Speaker interviews

Exclusive interview with Kobus Terblanche, President - Linc Energy Operations Australia & Africa ahead of his presentation at IIR’s CoalTech Conference taking place on 26 - 27 September in Canberra

Q1 - How important are clean coal technologies to a country reliant on the coal sector like Australia?

     1) These technologies and especially the local/national implementation of them to support an ever increasing energy-poor world, are very important. Australia has the benefit of being coal-rich and in the position via these technologies to add value to this resource as part of the national energy challenge/solution.

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Exclusive interview with Dr. Nikolaus von Bargen, senior adviser coal upgrading RWE Power International

Q1 - What is WTA Technology and what are its major benefits?

A1 -  WTA Technology is a lignite drying technology designed to dry lignites efficiently in a single process step for as much as 65% to 10-15% moisture.  It is a steam-drying process in a stationary fluidized bed, and its major benefits are a compact plant with very high throughput,, utilisation of comparatively "low-value" heating energy and the recovery of the heat of evaporation. A significant advantage is that the lignite is dried in an inert atmosphere – that is, pure steam – and that the fine-grained portion of the dry lignite is not overdried. This is an important safety aspect, since dry lignite is very prone to self-ignition. Another significant advantage, especially in dry regions of the world, is that WTA Technology will recover the lignite moisture as very clean liquid water. For typical Australian lignites and a single WTA dryer line, this could be as much as 90 t of water every hour or about 700.000 m³ per year – enough for a town of 15.000. 

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