Clean Coal Technologies for Power Generation

Abstract

In present day world fossil fuels are the major resource for power generation. For example, in India coal makes up 55 %, natural gas 10 %, hydroelectric 26 %, renewable 5 % and nuclear 3 % of total installed capacity. In UK almost half of the nation’s electricity is generated from gas with a further 28 % coming from coal. In fact, coal is the most abundant fossil fuel and has long lasting reserves. Its availability is domestic in several countries and has exhibited stable prices. The world coal reserves of approximately 1040 billion tonnes may last for more than 200 years. In view of discussion in Chap. 5, coal is considered the most polluting fuel in the countries’ energy mix. It has more than 40 % mineral matter (ash) content posing problems in handling, transporting and using the fuel in power plants. Some 20 % of the power plants in UK and India are old and below the margin of environmental safety and they are due for technology amelioration. Present day researchers are working to make existing coal technologies cleaner and affordable to enable a transition to green power generation. In what follows we present an outline of clean coal technologies.