Today’s coal burning power plants could possibly be converted into clean coal plants thanks to researchers at MIT who have found a way to eliminate CO2 emissions. The clean coal system is called pressurized oxy-fuel combustion. What the system essentially does is it separates all of the CO2 emissions that the coal is producing while it’s burning and turns it into pressurized liquid steam hence resulting in clean coal. This steam can then be injected into various places inside of the earth which are deep enough to contain it without causing damage by escaping the environment.  Read more about Global Market for Clean Coal Technology

Carbon emissions, today is the number one factor influencing climate change and clean coal does have its part to play. Much of the carbon emissions come from power plants that burn coal as fuel.  Fossil fuels accounts for over 80% of the energy produced in the United States and more than 90% globally. According to experts the amount of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are expected to rise by as much as 50% by 2030. This rise is going to have a big impact on our environment if an alternative method is such as clean coal not used which is why clean coal technology is so important.

Global Market for Clean Coal Technology

Now it might seem a bit strange to convert the CO2 emissions into a concentrated steam but according to Ahmed Ghoniem Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the leader of the MIT team which is developing clean coal technology says that this is the best way to prevent CO2 from getting into the atmosphere from coal burning power plants. This is still a concept which needs to be tested and further developed before it can be widely used. There are also a number of other technologies which are being developed out of which oxy-fuel is just one of the clean coal technologies underdevelopment.

The sponsor of the project is an Italian energy company named ENEL which has plans to construct a pilot clean coal plant in Italy using the latest technology within the next few years. However according to the lead researcher at MIT Mr. Ghoniem explains that the separating and concentrating procedure of clean coal plants will actually reduce its over all efficiency by around a third. This primarily means that it will require more coal in order to produce the same amount of electricity. This is why the latest research is trying to find ways of minimizing the loss of electricity in clean coal plants.

Other groups working on clean coal technology such as oxy-fuel combustion are using pure oxygen which is fed into the combustion chamber in order to produce cleaner yet a more concentrated stream of emissions. A mixture of both oxygen and CO2 easily replaces ordinary air used for combustion which is almost composed of 79% nitrogen and 21% oxygen. The focus of these studies is to introduce a new element which puts more pressure on the combustion chamber resulting in highly concentrated and pressurized emissions increasing the efficiency of clean coal.

Clean coal technology certainly looks promising but its still going to take a few years before its widely used and accepted. However once it’s widely used, clean coal technology can actually reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere by as much as 75%.