Shunyang CoalBed Methane Utilization Dr

Shunyang CoalBed Methane Utilization

Dr. David Creedy EU-China LIEP, Coalbed Methane Subproject

1. lntroduction
The European Union and the People’s Republic of China have set up a complex project entitled “China Liaoning Integrated Environmental Programme”. lt consists of 7 components. They are:
- Environmental Awareness Building
- Shenyang Urban Planning
- Water Resource Management
- Air Quality and institutional Strengthening
- Energy Management
- Cleaner Production
- Industrial Restructuring/Investment Promotion

lt is the biggest programme what the EU has ever run in China, even in all Asia, with about 40 million EURO plus the co-financed from the Chinese side with about 10 million EURO,which means the total volume is about 50 million EURO.

Within the Energy Management Component (EMC) there is a subproject which is aimed to find out opportunities of coalbed methane gas utilization in Liaoning province.

The investigations result now in the demonstration project "Shunyang CoalBed Utilization”.

2. Description of the project
2.1 The overall goal
The overall goal of the project is
- to extend the role of gas in the energy mix of Liaoning’s primary energy balance- to reduce role of the coal
- to avoid methane gas emissions to the atmosphere because of the much higher affinity of methane in comparison to CO2 to the destruction of the ozone shift
- to avoid air pollution caused by extended coal use
- to improve social life for more than 1million households by utilization of methane
gas.

2.2 Scope of the project
A scheme to extract coalbed methane (CBM) at Fushun city, from directly under the city, and convey the gas to Shenyang city (the"Shunyang”project) has been identified. One million households can be supplied by this gas amount.

The “Shunyang” project involves:
Phase One
l Construction of a 33.5 km gas transmission pipeline from Fushun to Shenyang (now in progress, roughly 20 km are constructed already).
l Transmission of surplus drained mine gas, from Laohutai mine in Fushun to Shenyang, might be enriched with LPG as a possible scenario to achieve a higher calorific value.

Phase Two
l Development of virgin CBM production from 40 surface boreholes in Fushun to increase total gas availability, supply agreement is estimated to be 100 million standard cubic meters per year for 20 years.

3. Results
The Shunyang project could be of economic benefit to the nation and of interest to local lenders, provided mine gas concentrations of 60% and virgin gas well flow rates of some 3,500 standard cubic meters per well and per day are attained.

Table below shows the polluting emissions that would arise in tonnes if the mine gas and virgin CBM energy production proposed for the Shunyang scheme was instead produced by burning coal.

Table1. Estimated emission reductions(tonnes) for each Phase
of the Shunyang project
Atmospheric pollutant Phase1 Phase2(max)
Coal dust 353 996
Carbon dioxide 30,711 86,669
Methane(CO2 equivalent) 400,000 400,000
NOx 353 996
SOx 282 797

There is an additional benefit of displacing coal production. China has a high accident record in coal mining. 0.2 fatalities per year could be attributed to mining the coal equivalent for Phase 1 (i.e.,1 life saved after 5 years of gas production) and 0.6 fatalities per year could be saved by phase 2.

4. Summary
Shunyang CoalBed Methane Utilization Project is technical and economical feasible and will make a huge contribution to improve the environmental situation for Shenyang city, to supply more than 1 million households with an environmental friendly energy source and to open the opportunity to export this technology to Europe.