Coal plant set to create 1,000 jobs
KELLIE HIGGINBOTTOM
26 May, 2010 04:46 PM
Orroroo is known to many as the gateway to the Flinders Ranges, but it is now set to become the site of the country's first commercial underground coal gasification (UCG) plant, as energy company Linc Energy surge ahead with their plans for the region.
Coal gasification is not such a new process, but the process of utilising burnt gas and coal in deeper and harder to reach places, such as the ancient coal seam identified in the Orroroo region in South Australia, is a new concept.
Considered to be of low-value coal due to the seam's depth, which makes it unsuitable for traditional coal mining, and with accessible groundwater, the site is a prime candidate for UCG.
The site is also located just 40 kilometres from 275 kilovolts transmission lines.
UCG processes have being trialled extensively by Linc Energy in Queensland and an operational plants overseas, but this commercial project will be the first commercial plant of it's kind in Australia.
The scale of the project is anticipated to be large enough to supply the local energy market with around 500 megawatts of electricity, around two-thirds of the production output of the Port Augusta power station, and it is hoped also that in time the plant will also incorporate a highly productive gas to liquids facility that is aiming to produce 20,000 barrels of the liquid each day.
While a furthering a reliance on fossil fuels has the potential to delay the time it takes for greater interest and investment in renewable-energy technologies, the intermediate potential of UCG has a lot of people very excited.
More than a thousand jobs are said to be created as a result of the industrial project that would attract increased infrastructure and capital spending and other social benefits to the region, as the project comes to fruition.
Jobs are already being advertised for pre-production stage works that include the construction and commissioning of the UCG generator five, which is anticipated to provide the project with the valuable site specific UCG gas generation experience.
The State Government is backing the project and has invested much research and development with other key-stakeholders to better utilise underground coal seams such as the large deposit at Orroroo.
Residents of Orroroo are acutely aware of what more doctors, and nurses, emergency personnel, and sports players would mean to their town and increased spending on infrastructure and other capital works would also be welcomed by the community ? but at what environmental cost is yet to be determined.
A resource statement in accordance with the Australasian Joint Ore Reserves Committee (JORC) code is expected for company rigs that have been mobilised in the basin since January, to both appraise and refine the coal resource, while it is hoped that hydro-geological information gathered from the drilled piezometer wells in the Walloway Basin will assist the company with the preparation of environmental submissions for the first trial UCG operation.
Read about Underground Coal Gasification on
http://www.UCG-GTL.com
