The Green Rocket

Part One of this article set outlined some of the background on coal, its impact on the environment, and some of the current U.S. administration sentiments on it.  Now to assess the existing state of the coal industry in more detail, I ask: “Does clean coal currently exist in the U.S.?”  It depends who you ask.

I was spurred to write this article by a Twitter comment made to me (@NikkiJade) by @AmericasPower–one of coal’s most vocal supporters in the U.S..  America’s Power is sponsered by a partnership of industries involved in producing electricity from coal, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE).  The organization strongly believes coal has a role to play in the future as America’s largest source of electricity generation.

The comment attempted to correct The Green Rocket’s video post that claimed clean coal in the U.S. was a myth, asserting: “Actually, technology has made coal 77 percent cleaner since 1970. See for yourself: http://snipurl.com/77-percent”. Indeed, by its data there has been some improvements in the efficiency of coal-burning plants.   As the site illustrates:

“Over the last 35 years, America’s coal-based electricity providers have invested more than $50 billion in technologies to reduce emissions. Due to investments like these, our coal-based generating fleet is more than 77 percent cleaner on the basis of regulated emissions per unit of energy produced.

The calculations are based on five pollutants: carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particulate matter. The data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reflects the environmental performance per unit of energy produced. That is, the relationship of emissions per billion kilowatt-hours. From 1970 to 2005, the value for that ratio fell from 30,510 short tons per billion kilowatt-hours to just 6,970 short tons per billion kilowatt-hours — a reduction of 77.15 percent.”

This certainly seems like an astronomical achievement, though the organization claims “this is just a start”.  Which is true.  In reality, the data does not include carbon dioxide statistics–arguably the most significant concern surrounding coal combustion.  This was unfortunate to me, as the issue is presented both on America’s Power and on the ACCEE’s main site in a manner that makes overall emissions appear to be down over 70%, which is untrue of CO2.  As a result, many who do not take the time to look further into their claims could be easily confused that the changes are more significant than they are.  This is just my opinion, potentially biased from frustration that it took me a while to set the full context of the data when it was first presented to me.  In any case, opinion aside, the data used is specified as “regulated” emissions, and CO2 has only recently been in discussion to become such, as mentioned in Part One.  In addition, both sites make specific reference to CO2 as a separate challenge of interest and necessity.  And so, I digress.

So in reality, while other areas have improved, there has been only minimal improvements in CO2 emissions.  America’s Power’s blog, Behind the Plug, asserts that there have been “improvements in efficiency of CO2 emissions”, though a representative graph of this like we were presented with the other emissions was evasive.  The organization does, however, provide valuable information about the potential of clean coal technologies, as well as some very good cost-benefit studies.  I will go over this part of the debate and these solutions in Part III.

From another source, a working paper by the National Petroleum Council claims unit efficiency of coal-burning plants has barely changed.  It claims the efficiency improvements over time that are demonstrated by data in the EIA and IEA outlooks are not as straightforward as they seem.  Instead, the improvements largely come from substitution of old plants with new plants that have better efficiency (p3). What they mean by this is that while there have been improvements, innovation is not as significant as it seems–upgrading older units improves efficiency, so much of the data could be representing minor upgrades rather than full scale innovation.  In other words, if we’re not at a stage of having clean coal plants in the U.S., why build new ones until we are?  There is technology out there, but it is not yet widely commercialized or with strong policy to implement it.

Furthermore, since I am analyzing the data and methodology on a surface level here, it is also worth mentioning a report done by the Energy Information Administration (EIA).  The study develops and analyzes probably the most comprehensive measurement of estimating the amount of CO2 emitted from coal-burning in the U.S..  It uses factors for estimating the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from coal that are not generally accounted for in other studies.  Much of the data on coal are small samples that are generalized, and therefore hold important factors such as geographic origin and content ratios constant.  In more simple terms, where the coal comes from geographically means it can have a different make-up in terms of how much carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulfur, and etc. that it holds.  These different types are what the EIA calls “ranks”, and uses the rank and geographic origin to weight the data for more accuracy in measuring emissions.

Why am I rambling about this?  Well, as the EIA puts it, “The amount of heat emitted during coal combustion depends largely on the amounts of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen present in the coal and, to a lesser extent, on the sulfur content. Hence, the ratio of carbon to heat content depends on these heat-producing components of coal, and these components vary by coal rank. ” In other words, what might seem like shifts in technological efficiency from year to year emissions may actually be less significant when shifts BETWEEN types of coal are taken into consideration.

Essentially, the point I’m trying to make is that no, “clean” does not currently characterize the United States coal industry–although there is seemingly potential, as I will outline in Part III. It is still a major contributor to the climate change problem, and while there is a great deal of money going into research, there is not yet the legislation and commercialization of methods to provide environmentally sound electricity from coal.  This has led groups like Repower America and This Is Reality to maintain that we do not need to wait for coal to become clean, instead we can invest time and resources into alternative energy markets.

Before I finish, let me just clarify what I mean by “clean” coal — basically, coal that is not contributing significant harm to the environment, or more specifically, with significantly reduced CO2 and other emissions and high efficiency.  There is a separate debate about whether coal will ever be fully “clean”, as per its method of collection being quite destructive to mountaintops, for example.  Of course, many human-made things are intrusive… but in any case, that is a debate to be explored another time (before I go into another digression…)

Parts One and Two of this article set demonstrate that the coal industry needs significant overhaul if it wants to be a part of the climate change solution.  Stick around for Part III to find out about developing clean technologies and their challenges, the financial burden of clean energy and renewable alternatives, and finally some general policy recommendations I picked up from the various studies.

Creative Commons Attribution: “Coal Transport – close-up“, Flickr, MoToMo

Related Posts

• Coal as a Clean Energy Source, Part Three: Clean Coal Technologies
• Coal as a Clean Energy Source, Part One: Some Background
• Clearing Up the Myth About Clean Coal