Clean Coal is a term for technology (Clean coal technology) that mitigates emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gasses that arise from the burning of coal for electrical power. Typically, the term clean coal is used by coal companies in reference to carbon capture and storage, which pumps and stores CO2 emissions underground, and plants using an Integrated gasification combined cycle. This gasifies coal to reduce CO2 emissions. Historically, the term has been used to refer to technologies for reducing emissions of ash, sulfur, and heavy metals from coal combustion.

Within the United States, Carbon Capture and storage technologies are mainly being developed in response to regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency—most notably the Clean Air Act—and in anticipation of legislation that seeks to mitigate climate change. Currently, the electricity sector of the United States is responsible for about 41% of the nation's CO2 emissions, and half of the sector's production comes from coal-fired power plants.

Coal is an essential component of the country's energy mix and—perhaps most important during current geopolitical uncertainties—is a critical resource in the drive for domestic energy independence and affordable energy. New, clean technologies and processes have placed coal on the path to producing more than half of domestic electricity and a growing proportion of gasoline and synthetic natural gas. Global demand for U.S. coal is also on the rise, as emerging economies continue to develop manufacturing infrastructure and power-generation facilities. However, these industry opportunities are matched by several key challenges, including increased regulatory pressures, organized opposition campaigns, and current limitations on the number and capacity of export facilities.

The attorneys of Hunton & Williams LLP's coal practice have decades of experience helping clients navigate the rapidly changing issues facing the industry. We advise a broad range of businesses engaged in the extraction, transportation, and use of coal and coal-derived products, including mining companies, railways and shipping companies, and power producers and utilities, as well as research entities, academic institutions and industry organizations that are exploring green uses for this valuable resource. Our attorneys have served as presidents, on executive committees and as trustees of numerous coal-related industry and legal organizations, including the Eastern Mineral Law Foundation, the National Coal Council, and the American Bar Association Natural Resources Section’s Coal Committee. The group and our individual partners were ranked in the top-tier of environmental attorneys nationwide by industry and legal ratings agencies such as Chambers USA 2011 and Best Lawyers in America 2011.

Environmental issues, including those arising under the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act are of particular concern to producers and users of coal. We have worked for years at the edge of these issues, and are committed to helping our clients remain in the energy mix by developing effective strategies for dealing with the constantly changing tactics of advocacy groups, legislators, and federal and state regulators. We regularly represent coal producers and users in rulemakings, permit proceedings, enforcement actions and related litigation. For example, we are currently active in various matters arising out of the EPA's emerging legal and scientific theories about the impacts of mining on headwater streams. Among numerous other court victories, we earned a favorable judgment for the industry in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in the important Bragg mountaintop mining case (for which we also successfully obtained a denial of certioriari in the U.S. Supreme Court).

Many of the issues facing the coal industry today are similar to those that have played out in other industry sectors, and we regularly apply these lessons learned to the current needs of our coal clients. We also understand how laws and policies are used to foster or promote certain industries over others, and draw on our administrative law and litigation experience to further our clients’ interests in Washington, D.C., and around the country. We are also well versed in the unique issues that arise in the development of domestic Eastern and Western coal reserves, and have represented companies worldwide in the extraction and use of coal from international sources.

As the industry becomes more vertically integrated, through mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, public/private initiatives, and other formal and informal relationships, we draw on our extensive experience in antitrust, corporate, finance, labor and employment, securities, tax and other areas of law to provide comprehensive services to our clients.

Abundant coal resources and widespread use are central to the energy systems and growth aspirations of the U.S. and China. This presents both challenges and opportunities for our two countries in environmental performance and commercial development. The Advanced Coal Technology consortium addresses technology and practices for advanced coal utilization and carbon capture, utilization, and storage. Joint research is conducted in the following areas: advanced power generation, clean coal conversion technology, pre-combustion capture, post-combustion capture, oxy-combustion capture, CO2 sequestration, CO2 utilization, simulation and assessment, and communication and integration. Dr. Jerald Fletcher from West Virginia University leads the U.S. consortium. Dr. Zheng Chuguang of Huazhong University of Science and Technology leads the China consortium.

