New technology could boost coal reserves
September 9, 2004
By Eric Onstad
Johannesburg - The use of new technology to make low-grade coal economically viable could nearly quadruple South Africa's coal reserves, a researcher with state power utility Eskom said yesterday.
Current reserves were estimated at 50 billion tons, which would last 180 years at current usage rates, Eskom research consultant Mark van der Riet told a conference.
"This is coal that is accessible by conventional mining technology. But if we are able to unlock the entire country's coal reserves, that stretches it to some 192 billion tons," he said at the Mining Week conference.
Two of the new technologies are most advanced, with pilot projects or feasibility studies under way.
One of them is "fluidised bed combustion", which has been commercially proven, although not for power plants.
With this technique, very low-grade coal is able to be used with 70 percent to 80 percent content of ash, or non-combustible material.
This technique would make viable coal reserves that are in geological areas when mining would be very difficult.
Eskom depends on coal for 92 percent of its electrical generating needs, using over 104 million tons of coal a year.
|
|
