Promising New Directions

COAL R&D. IT'S A CONCEPT THAT, TO THE UNINFORMED, MAY SEEM AT FIRST old-fashioned and perhaps out of place. In fact, the exploration of coal as a present and future energy and materials source is a complex, dynamic and compelling task. It is a task linked to fundamental issues of the world community: access to modern energy, affordable resources and environmental sustainability. Those engaged in coal-related research have the challenge and satisfaction of being at the center of these great issues and the fun of unlocking the scientific and technological puzzle that is coal.

Coal and the advance of technology have travelled together since the beginning of the industrial era. We all have some historical image of coal powering the great industrial works of the 19th century and launching us into the age of hydrocarbons, electric power and all things modern in the 20th century. In the past 50 years, coal settled into its role in baseload electric power generation and iron and steel making in industrial and emerging industrial countries. Just as these technologies matured, environmental controls emerged as the great technological challenges. In the 1970s and '80s, air emissions including sulfur and nitrogen oxides and particulate matter dominated research funding from industry and government and resulted in commercial-scale successes in air pollution control. In the United States, the concept of “technology forcing” through regulatory standards drove advances in coal technologies. This was also the era that saw the emergence of new levels of government technology incentives such as the Carter administration's Synfuels Corporation and the Reagan administration's Clean Coal Technology Program.

While today's coal-related research carries the legacy of the past generation of R&D activities, a crucial new aspect to the work is defining the task of scientists and engineers in programs worldwide. That new aspect is the challenge of establishing ultra-low-emission coal-based technologies, including the elimination of climate change emissions. These are fascinating problems to be solved, and success or failure may well define the limits of coal technology and with it the very future of coal in our civilization.

At the center of contemporary coal R&D is carbon management, which includes carbon capture in coal-based power or chemical conversion systems and the ultimate storage of carbon. While many environmental technology advances today involve the cost and effectiveness of removing the last increment of a pollutant, carbon management poses the challenge of managing volumes of gases in orders of magnitude greater than currently regulated pollutants. The highest profile R&D projects today may be the geologic storage or sequestration efforts. In the United States, these efforts include an ambitious group of seven regional sequestration partnerships set up by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory. These projects involve intensive site characterizations, small-scale pilot testing of carbon dioxide injection and, ultimately, large-scale sequestration and monitoring. The Illinois Basin is the site of one of the partnerships. The demonstration of carbon dioxide storage in geologic strata located deep below the large reserves of coal in the Illinois basin offers a glimpse into how we may be using coal in the future.

Exploring the what-ifs of geological storage and looking for alternatives are also research topics across the world. Enhanced oil recovery is a demonstrated application for carbon dioxide. Other applications to achieve beneficial use are in laboratory stages. The long-term effectiveness and consequences of any storage technique is research that will go hand in hand with development efforts and maybe a key to public acceptance of commercial-scale storage.

In addition to storage, carbon management involves capture during the conversion of coal into power or feedstocks. Research, development and demonstration and commercial-scale applications will establish technology winners and losers in this critical problem. Carbon capture systems adapted to coal gasification and gasification of coal and biomass mixtures looks very promising. Processes based on conventional combustion and oxygen-enriched combustion are also under intense development.

In developing ultra-low-emission systems, the effective control of traditionally regulated emissions along with environmentally harmful trace materials is crucial. The integration of these control systems into single systems and continued improvements in efficiency will continue to be research targets. The use of improved control systems for overall plant operations is an important adjunct to these topics.

Solid residues from coal, especially the development of beneficial uses, have been the subject of research for decades. The deployment of sulfur dioxide scrubbers and other emission-control technologies added new complexities and opportunities to the topic. High-profile incidents with solid residues are now changing the regulatory landscape in the United States and will influence future R&D. Future challenges will certainly include the management of trace materials and the successful integration of beneficial products into the marketplace.

Coal mining R&D is an enterprise that continues to be important to the future use of coal. Industry and the mining schools and institutes around the world are working on health, safety and productivity topics.

The concept of using fuels and chemicals along with electricity from coal is not new. Indeed, nonsteam applications were once common. Synthetic products from coal received a lot of attention in the 1970s and never completely disappeared as a research focus. Today, however, the possibility of coupling coal gasification or direct liquefaction to ultra-low-emission and carbon management technologies may hold the promise of a reliable source of hydrocarbons and great flexibility for electric power production. With respect to carbon emission, this approach is seen as a step backward from petroleum and natural gas. However, when coupled with carbon management systems, the possibilities of multiple products from coal look extremely interesting. As has been noted, gasification may be an excellent platform for carbon capture and coal-biomass mixtures could be a fuel option. This should continue to be an important research area in the years ahead.

Our future energy decisions will certainly depend on events and developments beyond the laboratories and demonstration sites of coal-based science and technology, but ongoing coal-related R&D will be offering society crucial understanding, insight and, ultimately, progress.