These two Advanced Coal Technology Consortia (collectively, the CERC-ACTC) are implementing a five-yearJoint Work Plan (English PDF Chinese PDF) to significantly advance technology in the area of clean coal, including carbon capture, utilization, and storage, in both China and the United States.

U.S. and Chinese officials agreed to a Technology Management Plan (TMP) regarding intellectual property rights. The Agreement (English PDF Chinese PDF) protects American and Chinese research, scientists, and engineers by ensuring their intellectual property rights for the technology they create.

Clean coal is a term for technology (Clean coal technology) that mitigates emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gasses that arise from the burning of coal for electrical power. Typically, the term clean coal is used by coal companies in reference to carbon capture and storage, which pumps and stores CO2 emissions underground, and plants using an Integrated gasification combined cycle. This gasifies coal to reduce CO2 emissions.[1][2][3][4] Historically,[5] the term has been used to refer to technologies for reducing emissions of ash, sulfur, and heavy metals from coal combustion.

Within the United States, Carbon Capture and storage technologies are mainly being developed in response to regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency—most notably the Clean Air Act—and in anticipation of legislation that seeks to mitigate climate change. Currently, the electricity sector of the United States is responsible for about 41% of the nation's CO2 emissions, and half of the sector's production comes from coal-fired power plants.[6]

Technology[edit]Main article: Clean coal technology

The United States Department of Energy works with private industry to develop carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies.[7] Several methods are available under this technology including pre-capture, oxy-fuel combustion, and post-capture CCS. Perhaps the most popular example of a coal-based plant using (oxy-fuel) carbon-capture technology is Vattenfall’s Schwarze Pumpe plant in Germany.[8] However, no one has demonstrated that carbon stored underground will be able to stay there indefinitely.[9]Another technology under development is the Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle or IGCC.[10]

A more recent technology being co-developed by Babcock-ThermoEnergy is the Zero Emission Boiler System (ZEBS). This system features near 100% carbon-capture and according to company information virtually no air-emissions.[11]

Other carbon capture and storage technologies include those that dewater low-rank coals. Low-rank coals often contain a higher level of moisture content which contains a lower energy content per tonne. This causes a reduced burning efficiency and an increased emissions output. Reduction of moisture from the coal prior to combustion can reduce emissions by up to 50 percent.[citation

needed]

The UK government's Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is working towards a clean energy future and supports clean coal projects across the country. In August 2010, UK-based company B9 Coal announced a clean coal project with 90% carbon capture to be put forward to DECC. This would help the UK raise its profile amongst green leaders across the world. This proposed project, gasifys coal underground  and processes it to create pure streams of hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The hydrogen is then used as an emissions-free fuel to run an alkaline fuel cell whilst the carbon dioxide is captured. This UK project could provide a world-leading template for clean coal with CCS globally.

Environment[edit]See also: Environmental effects of coal

According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the burning of coal, a fossil fuel, is a significant contributor to global warming. (See the UN IPCC Fourth Assessment Report). For 1 ton of coal burned, 2.86 tons of carbon dioxide is created.[12] As 25.5% of the world's electrical generation in 2004 was from coal-fired generation (see World energy resources and consumption), reaching the carbon dioxide reduction targets of the Kyoto Protocol will require modifications to how coal is utilized.[13]

Sequestration technology has yet to be tested on a large scale and may not be safe or successful. Sequestered CO2 may eventually leak up through the ground, may lead to unexpected geological instability or may cause contamination of aquifers used for drinking water supplies.[14] There are also concerns that plans to pump some of the sequesteredCO2 into certain oil and gas reserves, to help make the fuel easier to pump out of the ground, will lead to increased concentrations of CO2 in potential fuel supplies. This would have to be removed or released during the refining process.[15]

Technologies related to reducing the environmental impact of extracting energy from coal do not address environmental impacts of coal mining. Examples of environmental impacts of coal mining include the Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill.

Gasification[edit]

Gasification is a process that avoids burning coal. “Unlike traditional combustion processes which fully oxidize carbonaceous fuels to generate heat, modern coal gasifiers convert coal into syngas via partial oxidation reactions with oxygen or with steam and oxygen under elevated pressures.14,62”(Li et. Al 252). Syngas is made of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. It is then cleaned and burned in place of coal to make electricity.[16]

Byproducts[edit]

The byproducts of coal combustion are considerably hazardous to the environment if not properly contained.

