Battle to fuel clean coal kick
15 Jan 2000
A major drive to develop clean coal technologies is to be launched with £12million of government money, according to energy minister John Battle. `We expect this "seed corn" money to generate some £60million over the next three years, for joint industry and university projects also supported by the government's science budget and EU funds,' he said.
Coal use worldwide is set to grow significantly over the next three years, particularly because of increasing power generation capacity in China and India. `Efficient and environmentally friendly cleaner coal technology must play a bigger role in sustainiable development worldwide,' said Battle.
Clean coal research in the EU is spearheaded by the Thermie programme, which has sponsored a demonstration of a retrofitted gas-reburn unit at Longannet in Scotland. The four-year project concluded last year and, according to recently-released results, showed that gas-reburn technology can halve NOx emissions without damaging the economics of the power station. The unit also stabilised combustion and reduced the levels of carbon in the furnace ash.
