New ways to gasify and clean coal emerge

ST. LOUIS (Reuters) – New ways to gasify coal are emerging that could help reduce the cost of managing the fuel’s greenhouse gas emissions, officials at small companies said.

Big U.S. utilities are beginning to consider using heat and pressure to turn coal into a natural gas-like fuel at power plants because it can reduce pollutants like acid rain and smog components. Technology can be added to the process to siphon off CO2 and bury it underground so that it does not reach the atmosphere.

Adding such technologies to power plants can be expensive. A recent Massachusetts Institute of Technology report said carbon capture and sequestration at the plants could boost power bills by 20 percent.

That leaves opportunities for companies to gasify coal close to where it is mined, send the natural gas via pipeline for home heating or for burning at power plants, and sell the carbon dioxide for pumping into nearby aging oil fields where it can boost production.

Reuters