While it is possible to remove most of the sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and particulate matter (PM) emissions from the coal-burning process, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and radionuclides [17] will be more difficult to address.

Coal-fired power plants are the largest aggregate source of mercury: 50 tons per year come from coal power plants out of 150 tons emitted nationally in the USA and 5000 tons globally.[18] In the USA, neither the combustion products of oil,[19] nor their associated solid or liquid waste streams,[20] are considered to be major contributors to mercury pollution.[21]

Potential financial cost of clean coal[edit]

Whether carbon capture and storage technology is adopted world wide will “…depend less on science than on economics. Cleaning coal is very expensive.” [22]

Projected costs for CCS can be found in that article. Credit Suisse Group says $15 billion needs to be invested in CCS over the next 10 years for it to play an important role in climate change. The International Energy Agency says $20 billion is needed. The Pew Center on Global Climate Change says the number is as high as $30 billion. Those figures dwarf the actual investments to date.

In the US, the Bush administration spent about $2.5 billion on clean coal technology — a large amount, but far less than what will be needed.[citation needed] CCS proponents say both the government and the private sector need to step up their investments.[23]

Projects in the United States[edit]

FutureGen is a US government project, announced by President George W. Bush in 2003 to build a near zero-emissions coal-fueled power plant to produce hydrogen andelectricity while using carbon capture and storage. Funding for the plant was withdrawn by the Department of Energy on 29 January 2008.[24]

The United States Department of Energy has also funded projects through the National Energy Technology Laboratory Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI). There have been three rounds of CCPI funding and the following projects were selected during each round:[25]

Round 1 CCPI Projects Advanced Multi-Product Coal Utilization By-Product Processing Plant Demonstration of Integrated Optimization Software at the Baldwin Energy Complex Gilberton Coal-to-Clean Fuels and Power Co-Production Project Increasing Power Plant Efficiency: Lignite Fuel Enhancement TOXECON Retrofit for Mercury and Multi-Pollutant Control on Three 90-MW Coal-Fired Boilers Western Greenbrier Co-Production Demonstration Project Commercial Demonstration of the Airborne Process Integration of Advanced Emission Controls to Produce Next-Generation Circulating Fluid Bed Coal Generating Unit

Round 2 CCPI Projects Airborne ProcessTM Commercial Scale Demonstration Program Demonstration of a Coal-Based Transport Gasifier Mercury Specie and Multi-Pollutant Control Project

Mesaba Energy Project

Round 3 CCPI Projects American Electric Power  Project Antelope Valley Station Post-Combustion CO2 Project Hydrogen Energy California  Project NRG Energy  Project Southern Company  Carbon Capture and Sequestration Demonstration Summit Texas Clean Energy Project

Support[edit]

In the United States, clean coal was mentioned by former President George W. Bush on several occasions, including his 2007 State of the Union Address. Bush's position was that carbon capture and storage technologies should be encouraged as one means to reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil.

During the 2008 US Presidential campaign, both candidates John McCain and Barack Obama  expressed interest in the development of CCS technologies as part of an overall comprehensive energy plan.[26] The development of clean coal technologies could also create export business for the United States or any other country working on it.[27]

The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, signed in 2009 by President Obama, allocated $3.4 billion for advanced carbon capture and storage technologies, including CCS demonstration projects.[28]

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that "we should strive to have new electricity generation come from other sources, such as clean coal and renewables,” and former Energy Secretary Dr. Steven Chu has said that “It is absolutely worthwhile to invest in carbon capture and storage," noting that even if the U.S. and Europe turned their backs on coal, developing nations like India and China would not.[29]

In Australia, carbon capture and storage was often referred to by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as a possible way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.[30] (The previousPrime Minister John Howard has stated that nuclear power is a better alternative, as CCS technology may not prove to be economically favorable.[31])

During the first 2012 United States presidential election debate, Mitt Romney expressed his support for clean coal, and claimed that current federal policies were hampering the coal industry.[32]

Criticism[edit]

Environmentalists such as Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy Program, believes that the term clean coal is misleading: "There is no such thing as clean coal and there never will be. It's an oxymoron."[33] The Sierra Club's Coal Campaign has launched a site refuting the clean coal statements and advertising of the coal industry.[34]

Complaints focus on the environmental impacts of coal extraction, high costs to sequester carbon, and uncertainty of how to manage end result pollutants and radionuclides.

