@Forrest Gumpp: Isn't it interesting how little has been said about the Pedirka Basin discoveries, at least here in Australia?

We have a _lot_ of coal Forrest. If you look at the green map here: http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2008/10/coal-seam-gas-producers-new-masters-of.html you will see the coal basins in yellow. The bit in SA, which looks to be the Pedirka, is but a small chunk.

@: A trillion is one thousand billion, if I am not mistaken.

Yep. And that is a good point. We simply don't know where to find more oil. We do know where there is lots of coal. The problem is it being economically viable in getting to it. Eg, China has lots of coal, but it is so expensive to mine they buy it from us and pay to ship it a few mega meters. China's coal reserves are described here: http://gcep.stanford.edu/pdfs/wR5MezrJ2SJ6NfFl5sb5Jg/10_china_pankexi.pdf

In that document China says coal below 1200m simply isn't economically viable. There are numerous problems. It gets too hot for humans. The pressures get so big you can't remove much coal before the roof collapses. If there is water around, it is not unheard of to have to remove 6 units of water for every unit of coal. If the coal is 1000m down, the you have to pump that water 1km up. It costs a lot of energy to do that.

@Forrest Gumpp: the implications of the form of carbon sequestration outlined in this post made to another thread

Am I missing something? The word sequestration doesn't appear anywhere in that thread. That aside, carbon sequestration from coal fired plants looks to be to be as as speculative as any other clean energy at this stage. It is only practical if you get a pure CO2 stream from the plant, which means you have to burn the coal in an entirely different way. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_gasification_combined_cycle What the means is you can't bolt it onto existing coal fired power stations. They have to be replaced. A quote from the linked article: "The main problem for IGCC is its extremely high capital cost."

It will be interesting to see if the deposits mentioned by Forest can
be extracted economically.
Linc Energy has a trial plant in Queensland where they burn the coal
in situ bring the gases up and produce a very clean diesel or aviation
fuel at the surface.
They are now preparing a site in Sth Australia to install a commercial
sized plant.
I think the commercial plant will produce 100,000 barrels a day.

Bazz, is Linc Energy actually producing any liquid fuels at the moment? The last I heard was that all they had produced was a small quantity of a waxy type substance, a long way from a viable, commercially viable, synthetic fuel.

Any links/references would be handy.

No I think they are producing fuel. I am pretty certain I saw a photo
of them filling a ute from the plant.
Not that proves anything, but they could be in big trouble if it was staged.
I would have to check that, but I believed it to be so.

@rstuart posted on Friday, 12 March 2010 at 6:12:54 PM:

"Am I missing something? The word sequestration
doesn't appear anywhere in that thread."

You are quite correct, the word doesn't, but my post to the 'Carbon dioxide, mass extinction of species and climate change' comments thread, to which I provided a link, does contain an outline description of one pathway to the sequestration of carbon. That pathway is the conversion of biomass to charcoal, and its subsequent incorporation into the soil, particularly in tropical and sub-tropical regions. Perhaps, because of its low-technology features, it was not recognised for the potentially total solution it offers to what is contended to be the post-industrial-revolution atmospheric carbon dioxide level problem.

Continuing, rstuart says:

"..., carbon sequestration from coal fired plants
looks to be to be as as speculative as any other
clean energy at this stage."

Agreed. The biochar pathway to carbon, as opposed to carbon dioxide, sequestration, is a low technology dispersed and separate activity worth pursuing in its own right for the alleviation of what is spoken of as 'peak soil', an activity that has the happy coincidence of being able to reduce existing atmospheric CO2 levels over time, not just offset additional emissions from the continued burning of fossil fuels necessary to tide the world over while bringing on stream a lower emissions sustainable energy regime.

Those promoting, and those subsidising, the 'bolt on' CO2 sequestration schemes of so-called 'clean energy' should be recognised for the oxygen-thieves that in truth they largely are.

@leckos

Linc Energy's GTL Chinchilla Demonstration Facility is already producing test runs of ultra-clean diesel and jet fuel. That company intends to use its GTL technology to produce 20,000 barrels per day commercially as stage three of its Orroroo project in South Australia. Stages one and two of this project involve operation of a pre-production UCG generator at its lignite deposit, followed by production UCG generators fuelling a 250 Mw gas powered electricity generation plant feeding into the national grid. See: http://www.ecplaza.net/news/0/37207/linc_energy_limited_asxlnc.html

It is, on the face of it, a little disturbing to see poster 'leckos' reveal a seeming lack of familiarity with the current status of projects of the like of Linc Energy's Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) and Gas to Liquids (GTL) that demonstrate emergent technologies that it appears will have significant effects with respect to Peak Oil, at least so far as Australian energy security is concerned, given that he wrote the article.

The author, Cameron Leckie (OLO userID 'leckos' in this comments thread), concludes with the paragraph:

"This leaves us in the rather uncomfortable position
of having a plan A, business as usual, which is not viable
and no plan B. How, in a country as advanced as ours,
does this occur? Maybe if we could, as a society,
resolve that question we would be much better off
both now and into the future."

I do not believe, however, that the display of this seeming lack of currency of understanding where potentially major developments are concerned really undermines the credibility of his article. He is, after all, commenting upon the seeming failure of the Australian Energy Resource Assessment (AERA) itself to take into account such developments. To wit his observation:

"Thousands of hours of time and taxpayers money
invested into a product that is incomplete,
misleading and fails to grasp some fairly simple
concepts. This results in an assessment of Australia’s
future oil and liquid fuel situation that is not only
unduly optimistic but also fails to provide the basis
upon which a plan B can be developed for our nation
as we enter the second half of the age of oil."

I can only question as to whether such a claimedly incomplete and misleading publication (the AERA) was not deliberately designed to be so.

The development of UCG technologies, and Pedirka Basin coal, have potentially moved Australia into a position of world significance with respect to ongoing availability of liquid fuels.

Is the idea to cripple investment in these enormous resources until Big Oil can tie it all up? If so, who's in on it?