Dr. J. Narangerel is Chief Analyst for the Mineral and Mining Experimental Laboratory of the Mineral Resources Authority. He answers E.Odjargal’s questions on how can we develop coal laboratory and opportunities for development of coal-to-liquid technology in Mongolia.
How do you see the possibility of Mongolia lessening its dependency on petroleum products using CTL, or the “coal to liquid” technology?Coal to liquid technology is one of the advanced technologies that is rapidly developing recently in the modern liquid fuel and chemical industries’ sector.This technology greatly utilizes the modern sciences of chemistry and physics and many recent technological discoveries. Despite the high level of involvement, complex procedures, equipment and know-how required, and the fact that it is not an easily applied technology, Mongolia is fully able to come out from its dependency on petroleum-based products by using coal liquefaction.
The most difficult problems include the hefty amount of investment required to build factories and the absence of experienced personnel. It is important that as we go about solving the issue of investment, we simultaneously focus on preparing engineers in the field, technological experts, chemists, and other professionals needed in the workforce. We have been interested in liquefying coal since 2000 and, although the government has shown interest and has made many pledges to develop this sector, until now, we have seen very little actual implementation.
It is very common nowadays that this question arises when we face the problem of supply of petroleum product, and it is forgotten when the problem subsides.It is beneficial for both sides that the legal atmosphere is worked out expeditiously. Parliament has just passed a bill to give VAT exemption for the imported equipment, spare parts, and also special purpose building materials for the industry that makes petroleum products from oil and coal. The decision was very good and timely.The amount of natural gas resources in Mongolia has not been established, petroleum resources are limited, and yet the use of fuel increases year by year. Therefore, for the long term, deep-coal-processing is the foundation of the domestic fuel-chemistry industries and an issue that must be considered on a national security level for this country.
In Mongolia, how in-depth has coal liquefaction been studied? Has it been established whether or not our coal is compatible with this technology?Before talking about the studies on coal liquefaction, we need to understand how these studies are classified. The liquefaction process is divided into 3 categories: direct, indirect and pyrolysis. The study of direct liquefaction of coal was first done at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s by the joint study of the Institute of Fuel and Energy Industry Research and Plans,the Mining Institute, the National Research Center of Coal-Chemistry Technology, and the Institute of Flammable Minerals of Russia. They concluded that out of nine coal deposits only the coal of Uvdug Hudag, Bayanteel, and Talbulags is suitable for direct liquefaction to make liquid fuel. The study for liquefying Baganuur coal very quickly through pyrolysis was done by our country along with the Russians and also independently using their own experimental equipment on Thermo-Electric Station-3. I, myself, was involved in this very interesting study and worked with them on the program development for building a coal to liquid factory.
Not long after that, the country shifted to a market economy, and, in connection with this shift, came changes within the structure of the research institutions. The funding for scientific research was cut resulting in a setback for coal to liquid studies. However, in recent years, our companies are benefitting from experiments in indirect coal liquefaction conducted in other countries since they are unable to carry them out in Mongolia. The requirements of coal when using indirect coal liquefaction are comparably less, and, therefore, the majority of our country’s deposits of brown and rock coal are compatible with the principle of indirect coal liquefaction and can be processed this way.
Our privately owned companies are working to bring coal liquefaction technology to Mongolia. What is your assessment on the dependability of these technologies? The proposal implementing companies have all chosen indirect liquefaction technology. Our companies have made a wise choice based on the fact that, worldwide, this technology has reached a high level of development and has been selected by many new CTL factories. Coal gasification is the most important part in the CTL factory complex’s indirect coal liquefaction technology. Even the investment is high. Although there are several different types of technologies for coal gasification, the principle of coal gasification and producing synthetic gas from the coal is generally the same for all of them. Many facets and steps of the gas purification process and the oxygen production process are similar as well.Furthermore, there is the added benefit that the foreign companies partnering with our companies are very skilled and experienced within their field and hold licenses in advanced coal liquefaction.
Can we assess that coal liquefaction is the way out of the shortage of petroleum products? Countries like South Africa, China, India, the United States, Australia, and Indonesia that have large amounts of coal resources but very limited oil or are very dependent on petroleum products, are using or planning to use coal liquefaction as a petroleum product industry method. As a raw material, coal is the most widely used mineral worldwide for heat and electric energy.
