Clean Coal Tops Bush’s Clear Skies And Climate Change Initiative

The Department of Energy (DOE) has chosen eight projects that kick off the initial phase of President Bush’s Clean Coal Power Initiative. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham anticipates that the projects, valued at $1.3 billion, will help pioneer a new generation of innovative power plant technologies to help meet President Bush’s Clear Skies and Climate Change initiatives.

“The level of interest expressed in this first competition was tremendous,” Abraham said. “That is a clear indication of the potential to develop and apply technology to improve our energy security through the use of coal, our most abundant natural resource.” The projects are the first in a series of competitions to be run by DOE to implement Bush’s 10-year, $2 billion commitment to clean coal technology.

The department expects to award about $316 million to these initial projects. Private-sector participants would contribute just over $1 billion, well in excess of the department’s requirement for 50-percent cost-sharing by the private sector. Three of the projects are directed at new ways to comply with the President’s Clear Skies initiative, which calls for dramatic reductions in air pollutants from power plants over the next 15 years. They were proposed by:

• The city of Colorado Springs, Colo. – a municipal corporation that proposes to team with Foster Wheeler Power Group, Inc., of Clinton, N.J.

• LG&E Energy Corp., Louisville, Ky., which proposes to install an advanced air pollution control system on a 524-megawatt unit of the Ghent Generating Station, located on the Ohio River northeast of Carrollton, Ky.

• Wisconsin Electric Power Co., Milwaukee, Wis., which would install a high-tech process called “TOXECON” that will absorb mercury and other air toxic emissions from the flue gases of its Presque Isle Power Plant in Marquette, Mich.

Three other projects are expected to contribute to Bush’s Climate Change initiative to reduce greenhouse gases. Two of the projects will reduce carbon dioxide by boosting the fuel use efficiency of power plants. A third project will demonstrate a potential alternative to conventional portland cement manufacturing, a large emitter of carbon dioxide. The three were proposed by:

•Great River Energy of Underwood, N.D., which will team with the Electric Power Research Institute to enhance the fuel value of lignite by using the waste heat of a power plant to dry nearly a quarter of the moisture in the lignite before it is fed into a power plant boiler.

• NeuCo, Inc., of Boston, Mass. will apply a series of computational techniques, including neural networks, advanced algorithms and “fuzzy” logic, to achieve peak performances from a power plant’s combustor, soot removal system and emissions.

• University of Kentucky Research Foundation, Lexington, Ky., will team with LG&E Energy Corp. for a second project at the Ghent Power Station in Ghent, Ky. The team proposes to demonstrate an advanced process for separating unburned carbon from power plant ash or from ash ponds and recycling it for fuel.

Two additional projects will reduce air pollution through advanced gasification and combustion systems designed to extract the energy potential of waste coal piles scattered throughout many areas of Pennsylvania and West Virginia as a new source of fuel. The two projects are proposed by:

• Waste Management and Processors Inc. of Gilberton, Pa., which will head a team to build and operate a power plant that will produce clean electricity, high-value industrial heat and nearly 5,000 barrels per day of clean-burning diesel fuel from raw anthracite wastes.

• Western Greenbrier Co-Generation, LLC, a newly formed public service entity serving the West Virginia municipalities of Rainelle, Rupert and Quinwood, will team with several research and engineering firms to demonstrate an innovative circulating fluidized bed coal combustor linked to an advanced multi-pollutant control system.

Visit www.fossil.energy.gov/ for more information.