With the energy crisis ever increasing and forcing the curtailment and/or depletion or natural gas reserves, various processes and apparatuses have evolved using manufactured gas technology to produce methane or substitute gases to supplement or substitute for natural gas. One such method and apparatus is disclosed in my U.S. Pat. No. 3,124,435 in which the feed stock for producting natural gas substitutes was oil. However, with the increasing cost of oil, the economics of producting natural gas substitutes from oil may be prohibited. It is therefore desirable to effect the production of natural gas substitutes from a more economical feed stock, e.g., coal.
Many efforts have been made to produce natural gas substitutes from coal. However, such efforts for the most part resulted in fairly complex and costly systems. Also the known coal gasification systems intermittent in operation due to coking or other phenomena which interferes or renders impossible continuous operation of the system.