WASHINGTON, July 2 (UPI) -- Technologies to improve the efficiency of combustion chambers, developed jointly by a national laboratory and two power plant suppliers, could help coal maintain its place in the country's energy plans while reducing some emissions, a top government researcher told United Press International.
The methods are aimed at helping coal-fired electricity generation meet increasing demands to prevent emissions of nitrogen oxides, said Bruce Lani, program manager at the Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory in Pittsburgh. NOx, as the oxides also are known, contribute to acid rain and other environmental problems. They are controlled presently by chemical "scrubbers" that work on a power plant's exhaust.
"(The combustion technology) gives existing scrubber systems more opportunity to work properly," Lani said. "With them, you don't need more expensive scrubbers (to meet new standards)."
The first combustion method, developed by Praxair of Danbury, Conn., adds oxygen to the burner chamber. This drives nitrogen compounds out of the coal earlier in the burn cycle, Lani said. The second method, from Alstom Power of Windsor, Conn., maintains tight control of several combustion variables to achieve much the same effect, he said.
The cleaner combustors are not as effective as the emerging state-of-the-art scrubber technology, but they meet regulatory goals at a much lower cost, Lani explained. The technology is far enough along in development utilities could install the new burners within the next six months to 12 months, he said.
Controlling NOx and other emissions will become more important as power plants are forced to use lower and lower-grade coals, which contain more impurities. The improvements made possible by the changes could contribute to controlling future rises in electricity costs, said Mike Smith, the Energy Department's assistant secretary for Fossil Energy.
"Because of new technologies such as these combustion systems, we can continue to benefit from the low-cost power supplied by coal while we continue to clean our air," Smith said in a statement.
Although technology improvements are welcome, the government still has to enforce existing Clean Air Act rules and create even stricter ones, said Nat Mund, the Sierra Club's Washington representative.
"We're results-oriented," Mund told UPI. "If this technology achieves the same public health benefits (with less cost), that's great and we support going forward with it. They talk about how it's a lot lower than existing low-NOx burners, but there really isn't a straight comparison."
In order to achieve the greatest benefit, the Bush administration should move quickly on enforcing soot and smog standards that have passed court muster, Mund said.
