NYT: Dirty Secret: Coal Plants Could Be Much Cleaner

[DeepModem Mom]

Dirty Secret: Coal Plants Could Be Much Cleaner
By KENNETH J. STIER
Published: May 22, 2005


ALMOST a decade ago, Tampa Electric opened an innovative power plant that turned coal, the most abundant but the dirtiest fossil fuel, into a relatively clean gas, which it burns to generate electricity. Not only did the plant emit significantly less pollution than a conventional coal-fired power plant, but it was also 10 percent more efficient.

Hazel R. O'Leary, the secretary of energy at the time, went to the plant, situated between Tampa and Orlando, and praised it for ushering in a "new era for clean energy from coal." Federal officials still refer to the plant's "integrated gasification combined cycle" process as a "core technology" for the future, especially because of its ability - eventually - to all but eliminate the greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

Since that plant opened, however, not a single similar plant has been built in the United States. Abundant supplies of natural gas - a bit cleaner and, until recently, a lot cheaper - stood in the way.

But even now, with gas prices following oil prices into the stratosphere and power companies turning back to coal, most new plants - about nine out of 10 on the drawing board - will not use integrated gasification combined-cycle technology.

The reason is fairly simple. A plant with the low-pollution, high-efficiency technology demonstrated at the Tampa Electric plant is about 20 percent more expensive to build than a conventional plant that burns pulverized coal. This complicates financing, especially in deregulated markets, while elsewhere utilities must persuade regulators to set aside their customary standard of requiring utilities to use their lowest-cost alternatives....The technology's main long-term advantage - the ability to control greenhouse gas emissions - is not winning over many utilities because the country does not yet regulate those gases....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/business/yourmoney/22coal.html

[MADem]

1. Gee, the NYT is giving us the SCOOP!

Jimmy Olson, hard at work!

Don't get me wrong, I am all for cleaner coal plants, in fact, I think they should aggressively retrofit all of the existing ones, while they are working on viable renewable energy.

But for some reason I am suspicious of the timing of this article. Whaddaya wanna bet that the trade off for some nasty strip mining of public lands ends up being that scrubbers are put on all the plants, without all of those exceptions that allow polluters to pay polluting taxes? And this little tidbit is the first salvo in a plan to soften us up?

Yeah, I must be paranoid....could never happen here...am I too cynical?

[glitch]

3. Today you would have to be insane not to be paranoid.

Let's get some of those clean plants online so we can remove some more mountaintops and fill some more watersheds with toxic debris, shall we?

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. I don't know. Maybe the story is on the up and up. Signs of a

little civil war between the oil (white house) powers that be and the coal extraction faction?

[MADem]

5. A lot of those oil companies are diversifying

BP touts SOLAR, but it is all a show...and they are investing in WIND tech, albeit grudgingly. Coal, if the source is free, provided by the government, with little penalty for destroying the earth, is probably the best return on the dollar for them, even if they do have to engage in retrofitting.

I want to be wrong, really....

[davidinalameda]

2. I thought everyone knew that cleanER coal technology was out there

notice that I didn't say CLEAN because I doubt such a thing exists

when you burn fossil fuels you're going to get some pollution