[chris-h]

The ramifications of Peak Oil will probably destroy modern civilisation and wipe out about 75% of the population. However the ramifications of modern society continuing on this path of unsustainability will cause a climate crisis brought on by global warming that will not just destroy civilization but 100% of the population.

Thank God for Peak Oil. It is v likely occuring right now - just in time to save some of us from global warming.

"May you live in interesting times" - a Chinese saying more often referred to as a curse.

Good luck.

HA !

NOT A CHANCE.

We will turn the coal that cannot be extracted into natural gas by burning it deep underground.

Goodbye polar ice.

Welcome to hell.

[bruin]

And we'll burn the coal that can be extracted just like the Nazi's had to.

[pkwonofoscal]

>HA !

>NOT A CHANCE.

>We will turn the coal that cannot be extracted into natural gas by burning it deep underground.

>Goodbye polar ice.

>Welcome to hell.

====

Except there is the slight problem of 'getting' to the deep underground. To be able to do so you need oil-operated heavy equipments.

So at least we will not be able to touch the deep underground coal.

[smallpoxgirl]

We will turn the coal that cannot be extracted into natural gas by burning it deep underground..

It's like pulling off a bandaid. You can do it quick, or you can do it slow, but it's gotta happen. I say bloody get it over with.

Goodbye polar ice.

Welcome to hell.

I already live in hell. It's a land of shopping malls, subdivisions, and Britney Spears clones. The future couldn't possibly be worse.

[pea-jay]

We will turn the coal that cannot be extracted into natural gas by burning it deep underground.

It's been a while since I heard about the utilization of deep coal resources. Logic would dictate that depth and location of our coal reserves would mean that some sources would remain untapped given current technology.

So I Googled the term to find out what's up.

From the UK Coal Authority:

The concept of gasifying coal underground and bringing the energy to the surface as a gas for subsequent use in heating or power generation has considerable attraction.

UCG is the partial in-situ combustion of a coal seam to produce a gas for use as an energy source. It is achieved by drilling two boreholes from the surface, one to supply oxygen and water/steam, the other to bring the product gas to the surface. The gas can be used for industrial heating, combustion in gas turbines for power generation, or for the manufacture of hydrogen, synthetic natural gas or other chemicals.

http://www.coal.gov.uk/resources/cleane ... gintro.cfm

According to them they do not have an operational demonstration plant going. Past attempts have meet with financial obsticles to continuation.

Here is a pic of that from Institute of Petroleum Engineering, Heriot-Watt University (edinbourogh Scotland)


My initial thoughts on this is that it cannot possibly be energy positive given the required investments in construction and operation. Some facilities use steam to produce methane. Some actually burn the coal. Still looking for this in production. Under a good scenario, this method is as successful as oil shale production (technologically feasable but energetically and financially impractical)

Still, its better than an old Geology Text book laying around at my work. That text, which was from the early 1960s suggested the use of underground nuclear reactions to heat the coal bed and the drilling of multiple wells to capture the offgassing.

Cross your fingers that technology doesnt pull a rabbit out of a hat and make UCG a reality. If it does, we'll roast for sure.

[deconstructionist]

Colin Campbell said (paraphrasing) he thought that the crash would get us back to a simpler living sustainably (we'd have no choice), and in that way it might be actually a good thing.