SOME ASPECTS OF TECHNOLOGY IMPROVEMENT OF UNDERGROUND COAL GASIFICATION

摘要

The importance of the technology improvement of underground coal gasification (UCG) is stipulated by the increasing energy demand of the national economy of the country. A new wave of interest in the UCG can be explained by some reasons. The most important of them are the fast-growing prices of oil, natural gas, limitation of their resources, growing scales of the environment damage from the open cast or underground mining of coal and its use in the heat and power plants. The processing of the extracted coal into the more "pure" types of liquid or gaseous fuel can eliminate only the part of this damage and still it costs much. At the same time, the possibilities to improve the efficiency of the underground gasification of the coal layers and complicated physical and chemical processes of UCG are not properly studied yet. The results of the analysis of the main stages of the UCG technology development were represented, as well as the complex of the domestic and foreign innovative scientific and technical and design solutions. The possibilities and the objects of application of the downhole power technology of the joint development of geothermal and mineral resources were demonstrated. The directions of the modern development of the downhole methods of coal processing and some problems of realization of the projects of underground coal gasification of the new generation were distinguished.