Tuesday January 10, 2006

3000 billion tons of coal off Norway's coastline

energybulletin.net :

Fifty years from now, oil producing rigs could be setting coal on fire far below the sea, rather than pumping oil. Burning coal where it is is one way Norwegian oil company Statoil thinks that the vast coal-reserves on the Norwegian shelf can be utilized. Students from Norwegian University of Science and Technology analyzed data from 600 wells drilled on the Norwegian Shelf of the North Sea. They calculated that there are 3000 billion tons of coal off the Norwegian coast. This compares to today's proven and recoverable world reserves of 900 billion tons of coal.

Geologists have known for a long time that there are vast amounts of coal in the North Sea. What we have done now, is to estimate how much there actually is, says energy advisor with Statoil New Energy, said Olav Kårstad. "By injecting oxygen, we can ignite the coal where it is. This will produce a mix of gas which we can recover and use for energy-production. The problem however, is that one of the components of this gas mix will be the greenhouse gas CO2. We have to research a lot before we can utilize the resource in a way that doesn't harm the environment."

(2006-01-10 18:26:21 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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