Clean Coal Demonstration and Deployment: A Vital Step on the Path to a Cleaner Energy Future

The Nature of Coal

Coal is one of America’s most valuable resources. It is affordable, plentiful, and generates more than half of the Nation’s electricity. Coal or its by-products are also used for industrial heat, for steelmaking, and in the production of a variety of high-value products such as plastics, tar, synthetic fibers, fertilizers, and medicines.

To take advantage of coal as an energy resource while minimizing its environmental impact, scientists, engineers, global businesses, and government organizations are working diligently to develop advanced coal technologies that provide reliable and eco-friendly answers to our energy future. They are also taking the next vital step on the path to a cleaner energy future: demonstrating these technologies at full scale and providing incentives to encourage wide-scale deployment.

	"Seventy-five percent of domestic coal-fired power plants include technology with roots in NETL's clean coal demonstration program."

The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) is at the center of U.S. efforts to develop, demonstrate, and deploy new, near-zero emissions coal power technologies. The laboratory has more than 20 years of experience delivering success through clean coal technology demonstration programs. In fact, today, 75 percent of domestic coal-fired power plants include technology with roots in NETL’s clean coal demonstration program.

Through the year 2030, fossil fuels will likely provide more than 80% of the energy used in the United States and the world, with coal making up 25% of the total energy mix. Through demonstrations of advanced coal technologies, NETL has set a path to commercializing energy solutions that combine adequate supply with minimal environmental impacts.

Today’s coal originated from the remains of trees, ferns, and other plants that lived 300–400 million years ago. As layers of soil and decomposing organic material were slowly compressed over the millennia, the carbon content fossilized to create this “rock that burns.” Mixed with the carbon were various amounts of impurities, including sulfur, nitrogen, mercury, and other minerals. When coal is burned, these impurities can combine with water vapor to form acid rain or particulate matter. Burning coal also creates carbon dioxide (CO₂), one of several greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change.

Prior to the 1970s, the use of coal contributed to the pollution of our Nation’s land, air, and waterways. To solve this problem, in the 1970s and early 1980s, laboratories across the country began taking strides to develop technologies to reduce the environmental impact of using coal. Today, we have ways to capture the pollutants trapped in coal before they escape into the atmosphere. We have technologies that can filter out 99 percent of the particulate matter, remove more than 95 percent of acid rain pollutants, and reduce the release of CO₂ to near zero by using coal more efficiently and capturing and sequestering the CO₂ that is produced.

Building Programs to Demonstrate Advanced Coal Technologies

“Commercial-scale demonstrations and deployment incentives are a necessary and effective means to move advanced coal technologies with near-zero emissions from the research and development stage into the commercial marketplace.”

Advanced coal technologies can improve the environmental performance of coal and lower costs. However, for these innovations to be adopted and their benefits realized, they must first be demonstrated at commercial scale. According to Brad Tomer, Director of NETL’s Office of Major Demonstrations, “Commercial-scale demonstrations and deployment incentives are a necessary and effective means to move advanced coal technologies with near-zero emissions from the research and development stage into the commercial marketplace.”

The first U.S. program to demonstrate advanced coal technologies with this goal in mind was the Clean Coal Technology Demonstration Program (CCTDP), which was launched by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy in 1986 and managed by NETL. Originally intended as a response to concerns over acid rain—which is formed when sulfur oxides (SOx) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) combine with water and air particles—the first demonstration program focused on commercializing new, more efficient coal conversion systems and novel processes to help reduce emissions. The program was carried out through a series of five national competitions aimed at attracting promising technologies that were unproven commercially. Thirty-three projects were eventually completed, and a new era in clean coal technology began.

One technology to come out of the program was the world’s first generation of integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) power plants. This clean coal technology turns coal into a gas and then removes impurities from the coal gas before it is combusted. Of the five IGCC power plants in the world that operate at commercial scale, two are located in the United States: the Wabash River IGCC plant in West Terre Haute, Indiana, and Tampa Electric Co.’s Polk Power Station near Tampa, Florida. Both plants received funding from the CCTDP program.

