Potential Consequences of the Clean Coal Program for Air and Waste Issues

The U.S. Department of Energy's Clean Coal Technology Demonstration Program (CCTDP) was funded by Congress to demonstrate more efficient, economically feasible, and environmentally acceptable coal technologies. Although the environmental focus at first was on sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOX) because of their relationship to acid precipitation, the CCTDP may also lead to reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and in solid waste produced, relative to conventional technologies. Environmental benefits that maybe realized from clean coal technologies (CCTs) will depend upon the degree of acceptance in the marketplace achieved by each of the individual technologies. In general, technologies that replace a major portion of an existing facility (repowering technologies) show the most promise for achieving reductions in all four categories (SO2, NOX, CO2, and solid waste). Technologies that modify existing facilities by adding environmental control equipment or changing feedstocks (retrofit technologies), used singly or in combination, appear capable of achieving substantial reductions in SO2 and NOX, but in general have little effect on CO2, and only a few of these technologies appear capable of reducing solid waste. However, even if decreases in solid waste volume are not always achieved, much of the solid waste from CCTs would be dry and therefore easier to dispose of than scrubber sludge from conventional technologies.