Converting Coal Wastes to Clean Energy
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Category: EnergyType: News
Source: NETL
Date: Tuesday, November 28th, 2000
D.O.E. to Scale Up three Plans That Upgrade Coal Fines, Wastes
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PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania -
3 new technologies that can help the nation's coal industry turn waste into energy are now ready for scale up, the D.O.E. said today.
Each of the 3 recover carbon-rich materials that in the past have been discarded during coal mining and cleaning operations. Using innovative approaches, the technologies remove unwanted water and other impurities and upgrade the waste materials into clean-burning fuels for power plants.
The 3 were 1st selected for smaller-scale research in August 1998 as part of the Energy Department's Fossil Energy "solid fuels and feedstocks" program. Now, after the initial research has continued to show promise, the department has decided to help fund further testing of the technologies at "proof of concept" scales in commercial settings. At these scales, the developers will be able to assess the technical and economic merits of the processes at sizes large enough to determine whether further commercial development is warranted.
The 3 Plans will be carried out by:
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Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA. VPI will test 2 novel ways to remove water from fine coal particles typically discarded in settling ponds at coal mines and cleaning plants.
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University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY. University researchers will test an advanced process that 1st separates coarse and fine coal particles, then treats each separately to recover unburned carbon from the fly ash settling ponds at power plants.
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CQ Incorporated, Homer City, PA. The company will develop a coal-sawdust fuel mixture using fine coal particles separated from slurries using a technology developed in earlier D.O.E. co-funded research.
As much as two to three billion tons of coal fines lie in waste impoundments at mines and washing plants around the country. Each year, another 30 million tons of coal mined in the U.S. is discarded into these waste ponds. If an economical way can be found to extract this currently wasted energy resource, coal operators could turn many of these unsightly and environmentally troublesome disposal sites into new sources of fuel for today's power plants.
The 3 Plans will be managed by the Energy Department's Countrywide Energy Technology Laboratory, the government's lead fossil energy research facility.
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