Mining expert advocates coal conversion

Press, 7 May 1980, Page 18

Mining expert advocates coal conversion

PA Dunedin New Zealand should move quickly to develop its coal resources, which are large on a world scale, according to Professor T. Atkinson, a British expert on coalmining. As a feedstock for liquid fuel, coal would give a tremendous boost to New Zealand’s future economy. Professor Atkinson said. But he said there was a lead time of about 10 years from planning to production. ’ Because of this, New Zealand should make a feasibility study for the development of coal reserves. New Zealand had suffered,, together with countries

other than the United States, through their neglect of coal resources, and the lack of .progress in coal conversion technology, he said. However, if oil price -rises matched those of previous years, conversion of coal to liquid fuel would become competitive with oil in five years. South Africa was the major country converting coal to liquid fuel,- but the process required so much heat that much of the coal was burned up, be said. This meant that coal must be very cheap, although Professor Atkinson said the process was being continually improved to reduce heat requirements. For New Zealand the most promising technology was conversion to meth-

anol, or more likely synthetic liquid fuel. “It is still early days, to make a complete assessment but I think New Zealand should start to look at it now,” Professor Atkinson said. Professor Atkinson is head of the department of mining engineering at the University of Nottingham, England, and - chief open cast mining engineer l with the Powell Dyffryn-United Kingdom Coal Board Consultants, Ltd. . : He has been invited to New Zealand to give a technical paper on terrace mining, a technique likely to be used in New Zealand lignite development, at the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy conference in Queenstown.