Chinese Clean Coal Technology

By: EconomyWatch   Date: 30 April 2010

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The Clean Coal Project

China’s double-digit economic growth in recent years has come at a high cost to the environment. The country’s latest clean coal project, GreenGen, is a significant attempt in the right direction.

The proposed project is expected to be developed across three phases. The first phase will have a consortium of power and coal companies to detail the funds required for the integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant that is expected to generate 250MW of electricity. This technology is expected to drastically reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide by 90% and 75%, respectively. China’s proposed GreenGen power plant has to potential of being the world’s leading technology project in the clean coal segment.

Completing GreenGen successfully will emerge as a great challenge and several analysts believe this venture will not be commercially viable. This is an aspect that will deter others from making much progress in the clean coal segment.

Due to the challenges involved, the US government shelved its much talked about FutureGen plans in February 2008. Despite such failed attempts, the pressure to create clean coal power stations is so intense that the US itself is expected to develop such plants in the coming years.


China's Dependence on Coal

With China’s contribution to environmental degradation reaching deadly levels, the Asian nation has recently been the target of significant criticism. Nearly every week, a new coal power plant is developed in China to meet the requirements of its 1.3 billion population. China’s overdependence on coal, which powers from huge industrial boilers to most of the country’s home stoves, has left cities cloaked in grey, dirty blankets of haze. According to World Bank estimates, this choking blanket of coal filled clouds could result in nearly $100 billion in health costs for the Chinese people.

The concept of coal provokes the words ‘dirty’ and ‘sooty’ into the human psyche with such intensity that the concept of ‘clean coal’ seems impossible. While clean coal is attained when carbon dioxide is extracted from it, the workable prototype of this concept has yet to be implemented successfully. The most recent attempt by the Chinese government relates to the launch of a pilot project to develop ‘clean coal’ by collecting and storing the carbon dioxide that is generated when coal is used and using this as a fuel for electricity generation. GreenGen could not only ease the pressure on China to control pollution, but has the potential to emerge as a touchstone for future clean coal development projects.


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