Canine

Coal is being burned at a faster rate, for a lower price. Where companies need to upgrade or even rebuild their plants entirely, they’ve made plans to build more plants to meet the demand for this accessible energy source. Unfortunately, the CO2 emissions are still climbing, and many environmentalists think “that coal simply has no acceptable future as a major energy source” (2). Because of the current CO2 levels in the atmosphere, innovative technologies are looking to “enable a new breed of coal-fueled power plants to ‘capture’ CO2 and other pollutants efficiently and economically” (2); if building more plants can’t be stopped, at least limiting their emissions is a potential alternative. Once captured, the gas would be pumped to the ground for storage. This is a more feasible approach in a gasification plant opposed to regular power plant because the gases are already going through a separation process.

The IGCC plants are catching a lot of attention because they remove SO2, NOx, and mercury before coal is combusted, reducing the pollutants by “90%” (7). The new approach is certainly a helpful alternative to decreasing the amount of pollutants in the air. Since there aren’t regulations on CO2, capturing isn’t as vital, but if need be, these plants would be more equipped to do so than regular power plants. These generate heat to turn a turbine, and with the excess heat, a second turbine can be turned, too. The system is “15% more efficient to run than a conventional power plant” (7). Unfortunately, the higher cost for investing in this new technology has deterred utility companies from adopting the method. This, would in turn, “handicap the country’s ability to compete with India and China” (7), and proposals have been rejected on the grounds that it needed “maturation”, was “too expensive” and may cause initial price increases for electricity to cover the costs of starting an IGCC plant.

Gasification: a flexible, reliable, and clean energy technology that can turn a variety of low-value feedstocks into high-value products

Can conventional coal plants be converted into the IGCC plants?