Clean coal comes to UK?
15 Jan 2000
RJB Mining, which bought the remnants of the UK coal industry after the government abandoned it as uneconomic, seems set to resurrect another former state-sponsored scheme - clean coal technology. The company, in partnership with US oil giant Texaco, is proposing to build the first large-scale `clean' coal-burning power station in the UK.
The station will use integrated gasification combined cycle technology, which incorporates a cleaning step to cut the emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides that have historically plagued coal-fired power generation. The coal is converted to synthesis gas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which is purged of impurities before being burned in an electricity-generating turbine. The heat from the turbine's exhaust is used to raise steam, which in turn generates further wattage. UK-sponsored research into gasification produced a process known as the Topping cycle, but the project was abandoned with the sale of the remaining pits to RJB and the `dash for gas' by the power generators, which saw coal-fired station construction projects cancelled.
Texaco, which is providing the technology for the proposed RJB station, claims that its process reduces SO2 emissions by over 99 per cent. Moreover, the sulphurous pollutants are recovered as sulphuric acid, a saleable product. The plant, at Kellingley in West Yorkshire, will generate some 400MW of power at a cost of 3p/kWh, claim the partners - still dearer than the combined-cycle gas turbines springing up in the wake of the power privatisations, which cost 2.7p/kWh.
* A Labour government would bring clean coal technology and solar power into the non-fossil fuel obligation scheme, according to Paddy Tipping, the leader of the parliamentary minerals group. The scheme diverts funds raised from a levy on fuel bills into renewable power generation. The levy would not be increased from its current 3.7 per cent level, Tipping told a recent clean coal technology conference, but the inclusion of clean coal in the scheme would help slow the dash-for-gas and help the coal industry.
