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

这个小企业技术转让第一阶段项目将研究利用废弃煤矿和废物库中现有的火灾发电的可行性。这些可能是高温火灾（图表显示超过1,200华氏度），已经燃烧了几十年，并将在未来继续燃烧。目前有600多起火灾与过去的煤炭开采活动有关。数百万美元已经花费试图扑灭这些火灾，却发现没有实际和成本效益的解决方案。我们将钻探燃烧的煤层，安装一个热提取系统，利用这些未利用的热源，反过来，将这些浪费的能源转化为有用的产品 商业上可行的电力。 这项研究可能会导致在现在被视为非生产性负债的地点建造商业发电厂。这些火灾通常深度较浅，温度较高，这使人们相信可以在这些地点建造和运营具有商业竞争力的发电厂。这些因素，以及其他因素，应导致较低的建设成本和更高的效率的发电厂相比，已经证明发电厂在地热工业。

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.