an unconventional method of extracting gas from coal seams. It is also considered a “clean coal”...

Russia plans to invest up to $625 billion over the next two decades to raise oil production by about 10 per cent and a further $590 billion to add at least 33 per cent to its gas output, the Energy Ministry said on Thursday. The oil and gas investment, part of a $2-trillion-plus plan to develop the Russian energy sector by 2030, also envisages Asian markets taking a much larger share of Russia's exports as the country develops resource fields in Siberia and the Far East. "This will allow the Russian energy sector to lower its risk of being dependent...

The large scale cost of getting a lot more oil is currently $200-400 billion to get each 100 billion bbl. 100 billion barrels is about a 14 year supply of oil for the United States. It is about a 3.5 year supply of oil for the world. The Oil industry's 2008 -pre-crash global exploration and development spending was $260 billion/year. Recently there have been several major announcements in regards to coal liquification and coal gasification. Coal is getting cost competitive with oil from the oilsands and as way to produce more natural gas. Natural gas is already generated from coal....

WASHINGTON, May 21 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Energy has issued a feasibility study for a commercial 50,000-barrel-a-day coal-to-liquids facility in the Illinois coal basin. The department's National Energy Technology Laboratory said the conceptual design of the CTL plant provides a performance baseline to demonstrate how the technology could capitalize on domestic energy resources, while providing a bulwark against rising petroleum and natural gas prices. The price of coal-derived liquid fuels has traditionally been unable to compete with the price of fuels derived from crude oil. But, as oil prices rise, domestic sources of transportation fuels are becoming more...

Gov. Joe Manchin has a goal for West Virginia. By 2030, he wants West Virginia to become the first state in the nation to be completely energy independent. That means no foreign oil in cars, airplanes and trucks, and it means a greater emphasis on conservation by all state residents and businesses. It's a daunting goal, and he wants the first step toward the goal completed by January 2007. Last week, Manchin told members of the state's Public Energy Authority that by the new year he wants a blueprint for how the state might accomplish true energy independence. "No specific...