Proposed EPA regulations to limit the recycling and beneficial use of CCPs (coal combustion products) could have some frightening implications for our economy and environment.

CCP recycling and use currently provides $6.4 – $11.4 in annual economic benefits, significant environmental benefits, reduced energy consumption, water savings, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

All of those economic, social, and environmental benefits — and many more — stem from our growing use of coal combustion products (CCP’s). However, pending EPA regulations that could classify coal ash as a “hazardous waste” could have substantial negative impacts on this growing industry.

America’s Power has an excellent resource on clean coal technology and research across the U.S. available.

If you need information on the over $12 billion in CCS & CCT installations and research that’s going on across 43 states, head to the America’s Power website to learn more.

Several media outlets, along with Senate, and the FutureGen Alliance websites were praising the July 8^th and July 11^th votes by the The Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee and Senate Appropriations Committee respectively. In both votes, the Senate chose to protect $134 million in federal funding for the FutureGen plant at Matoon, Il.

In two separate FutureGen Alliance news releases, CEO Michael Mudd applauded the decision as helping to move the world’s first near-zero emissions coal plant closer to reality.

A June 18th, 08 Powerspan/Basin Electric Power Cooperative (BEPC) news release describes their efforts to advance an industry-leading carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) project in North Dakota.

The report details how the partnership’s commercial-scale demonstration project will be among the largest in the world and able to capture approximately 1 million tons of CO₂ from the exhaust stream at BEPCs conventional, coal-fueled, Antelope Valley Plant, using a chilled ammonia process. That CO₂ will then be sent by pipeline to the Canadian province of Saskatchewan where it will be used in enhanced oil recovery operations. Construction work on the CO₂ capture system is expected to begin in late 2009. The system is expected to be operational in 2012.

From the Wed. May 7, 2008 edition of the Columbus Dispatch,

The federal government said yesterday that it will spend $61.1 million for a
clean-coal project in Ohio, a major step in deciding whether it is commercially feasible to burn
Midwest coal without emitting the carbon dioxide thought to cause global warming.

The money will be funneled to a demonstration project in the Mount Simon Sandstone formation in
Darke County in western Ohio.

About 1 million tons of carbon dioxide from an ethanol facility will be injected 3,000 feet into
the sandstone formation.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has released a draft funding opportunity announcement (FOE) for their recent restructuring of the FutureGen project. The DOE news release described the draft FOA as "solicit(ing) public input on the demonstration of multiple commercial-scale Integrated Gasificiation Combined Cycle (IGCC) or other clean coal power plants with cutting-edge carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology under the Department’s restructured FutureGen approach."

The full version of the draft FOA is available for download from the DOE, Fossil Energy website (http://www.fossil.energy.gov/news/techlines/2008/08013-DOE_Takes_Next_Steps_With_Restruct.html)

Today’s Sydney Morning Herald has an article on a new CO₂ sequestration project that is being developed in the Australian state of Victoria. This is an exciting project that demonstrates the commitment of
industry and government around the world to move forward with a "no
regrets" policy of improving efficiencies and reducing emissions,
regardless of the disagreements that may exist over the science
of climate change.

The opening of Australia’s first carbon capture and storage (CCS)
demonstration plant in Victoria has been hailed as a major step toward
making "clean coal" viable.

I just read an interesting article on an Omaha-based energy company that is attempting to build a new, super critical coal-fueled power plant that has post-combustion CO₂ capture technologies that will collect up to 90% of the CO₂ emitted from the plant. I wasn’t surprised to see the energy industry, once again, breaking ground and coming up with new ideas, Unfortunately, I was also not surprised to see another environmental group immediately attacking the company with their tired rhetoric about the evils of coal-based energy.

In an often biting and blunt review of what to expect in the generation market, Power Magazine has clearly elaborated on some of the key challenges the energy industry will face over the next year. The opening paragraphs are perhaps the most blunt.

Predicting the U.S. power industry’s 2008 performance requires understanding how utilities and other plant developers respond to risk and uncertainty. Three years ago, mercury controls had the undivided attention of every coal plant operator. Today, the imminent arrival of carbon controls has caused a tectonic shift in the industry. In years past, builders of new power plants focused on getting grandfathered out of new regulations. Today, developers are canceling plants before the climate change debate in Congress has ended, already assuming the results will be bad for them.