Model Development and Simulation Study of Underground Coal Gasification

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The development of Canada's vast oil sands resource has led to increased demands for natural gas to produce steam for bitumen extraction and as a source of hydrogen for bitumen upgrading. However, using increasing volumes of natural gas to process relatively low energy/high carbon resources such as bitumen is costly and not sustainable. Unlocking the full energy potential of coal, in an environmentally responsible process, is key to the ongoing and sustainable development of Canada's oil sands. These benefits transcend the oil sands industry and offer important advantages to a range of other Canadian industries that currently use natural gas as a feedstock or energy source. Canada is ranked tenth worldwide in coal reserves, and Alberta's 33.6 billion tons of coal represents 70% of Canada's total reserves. Consequently, Alberta's coal resources constitute an enormous source of untapped energy. The production of syngas through underground coal gasification (UCG) provides alternatives to the use of natural gas to produce steam and hydrogen for bitumen extraction and upgrading. Furthermore, there may be a great potential for post-UCG CO2 capture and sequestration. The well infrastructure for UCG can be used subsequently for geologic CO2 sequestration operations. UCG is in the early stages of research and development; several key scientific and technical areas, such as UCG process and operation monitoring, combustion and gasification modeling, environmental risk assessment, and feasibility of post-UCG CO2 storage, require extensive research. These areas can be addressed with an accelerated research project. This research project can lever substantially off of existing knowledge and advances in engineering and geo-science simulations.