Articals of interest to the coal industry.

Monday, October 23, 2006

Its out there. "Clean coal tech"! The ways we can use coal in a clean environmentally friendly manner are here and adding in numbers everyday. In America when we face a problem we view it as a challenge. GOD Bless America!

Now we got to get the word out and educate people as to where their electricty comes from and that coal is used to make half of all of Americas juice. ie.. electricity


Clean coal technology set to sweep into AES Somerset plant
By Tasha KatesLockport Union-Sun & Journal
LOCKPORT— By Tasha Kateskatest@gnnewspaper.comThe technology may sound like an oxymoron, but “clean coal” promises to be just that — a way to refine grimy, coal-fired plants. According to the Department of Energy’s Web site, the earliest kind of clean coal plants use pressurized fluidized bed technology. Scientists discovered a combustion process that could control pollutant emission without using scrubbers to clean the air.Fluidized bed technology uses a “bubbling bed” of coal burning at temperatures between 1,400 and 1,700 degrees. The mixing action inside the bed puts the flue gases in contact with a sulfur-absorbing chemical that captures the pollutants.The technology set to be used at the proposed AES plant is gasification, a cleaner way to convert coal into electricity, hydrogen and other products.Plants that use gasification expose coal to hot steam, air and oxygen while under high pressure and temperatures, the Department of Energy’s Web site said. The coal is broken into its basic chemical parts, which cause its carbon molecules to break into chemical reactions that produce carbon monoxide, hydrogen and other compounds.The clean-burning hydrogen can be used in fuel cells, turbines and as the “chemical building blocks” for commercial products. Unlike traditional coal plants, gasification creates low sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides and particulate emissions. AES project manager Jon Reimann said the company is hoping to bid on a plant that would include selective catalytic reduction, which is used to improve air quality around the plant. The process adds a chemical reductant, such as ammonia, to the flue gas stream to mix with nitrogen oxides. The ultimate result is the creation of water and nitrogen.Nitrogen oxides are a group of highly reactive gases that form when fuel is burned at a high temperature, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Cars, utilities and industry all create the gas when burning their fuel. The EPA links nitrogen oxides with acid rain and global warming.Clean coal plants are expected to contain more emission-reducing technologies in coming years. The Department of Energy’s pet project, FutureGen, is a 275-megawatt coal-fired power plant expected to be the “world’s first zero-emissions fossil fuel plant.” The $1 billion research facility is expected to take 10 years to complete. Two Illinois and Texas sites are being considered for the plant.
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