The paleontologist and influential environmental activist Tim Flannery made the assertion that the concept of clean coal might not be viable for all geographical locations.[35][36]

Critics also believe that the continuing construction of coal-powered plants (whether or not they use carbon sequestration techniques) encourages unsustainable mining practices for coal, which can strip away mountains, hillsides, and natural areas. They also point out that there can be a large amount of energy required and pollution emitted in transporting the coal to the power plants.

The Reality Coalition, a nonprofit organization composed of Alliance for Climate Protection, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the League of Conservation Voters, ran a series of television commercials in 2008 and 2009. The commercials were highly critical of clean coal, stating that without capturing CO2emissions and storing it safely that it cannot be called clean coal.[37]

Greenpeace is a major opponent of the concept because they view emissions and wastes as not being avoided but instead transferred from one waste stream to another.[38]According to Greenpeace USA Executive Director Phil Radford, "even the industry figures it will take 10 or 20 years to arrive, and we need solutions sooner than that. We need to scale up renewable energy; “clean coal” is a distraction from that."[39]

Prior terminology[edit]

Clean coal was an umbrella term for any methods that have been developed to reduce the environmental impact of coal-based electricity, which accounts for nearly half of the United States’ electricity supply. These efforts include chemically washing minerals and impurities from the coal, gasification (see also IGCC), treating the flue gases with steam to remove sulfur dioxide, carbon capture and storage technologies to capture the carbon dioxide from the flue gas and coal de-watering technologies to improve the energy quality and thus the efficiency of burning coal for energy. These methods and the technology used are referred to as clean coal technologies. Figures from the Environmental Protection Agency show that these technologies have made today’s coal-based generating fleet 77 percent cleaner on the basis of regulated emissions per unit of energy produced.[40]

While the term clean coal is today commonly used for carbon capture technologies, the earliest use of the term can be traced back to U.S. Senate Bill 911 in April, 1987:

"The term clean coal technology means any technology...deployed at a new or existing facility which will achieve significant reductions in air emissions of sulfur dioxide or oxides of nitrogen associated with the utilization of coal in the generation of electricity."[41]

The term also appeared in a speech to mine workers in 1918, when clean coal referred meant coal that was "free of dirt and impurities".[42]

It was in the late 1980s and early 1990s that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) conducted a joint program with the industry and State agencies to demonstrate these technologies large enough for commercial use. The program, called the Clean Coal Technology & Clean Coal Power Initiative,[43] has had a number of successes that have reduced emissions and waste from coal-based electricity generation.[44] Moreover, the Program has met regulatory challenges by incorporating nitrogen oxide (NOx) control technologies “into a portfolio of cost-effective regulatory compliance options for the full range of boiler types.” This portfolio has positioned the U.S. as a top exporter of clean coal technologies such as those used for NOx. The DOE continues its programs and initiatives through regional sequestration partnerships, a carbon sequestration leadership forum and the Carbon Sequestration Core Program, a CCS research and development program.[45]

According to a report by the assistant secretary for fossil energy at the U.S. Department of Energy, clean coal technology has paid measurable dividends. Technological innovation introduced through the CCT Program now provides consumers cost-effective, clean, coal-based energy.[46]

Sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) control technologies emerging from clean coal technology have moved into the utility and industrial marketplace and now provide cost-effective regulatory compliance. A new generation of advanced coal-based power systems has been placed in commercial service that represents a quantum leap forward in terms of efficiency and environmental performance. These advanced power systems projects will provide a springboard for widespread, global deployment. This in turn will contribute greatly to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

The government and industry officials continue to use the term "clean coal" to describe technologies designed to enhance both the efficiency and the environmental acceptability of coal extraction, preparation, and use.[47] However, today, the term "clean coal technology" is usually used in reference to carbon capture and storage, an advanced process that eliminates carbon dioxide emissions from coal-based plants and permanently sequesters them.

In the early 20th century, prior to World War II, clean coal (also called "smokeless coal") referred to anthracite and high-grade bituminous coal, used for cooking and home heating.[48]