The ISP recommended that UCG projects not be allowed to proceed to commercial scale until they could demonstrate successful decommissioning. The Queensland government has agreed with this recommendation.
Interestingly, when the report came out on July 8, ASA member Linc Energy gave the report only qualified support.
It said it was good to have a definitive ruling on what had to be improved before UCG could go to a commercial scale.
"UCG is already blossoming as an emerging energy platform in various countries around the world," Linc CEO Peter Bond said.
"It has 50 years of commercial operating experience in Uzbekistan and more than 12 years in Australia at the [Linc Energy] Chinchilla site."
Bond said there was "some content" in the ISP report, however, that Linc did not agree with.
But in his guise as ASA president, Bond thanked Queensland Premier Campbell Newman and Queensland Natural Resources and Mines Minister Andrew Cripps for "unblocking the path to commercialisation of UCG".
"Commercialisation of UCG will attract much needed investment into the state, create jobs for regional populations and assist in the supply of energy at a time when Australians are witnessing ever increasing energy prices," he said.
The ASA said the report meant UCG commercialisation was firmly back on the agenda.
The association pointed out that UCG was being adopted as the energy source of choice for many countries.
The syngas product can be used in a variety of industrial processes, including power generation and the production of liquid fuels, fertiliser and synthetic gas.
UCG has environmental benefits such as reduced surface disturbance and land use conflicts - compared to coal mining and oil and gas operations - plus avoidance of greenhouse gas production associated with coal mining, as well as a relatively small physical footprint for large amounts of energy extraction.
Linc will be decommissioning a gasifier at Chinchilla, something Bond says will be a "very straightforward process".
However, the ISP said the demonstration that Linc could decommission a single gasifer was not enough to give it the thumbs up.
In its report, the panel said both Linc and Carbon Energy's UCG trial sites appeared to target coal at a much too shallow a depth, increasing the likelihood of problems.
