Solar coal gasification: plant design and economics

A plant design has been layed out in which focused solar energy is used to gasify coal and the resulting synthesis gas is converted into pipeline gas. The overall performance of the plant and its economics are compared to a similar Lurgi plant. The advantage of the solar coal gasification (SCG) method is conservation of coal, 40% more product can be produced from a given amount of coal. The primary detriment of SCG is the 8 h/day operation; which leads to a higher plant investment for a given annual production. This factor is twice as important as the cost of the heliostat field. Thus, operating costs are lower but capital costs are higher. In the future, as coal costs increase relative to investment costs; the SCG plant will become more economical than the Lurgi plant.