Another technology developed under the first clean coal program was circulating fluidized bed combustion. This process can efficiently burn a wide range of fuels with reduced emissions. The CCTDP-funded JEA Circulating Fluidized Bed Combustion Demonstration Project in Jacksonville, Florida, was the first project to prove that the circulating fluidized bed process could be carried out on a large scale.

More than 20 technologies demonstrated in the original program achieved commercial success. These technologies have been used to retrofit three-quarters of today’s coal-fired power plants. The most common are SOx control systems, or “scrubbers,” and technologies to lower NOx emissions, but they also encompass advanced coal processing technologies, fluidized bed combustion, coal gasification, and industrial process technologies. Combined, these advances have allowed U.S. use of domestic coal to continue, while cutting pollutant emission levels 30–95 percent.

Under the Power Plant Improvement Initiative (PPII), CONSOL Energy Inc. and AES Greenidge demonstrated a hybrid system to reduce multiple pollutants at small coal-fired power plants. The system uses in-duct selective non-catalytic and selective catalytic reduction, a circulating fluidized bed dry scrubber, and a pulsejet baghouse to tackle mercury, NOx, SO2, acid gases, and particulates. The system answers industry’s need for smaller, lower-cost alternatives to the conventional selective catalytic reduction and wet scrubbers used in larger plants.

In 1999 and 2000, the United States faced a new energy challenge: U.S. consumers were confronted with blackouts and brownouts in major regions of the country. Congress responded by directing DOE to issue “a general request for proposals for the commercial-scale demonstration of technologies to assure the reliability of the nation’s energy supply ...” DOE’s answer: the Power Plant Improvement Initiative. Known as PPII, the initiative was a single solicitation to secure demonstrations that specifically addressed concerns of electric power reliability.

Nine years later, three PPII projects have been completed. The projects have improved plant efficiency, reduced emissions, and turned coal ash into useful building materials, along with using innovative approaches such as neural network artificial intelligent systems to optimize plant operations. The fourth and final PPII project is demonstrating a low-cost integrated multi-pollutant control system for existing plants. It is drawing to a close having met every one of its environmental performance goals.

Where NETL Coal Technology Demonstration Programs Stand Today

As the 20th century drew to a close, so did our Nation’s major battles with SOx, NOx, and acid rain. With the beginning of the 21st century, attention to the environmental concerns of coal utilization has shifted to the potential health impacts of trace mercury emissions, the aggravation of respiratory illness by microscopic particles, and the global climate–altering impact of greenhouse gases.

With coal likely to remain one of the Nation’s lowest-cost electric power resources in the foreseeable future, even more advanced clean coal technologies are needed. The most recent demonstration program, the Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI), is helping the Nation successfully commercialize superior power systems that will attain near-zero emissions, produce clean fuels, effectively manage CO₂, and produce electricity at efficiencies nearly double that of today’s technologies.

	In a CCPI Round I project at the Great River Energy (GRE) Coal Creek Station, waste heat will be used to dry high-moisture lignite coal so that more power can be produced with less fuel. Because of the success the technology achieved during the prototype phase of this project, GRE is installing eight coal dryers to serve its entire facility: four funded under the demonstration portion of the project and four using its own funds. Construction will be complete in September 2009, and demonstration will begin in October. If proven commercial-ready, the technology could eventually be applied to more than 100 gigawatts of installed capacity in U.S. power plants burning high-moisture coals, offering both efficiency improvements and emissions reduction to the U.S. power industry.

CCPI is a multi-year program that is being implemented through a series of competitive multi-award solicitations. In the first CCPI round, in 2002, the criteria for candidate projects was very broad. The solicitation was open to “any technology advancement related to coal-based power generation that results in efficiency, environmental, and economic improvement compared to currently available state-of-the-art alternatives.”

