There were tests by DOE up in Hannah, WYO some 25 years or so ago
where they tried to get the coal to start burning underground so that
they could extract energy. As I recall (since we got a contract out
of it) they had problems controlling the pre-burn which creates the
exhaust channel through which they extract the gases. We ended up
developing a tool to go down and drill out horizontally from the
vertical well bore but by that time I believe that the program had
died
Dave
>Has there been any sucess in trying to harness the heat from these
>underground fires as one can geothermally?
>Mike Shaw
--
David A. Summers
Curators' Professor of Mining Engineering
Adjunct Professor of Nuclear Engineering
Director
Rock Mechanics and Explosives Research Center
University of Missouri-Rolla,
Rolla, MO 65409-0810
"fools talk, wise men listen." (a variant of Prov 12:23)
phone: (573) 341 4314
FAX: (573) 341 4368
related web pages
A growing selection of Dr. Summers' papers are being put on the Web
and can be accessed through the Bibliography
http://www.umr.edu/~rockmech/faculty/biography.html
Rock Mechanics http://campus.umr.edu/rmerc/
Waterjet Lab: http://www.umr.edu/~waterjet/
UMR Stonehenge: http://www.umr.edu/~stonehen/
Personal: http://www.umr.edu/~rockmech/data/Summers.html
Mining Eng. http://www.umr.edu/~mining/
Waterjet Assoc http://www.wjta.org/
International Waterjet Society: http://www.iw.uni-hannover.de/iswjt/
Next American Waterjet conference: http://www.wjta.org/conference.htm
7th Pacific Rim Conference (May 2003) http://www.kojet.org
Distance Learning: http://campus.umr.edu/mining/ogeneral.htm
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