But it is impossible to solve the problem of petroleum shortage in the world by coal liquefying alone. Because it will demand that we increase coal mining greatly and decrease its usage as an energy raw material. Also, it will drain coal resources and increase the cost of mining. In order to produce one ton of petroleum product, approximately 5 tons of coal is processed.Therefore, in the future, manufacturing liquid fuel out of coal doesn’t look like it will grow much worldwide.The use of raw materials, such as natural gas, and other non-traditional oil resources, such as heavy oil, bitumen sand, coal seam gas, shale gas, hydro methane, will increase as the natural oil reserves decrease.
Another raw material that is a rich source of synthetic oil is shale. However, there are relatively very few shale deposits in the world that can produce a lot of oil. It is considered economically unprofitable to extract the oil and process it in the traditional way if one ton of oil shale contains less than 40 liters of oil.
In the future, the liquid fuel for motors will be substituted with hydrogen and methane. Not only that, it is clear that in the future in the transportation sector new technologies, such as the use of electric motors and solar power, will be introduced and used widely. Analysts at this time assess that coal will be more widely used to manufacture chemical products. Even now, coal is being used to manufacture some valuable and unique entirely organic chemical units not contained in petroleum or natural gasses.
For our country, the petroleum, shale, and natural gas reserves are either minimal or have not yet been fully studied. Therefore, coal is seen as the only possible resource for wide-scale production. The technology has been proven and accepted worldwide to be gentle on the environment and, therefore, I think it is important that our foundation for production is based on this clean technology.
Besides liquefying coal, what are other areas in which we can use our country’s great coal reserves? It has been proven through geological coal studies done over a long period of time and all throughout the land of our country, that across the board, there are huge amounts of coal deposits. Today, in Mongolia, some people see coal as a very dirty fuel and want to limit its use or, on the other hand, they see it as a money factory and wish to increase mining and trade excessively.
Worldwide, coal has been the raw material used in manufacturing energy and, in the next several dozen years, it will remain so. Liquefying coal is simply one of the many ways to process and utilize coal.
By liquefying coal, we can extract not only liquid fuel, but many other types of chemical products as well. For example, in China, they are liquefying coal and making what has become an everyday use compound material: propylene. This area of production is developing at a very fast rate. There are three basic coal deep-processing technologies. Two of these are coal gasification and cokemaking. Plants using these 2 types of technologies are working in many countries all over the world.
Even though these technologies have fewer and simpler processes compared to the coal liquefaction, it holds less interest due to its product particularity. Coal gasification has a lot of potential to be used in clean energy technology, such as producing consumer chemical products like flammable gas, ammonia, hydrogen, methanol, etc. But coking is the main technology that is used in metallurgy coke, carbon material, synthetic gas, and other chemical products industries. There are coal gasification reactors in Darkhan and Erdenet, and ENK company’s coking factory in Umnugobi. Also, MAK, NAKO, and Shariin Gol Energy companies have already built their half coking factories and started operation. All these show that the foundation of the coal processing industry is already well established in Mongolia.
To what extent has coal been studied? What are some of the issues that need to be solved? Coal is the most important strategic raw material for our country. However, there is no long-term government policy on how to appropriately use this raw material. The “coal program” that is the impetus for the coal processing sector to this day has not authenticated its paperwork, and this is a hindrance to the sector’s further development. Although the government’s action plan references that it will support the use of coal and the coal processing sector, there has been very little real implementation shown in this area. For example, coal seam methane is a sector that has been overlooked by coal and energy industries. It would be a huge impact for our country’s energy and chemical industry if we establish the amount of our coal seam methane and mine it for our use. Many countries have studied and discovered that coal seam methane is found in large amounts in the rock coal layers that are located relatively deep underground. It is now widely used worldwide. But in Mongolia, this kind of study is only in the beginning stages.
Today, it has become necessary to advance to a new level in the work of coal research. In order to do this, first, we must establish a national center for researching coal. The basic responsibility of the center can be the following:
-To create a database that contains all the information about Mongolian coal.
-To provide the necessary funds and opportunities to conduct experiments on Mongolian soil that are currently being conducted in foreign countries.
-To provide modern equipment for conducting deep-processing coal experiments. To make it possible for these experiments and research to be made domestically.
-To prepare a workforce that is experienced in research work.
-To establish the correct way to disperse the rare, valuable, and environmentally harmful heavy elements that coal contains.
-To research ways to lessen pollution and the negative effects on the environment that come from processing and mining.
It is possible to find a source for the funding of coal research from coal itself. Some foreign countries set apart 0.1-0.001 percent of income from coal sales to fund research aimed at increasing the benefits of coal use. To sum up, since resources such as coal, oil, natural gasses, etc. can be depleted, it is important to manufacture many different and deeply processed products that don’t just burn up, but that use modern advanced technology and do not have negative effects on the environment. They also need to be economically profitable.