Clean coal: Encyclopedia - Clean coal

Clean coal

Clean coal is coal chemically washed of minerals and impurities, sometimes gasified, burned and the resulting flue gases treated with steam and reburned so as to make the carbon dioxide in the flue gas economically recoverable. The carbon dioxide will then be sequestered by some means (several are being explored - see Carbon dioxide sink).

The primary example of clean coal is the proposed US FutureGen plant - a zero-emissions coal-fired power plant.

It is also widely believed that some process similar to the natural gas fuel cell or microbial fuel cell (charged from biomass or sewage) may be practical using coal as fuel. Those technologies are used mostly for stationary fuel cells as charging is slow. A large power plant in a coal mine might be the most energy efficient approach and require the least transport of coal to the users, though the return of the coal chute and use in homes is also not impossible in some places, especially if home sewage or natural gas lines can be tapped as well by an improved fuel reformer technology such as that used already to convert methanol, gasoline to the natural gas form.

See also

• Syngas
• Fluidized bed combustion
• Energy Policy Act of 2005
• Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Clean coal", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki