Clean Coal? Myth or Reality
Clean coal, is it a myth or not? The inventions of "clean coal" technology have offered possible solutions to enable reductions on environmental impacts, while attempting to maintain economic benefits that coal has to offer in regard to energy levels. Though this process is still up for debate due to cost, capacity, and long-term environmental impact.
Now is clean coal actually something that is real? On a realistic scale it would be said that no, there is truly no such thing as clean coal energy. Based on our current technological abilities, there are ways we could possibly lower the effects coals has on the environments, but there will always be a side effect to any type of solution. Burning coal regularly emits over fifteen billion tons of carbon dioxide a year and attempting to use our currently technology to produce ways to decrease carbon levels in the atmosphere is extremely challenging. According to the World Nuclear Association, " the greatest challenge is bringing the cost of this down sufficiently for 'clean coal' to compete with nuclear power on the basis of near-zero emissions for base-load power. There is typically at least a 20% energy penalty involved in 'clean coal' processes. World R&D on CCS exceeded $1 billion per year over 2009 to 2013, then fell sharply. The term 'clean coal' is increasingly being used for supercritical coal-fired plants without CCS, on the basis that CO2 emissions are less than for older plants but are still much greater than for nuclear or renewables." With being said, there are some processes of clean coal that can reduce CO2 emission but end up emitting higher levels of sulfur. Another statement made by the World Nuclear Association, " Consequently the term 'clean coal' is increasingly being used for supercritical and ultra-supercritical coal-fired plants without CCS, running at 42-48% thermal efficiency. These are also known as high-efficiency low-emission (HELE) plants. The capital cost of ultra-supercritical (USC) HELE technology is 20-30% greater than a subcritical unit, but the higher efficiency reduces emissions and fuel costs to about 75% of subcritical plants. A supercritical steam generator operates at very high temperature (about 600 °C) and pressures (above 22 MPa), where liquid and gas phases of water are no longer distinct. In Japan and South Korea about 70% of coal-fired power comes from supercritical and ultra-supercritical plants." Coal is not clean by any shape or form, yes, we can always try alternative sources of energy so that coal become less of a necessity. There will always be side effects, we just have to be prepared for what they are and do our best to keep this world as healthy as possible for the future generations.
“clean coal” Technologies, Carbon Capture & Sequestration. World Nuclear Association. (2021, November 16). https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/energy-and-the-environment/clean-coal-technologies
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