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Show 100 Years of Coal Reserves Remain in America j nt tUo mino tr m.llfir nr1.1a. America's underground coal reserves may fill in the nation's energy gap, giving enough critical time to learn new ways to tap the wind, the atom, and the sun, according to National Geographic. "Even if we triple our coal production, there is at least a century's worth of fuel down there," writes Gordon Young in the August magazine. Turning coal into gas, as our grandfathers did, or into oil and gasoline, as World War II Germany did, may meet the growing shortage of natural gas and petroleum, industry researchers told him. The United States possesses 3.2 trillion tons of coal a fourth of the planet's known reserves but currently only some 217 billion tons, or 7 per cent, is economically recoverable. recover-able. About two-thirds lies deep underground. Coal Vs. Oil "We own a source of energy that exceeds the more publicized publi-cized one in the Middle East," Mr. Young says. Nearly 90 per cent of the world's coal deposits lie in three countries:the Soviet Union, the United States, and the Peoples Republic of China. Western Europe, with less coal to begin with, has been using its reserves for more than a thousand years. The writer ranged from the deep shaft coal mines of Pennsylvania to the strip mines of Wyoming, talking with miners, coal producers, conservationists, and government govern-ment energy experts. Once the coal is mined, the next problem is finding the most efficient way to deliver its locked-in energy to the consumer. Coal can be moved by railroad, the traditional way. Or it could be burned in a power plant at the mine to generate electricity and its energy sent across country via high voltage lines. The coal also can be pulverized and mixed with water into a slurry and then pumped through a pipeline, such as the 273 mile line that runs from Arizona mines to southern Nevada, where the water is centrifuged out and the coal burned in a power plant. Can be Transformed Or the coal can be turned into coal gas or liquid fuel. Low heat-energy gas is the usual product made in gasifying gasify-ing coal, but now an additional step boosts the methane content of the coal gas so it has as high a heat-cnergy level as commercial natural gas; Still to be overcome is a major problem; Commerri gasification plants need m I pound of water for each poutfl of coal converted into gas n need for vast quantities ' . water also plagues engines" trying to perfect ways (' liquefy coal. The problem is compounde ' in many western coal regior' by a water scarcity that seen" to stymie the idea of turnin ' coal into gas or liquid fuel an ' transporting it directly t consumers by pipeline. Meanwhile, engineers of tb Energy Research and Deve ' opment Administration, an . ong others, are deve'lopin ' alternative gasification an ' liquefaction methods. ' ' But it may take a doze;-years doze;-years to go from laboratory t ' fullscale commercialization' a ' ERDA official cautions. ' : |