To convert syngas into methane takes three more processes that consume yet more energy.
Even then the resulting syngas can be used only in a nearby power plant.
The second well permits the syngas produced to escape under pressure to the surface.
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These include heat from the partial combustion, a gaseous mixture called syngas that can be burned as fuel, and a heavy oil.
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South Africa has a long history of syngas production (since the apartheid days), and has pilot facilities that have been operating for some years.
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Coal contains high amounts of acid producing sulphur that degrades and poisons the catalytic reformation beds used to form the syngas back into liquid fuels.
After pollutants like mercury and sulfur are filtered out, the clean syngas can be burned to create electricity, like at the 250-megawatt power plant Shell built in Buggenum, Holland.
The ability to use domestic, clean, affordable natural gas combined with significant amounts of carbon to produce syngas for use in a gas-to-liquids plant offers extraordinary advantages over the current system.
They are working on a project in the Cook Inlet of Alaska that would provide enough syngas to fuel a 100 MW power plant, as well as investigating opportunities for UGC in Alberta and Wyoming.
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Sasol has been in the synthetic fuels business for over half a century, deriving its initial experience in South Africa when the country was isolated during the apartheid years, and it produced liquid fuels from coal turned to syngas.
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There is the further issue of the quality of coal, since the majority of the world reserve is of lower thermal quality than the top-grade anthracitic coal, and will yield less energy per tonne either burned directly or in the form of syngas in ICGC plants.
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