STTR Phase I: Feasibility of Generating Electricity Using Thermal Energy Extracted From Existing Underground Coal & Waste Bank Fires

这个小型企业技术转让第一阶段项目将调查利用废弃煤矿和废物库的现有火种发电的可行性。这些可能是高温火灾（图表上超过1200华氏度），已经燃烧了几十年，并将继续燃烧到未来很长一段时间。目前有600多起火灾与过去的煤矿开采活动有关。人们花费了数百万美元试图扑灭这些大火，结果却发现没有切实可行且具有成本效益的解决方案。我们将在燃烧的煤层中钻孔，并安装一个热提取系统，利用这些未利用的热源，将这些浪费的能源转化为有用的产品，具有商业可行性的电力。这项研究可能会导致在目前被视为非生产性负债的地点建设商业发电厂。这些火灾的深度普遍较浅，温度较高，因此人们相信，在这些地点可以建造和运行具有商业竞争力的发电厂。这些因素，以及其他因素，与地热工业中已经被证实的发电厂相比，应该会导致更低的建设成本和更高的效率。

This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I project will investigate the feasibility of generating electricity from existing fires in abandoned coal mines and waste banks. These can be high temperature fires (charted in excess of 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit) that have been burning for decades and will continue to burn long into the future. There are currently over 600 fires associated with past coal mining activity. Millions of dollars have been spent trying to extinguish these fires only to find that there is no practical and cost effective solution. We will drill into burning coal seams and install a thermal extraction system that would tap into these unutilized heat sources and in turn, convert these otherwise wasted energies into a useful product commercially viable electricity. This research may lead to the construction of commercial power plants at sites now regarded as unproductive liabilities. The generally shallow depths and high temperatures of these fires lead to the belief that commercially competitive power plants can be built and operated at these sites. These factors, as well as others, should lead to lower costs in construction and in higher efficiencies of the power plants as compared to already proven power plants in the geothermal industry.