Mining coal has a tremendous environmental impact, so extracting the energy out of coal while it still is in the ground makes a lot of sense. Gasifying coal below ground eliminates the need to mine the coal. Underground coal gasification (UCG) has the potential to provide a clean convenient source of energy from coal seams where traditional mining methods are either impossible or uneconomic to develop. Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) or the use of geo-reactors offers tremendous potential to clean up coal energy and enable economic access to stranded coal deposits.

Partha Das Sharma is Graduate in Mining Engineering from IIT,India(1979) & was associated with number of mining and explosives organizations before joining the present organization,Solar Group of Explosives Industries at Nagpur (India),few years ago.He has presented number of technical papers in many of the seminars and journals on varied topics.