Using fuel cells with underground coal gasification

Fuel Cells, Apr  23  2010 (The Hydrogen Journal)

– Sir David King, a former chief scientific advisor to the British government and now director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, says he sees an important application for alkaline fuel cells with underground coal gasification, making previously uneconomic coal mines economic, and keeping the carbon dioxide underground.

The idea is that coal is gasified underground to form hydrogen and carbon monoxide, by blowing oxygen and hot steam through it. The hydrogen can be directly used to make electricity in a fuel cell, and the carbon monoxide reacted again with water to form carbon dioxide, and put back underground.

“I think the alkaline fuel cell is virtually there and there’s an immediate niche which is coal gasification,” Sir David said during a recent visit to AFC Energy, a UK manufacturer of alkaline fuel cells.

“In North Wales and Leicestershire there are coal mines that are have been closed down that are inefficient for coal mining but all that coal is still there to be gasified.”

“The biggest single challenge we’re faced with globally is to move from a fossil fuel-based economy to fossil fuel less-society,” Sir David said during his visit. “To me, this challenge is the most wonderful technology, innovation, wealth creation possibility. What I’ve just seen at AFC is an exciting example of this. The alkaline fuel cell has the possibility to create power stations with megawatts of electricity.”

The UK could access an estimated 17 billion additional tons of coal using this process.

AFC Energy has an agreement with Linc Energy of Australia, to use the technology in Linc’s global UCG projects.

Following the visit, Sir David invited AFC Energy to join leading global figures from the policy, business and academic communities at the 2010 World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment, run jointly with The Times newspaper.

AFC Energy

 Source:http://www.h2journal.com/displaynews.php?NewsID=416&PHPSESSID=o4et91fh79c02kijhor99drd40