Cleaner coal challenges industry

Coal has and will continue to be an inescapable part of the world's energy source, especially in developing nations. But as global agreements strive to reduce emissions, the industry is moving toward a cleaner way of using the fuel, through CO2 Capture and Storage (CCS).

Forty percent of the world's power is currently generated through coal, and while developed nations are already on paths to reduce their dependence on coal, those reductions can hardly keep up with increased use in developing countries.

"There have been significant cutbacks in coal utilization in EU countries as they try to switch to low-carbon fuels," said John Topper, head of the Clean Coal Center in the United Kingdom. "That's not really the case in the developing world. In spite of those reductions, we expect to see significant increases in other parts of the world, particularly in China, India and, to some degree, southeast Asian countries. The supply-demand situation looks like a growth scenario even on today's policies."

Topper will open the Coal-Gen Europe conference Feb. 15-17 in Prague, one of the largest coal industry conferences. This year's conference, "Realizing Coal's Clean Energy Abilities," will focus on CCS and its progress so far.

Just as many renewable energy technologies are in the process of becoming viable sources, capable of producing energy at a cost and efficiency that is closer to traditional methods, CCS must also be comparably attractive, financially and in the public's mind, as traditional coal-fired plants. To this end, the European Union founded ZEP in 2005, the European Technology Platform for Zero Emission Fossil Fuel Power Plants, a collaboration between producers and policy leaders aimed at using CCS as one part of the puzzle toward battling climate change. According to ZEP, if CCS is implemented according to plan, which would make it viable and widespread by 2020, it could reduce CO2 emissions by 400 million tons by 2030 in the European Union.

In the Czech Republic, ČEZ abandoned a project to retrofit a coal plant with CCS after funding was too difficult to secure, according to the company.

"We planned to, but this kind of project depends on support, and support from the European Commission has been targeted to other projects in different European countries," said spokeswoman Eva Novaková.  

To meet ZEP's goal, the organization created the EU Demonstration Program in 2007, which laid out a timeline for demonstration projects, pilot plants that will use the technology for production, transport and storage. The demonstration plants should be up and running by 2015, ZEP says. The European CCS Demonstration Project Network held a "sharing event" in October 2010 in Hamburg, where three EC officials met with representatives from six demonstration projects that have been granted funding under the European Energy Program for Recovery. The projects are planned in Belchatow, Poland; Compostilla, Spain; Hatfield, England; Janschwalde, Germany; Porto Tolle, Italy and Rotterdam, Netherlands.

There are three ways of implementing CCS: pre-combustion, post-combustion and Oxyfuel. Pre-combustion removes CO2 chemically from the coal before combustion, resulting in zero CO2 emissions. Post-combustion is the oldest of the technologies and removes CO2 from the flue gases after combustion. Oxyfuel burns fuel in pure oxygen, creating a nearly pure stream of CO2 that can be more easily captured and stored.

The world's first CCS coal plant, a pilot mini-plant that uses the Oxyfuel technology, lies not far from the Czech Republic in the German town of Schwarze Pumpe and is run by Swedish company Vattenfall AB. The company invested nearly 70 million euros in the project, which was launched in September 2008. The 30 megawatt plant was created to be more suitable for lignite, known as brown coal, which is the dominant form found in Germany.

CCS' biggest hurdles will be funding, and a comprehensive regulatory framework for transporting and storing the by-product, CO2. Public perception, at the moment, remains cagey on transportation and storage methods, which can include injecting CO2 in underground storage areas.

"We're at the stage where, from a financial standpoint, we need the public support," said Karl Bergman, head of research and development at Vattenfall.

German company RWE, in cooperation with companies BASF and Linde, operates its own pilot-scale CO2 scrubbing plant, the Niederaussem power plant, commissioned in August 2009. A second plant in Hurth would have used Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) in conjunction with CCS, but regulatory framework remains inadequate for planning a pipeline for transportation, exploring and choosing storage sites, said Johannes Heithoff, RWE Power's vice president of research and development. As a result, the company has had to postpone its plans.

"The main problem in Germany is that we are waiting for the national CCS legal framework, including a process for storing CO2 underground," Heithoff told The Prague Post. "This is a political issue that is currently being debated in the political arena."

Without a legal framework, the permit process remains muddled, and public perception remains negative when it comes to the idea of new pipelines and underground storage facilities. With only a few pilot plants, companies will need as many proven examples as they can if they are to convince the public - and investors - that this is the way forward with coal.

"There are some green groups that say the technology is new and untested, [but] that's a little unfair. The technology is nothing unusual. We just have to make it work on the commercial scale, and it's a  process," Topper said. "It may not work absolutely perfect the first time. It's like anything else; compare the Model T with a new model from Mercedes. The point I'm making is that it will get better the more experience we have."

Claire Compton can be reached at
ccompton@praguepost.com