The second CCPI solicitation encouraged proposals to demonstrate advances in coal gasification systems, technologies that permit improved management of carbon emissions, and advancements that reduce mercury along with other power plant emissions. Two of the selected projects involve IGCC systems based on prior CCTDP demonstrations, and a third project addresses mercury control.

The third CCPI round was introduced in August 2008 and focuses specifically on technologies that manage greenhouse gas emissions. Projects will demonstrate the integration of technologies that capture and sequester or put to beneficial reuse at least 300,000 tons per year of CO₂ emissions while operating at a minimum 90 percent CO₂ capture efficiency. Proposal selections are anticipated to be announced in July 2009, with an anticipated Federal budget of $440 million.

The ambitious CCPI Round II Mesaba Energy Project employs a next-generation integrated gasification combined cycle system to achieve higher plant efficiencies and lower emissions (including mercury). This process will also lower operating costs by providing fuel flexibility and by-product marketability. For instance, because the sulfur is recovered in its elemental form, it can be marketed for agricultural and other uses.

Another demonstration program that is expected to play a major role in advancing clean coal technologies is Restructured FutureGen. The program goal is to demonstrate near-zero emissions technologies and cutting-edge coal-based power generation technologies that also capture and store CO₂.

In June 2008, DOE issued a funding opportunity announcement for Restructured FutureGen to invest in multiple commercial-scale projects. The projects must be designed to achieve approximately 90 percent capture of the carbon content in the syngas or flue gas and must achieve a minimum overall carbon capture rate of 81 percent. In addition, projects must remove at least 90 percent of mercury emissions and 99 percent of sulfur emissions based on their respective content in the coal, while reducing other particulate emissions to very low levels.

The Next Step: Deployment in the Domestic and International Markets

Demonstration is a major facet of NETL efforts to expand clean coal technologies, but deployment activities also play a significant a role. To encourage industry to use advanced technologies, NETL helps design and implement over $10 billion of deployment activities.

NETL serves as financial reviewer and technical consultant to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the DOE Loan Guarantee Program Office (LGPO). With NETL’s assistance, the IRS has distributed $1.25 billion of tax credits for the deployment of clean coal technologies from an original $1.65 billion allocation, and will further distribute an additional $1.5 billion allotment. NETL is assisting the LPGO on soliciting and awarding $8 billion of loan guarantees for fossil fuel–related projects.

	NETL works with international partners to develop and demonstrate advanced technologies to improve the environmental performance of coal-based power generation for the benefit of us all. In addition to other international research activities, NETL has Memoranda of Understanding in place or under development with Brazil, China, India, Israel, South Korea, and Poland.

Developing and using clean coal technologies in the United States will improve the environment while helping to ensure the Nation’s energy security. But to make an even greater impact the technologies need to be deployed internationally.

According to the Energy Information Administration, world coal consumption will increase by 65 percent from 2005 to 2030, and coal’s share of world energy consumption will increase from 27 percent in 2005 to 29 percent in 2030. These statistics show that the United States is simply part of a larger world population that is going to look to coal as an energy source for a long time to come. Because of this, NETL plays a key role in the international community, encouraging worldwide deployment of advanced coal technologies through cooperative efforts with more than 40 countries.

What We Have Accomplished

	“From an investment of about $2 billion over more than 20 years, the estimated benefits from the demonstration of clean coal technologies range from $25 billion to more than $115 billion.”

From an investment of about $2 billion over more than 20 years, the estimated benefits from the demonstration of clean coal technologies range from $25 billion to more than $115 billion. The National Research Council has affirmed that the program’s economic, environmental, and national security benefits far exceed program costs. Furthermore, industry estimates that future returns on investment in clean coal will amount to $100 billion by 2020 and $1,380 billion by 2050.

NETL’s clean coal program has a broad scope, encompassing today’s technologies and tomorrow’s possibilities. By continuously setting and achieving higher goals and being aware of the needs of domestic and international stakeholders, NETL will continue to create innovative technologies to maximize the benefits of using coal, our Nation’s most abundant energy resource.