Coal’s Last Chance

This article presents an overview of clean coal technologies that promise to produce electricity with fewer emissions. The 600 MW John W. Turk Jr. power plant built by American Electric Power near Fulton is the first “ultra-supercritical” electric-generating clean coal unit in the U.S. Turk’s efficiency is 39 percent to 40 percent, versus about 35 percent for conventional plants. Turk burns roughly 11 percent less coal than a subcritical plant would need to produce the same amount of power. Less coal means fewer emissions, and what’s left – aside from carbon dioxide – is further reduced by the state-of-the-art emission control technologies. Another clean coal technology that has seen wider adoption is the circulating fluidized bed combustion (CFBC) technology. One of CFBS’ greatest advantages is that since the furnaces burn at low temperatures, it can use very low-quality fuel, such as waste piles left over from mining and even chicken litter.