Thanks to the The Energy Blog for pointing out this Reuters story giving a great snapshop of attempts in the United States to include a healthy mix of coal in the country’s energy future. It also makes the distinction between small attempts to use Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle clean coal technology and the seemingly more popular, but ultimately less clean, option of using conventional coal plants that are fitted with scrubbers and carbon-capture technology. Retrofitting old coal technology versus building new clean coal plants based on IGCC is emerging as a debate in Ontario. The Power Workers’ Union here, not too happy about the government’s plan to shut down all conventional coal plants by 2010, is trying to argue that retrofitting those old plants can achieve environmental goals, save jobs, and prevent the need to build more nuclear power plants. On the other hand, in my discussions with energy regulators I get the sense that retrofitting is not an option, and that if coal is going to play any role in the province’s future the coal industry will need to wake up and embrace the lastest clean coal technologies, such as IGCC.

But that’s Ontario. My biggest concerns is the east coast of the U.S., where pollution from coal-fired plants are half responsible for the smog in Toronto and southern Ontario. If the U.S. plants don’t soon begin to deal with this problem, Ontarians will continue to suffer and there’s not much we can do about it except set a positive example.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 11th, 2005 at 9:48 pm and is filed under Main Page. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.