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News
- -12-07-05 Cleaner Coal Now Possible (MSNBC News)
"The technology — called integrated gasification combined cycle, or IGCC — gasifies coal before it’s burned, cutting large quantities of pollutants harmful to human health, such as particulates, small components and mercury, from going up the smokestack."
"But the process still costs 20 percent more than traditional coal burning, and that means a reluctance to buy in from industry, which is going through a boom."
"Cinergy and American Electric Power plan to build IGCC plants in the Midwest in the next decade. Both companies are also involved with the U.S. Energy Department’s FutureGen coal demonstration project, which aims to capture carbon."
"But they don’t plan yet to add the [carbon] capturing equipment on the IGCC plants they aim to build."
"That concerns some environmentalists, especially as the technology could increase coal use and open up vast areas of high-sulfur coal in the Midwest that the 1990 Clean Air Act made too expensive to consider."
"But it’s also cheaper to add [carbon] capturing to an IGCC plant than to a traditional one. The former adds only 25 percent to the cost of the electricity, compared to a 60 percent increase for conventional plants, said Ed Lowe, the gasification manager at GE Energy, which develops IGCC units for utilities."
"It’s also possible that states might try to enact carbon caps that create momentum for carbon capture. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a coalition of nine northeastern states, aims to form regional carbon dioxide markets." 10-05
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