www.alternate-energy-secrets.com/blog/index.php/2006/03 -
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Published on: 3/21/2006
Last Visited: 1/12/2008
Vancouver-based West Hawk Development (TSXV:WHD) has unveiled plans to strip-mine extensive coal reserves along the Mackenzie River and begin building $2-billion worth of coal gasification plants to tie into the pipeline within four years."It's a property we're feeling very comfortable with in terms of generating natural gas from coal," West Hawk president Mark Hart said Monday.
Earlier this month, West Hawk announced it had bought about 1,100 square kilometres of leases in three areas of the Northwest Territories estimated to contain 2.1 billion tonnes of coal.
Two of those are near Tulita, a tiny Dene community on the Mackenzie just west of Great Bear Lake.
Hart said the coal could be barged to market along the Mackenzie River.But gasification - turning the coal through heat and pressure into synthetic natural gas - is West Hawk's priority.
"We're definitely going to gasify," he said.
"It's the kind of coal resource that flows nicely into the pipeline concept."
STRIP MINES
Hart envisions a series of strip mines taking up to 30 million tonnes of coal a year and feeding it into gasification plants.The plants would be developed in four phases, with each phase worth about $450 million.
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Hart said West Hawk plans to capture and remove both the pollutants and the greenhouse gases created by the procedure.
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Hart acknowledges his company is just at the start of the community consultation process.Nor has it filed any regulatory documents - although Hart expects to have something before the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board in about six months.
Still, Hart said West Hawk could be mining coal within two years and turning it into natural gas 20 months after that.
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