Gasworks

[Yertis]

Really not sure where to post this question, there isn't an obvious home for it, but here seems best for a sensible answer.

Given the uncertainty around future natural gas supplies is there / could there be a case for recommencement of making gas from coal, like used to happen when I were a boy. I appreciate that in order to do this you'd also have to mine the coal (which we still have hundred's of years worth, IIRC) and it would have to be done in a green way. Is it actually possible? Are there 'green' methods of making gas from coal, or is it just to hideously dirty and expensive?

[GT03ROB]

Given there is rather a lot of gas still in the ground why would you?

However it is possible at considerable cost to create coal gassification facilites which are relatively clean using carbon capture.

[55palfers]

Don't forget that when we went from town gas to natural gas, every burner had to be changed.

[Jim1064]

Natural gas is methane, coal gas is a mix of mainly hydrogen and carbon monoxide.