Govt planning series of pilot projects using coal: Official

The government plans to come up with a series of pilot projects in areas like coal gasification and coal-to-polychemicals next fiscal, a top official said today.

Once the projects are successful, government will push for commercial use of technology for utilisation of country's huge coal reserves, Coal Secretary Susheel Kumar said.

"We want to do at least one (pilot) project on Underground Coal Gasification and not only on a project scale or 5-6 mw....Beyond that, we want commercial production also if it is possible," Kumar said.

Underground coal gasification (UCG) is a method of converting coal still in the ground to a combustible gas that can have various uses including power generation.

The pilot projects can also be run in areas like surface gasification and coal-to-liquid, he said.

"We want the surface gasification of coal....So that is second priority and we want that something should happen. If technology is not a challenge then it is not only pilot project it should also be a commercial project," he said.

Kumar was speaking at a seminar organised by Indian Chamber of Commerce.

UCG technology allows countries that are endowed with coal to fully utilise their resource from otherwise unrecoverable coal deposits.

UCG uses a similar process as surface gasification. The main difference between the two gasification processes is that in UCG the cavity itself becomes the reactor so that the gasification of coal takes place underground instead of the surface.

"In each category (including coal-to-liquid and coal-to-polychemicals), we want at least pilot project to come in the financial year 2017-18," the secretary said.

Coal Liquefaction is the process of converting coal to liquid fuels.

The usage of coal for power generation, he said, needs to be reduced so that coal gasification in not a matter of choice for the government.