Low emissions technology powers a cleaner coal future

A hat tip today to a shareholder (Fred C) for flagging the below article, both for its relevant content and the novel yet entirely coincidental name of the publication.

ESI Africa is a power industry journal. We haven't opened a new office.

The article itself is written by World Coal Association (WCA) Chief Executive Benjamin Sporton and is a great, easy-to-read piece that achieves that elusive goal of actually educating the reader.

Key takeaways from the article:

• Coal will continue to be used well into the future, so it's not about whether we use coal but how we use it
• We need to focus on faster deployment of cleaner coal technologies such as high efficiency, low emission (HELE) power
• Raising the average efficiency of the global coal fleet from 33% to 40% would save 2 billion tonnes of CO2 annually, equivalent to India's total annual emissions

Sporton comments:

A one-percentage point improvement in the efficiency of a conventional coal plant results in a 2-3% reduction in CO2 emissions. So, for countries that have decided to use coal, HELE technologies are essential to achieving economic growth and energy access while reducing carbon emissions and other pollutants that affect health and air quality.

In their Paris Agreement pledges, 24 countries including major economies such as India, Nigeria and many Southeast Asian countries identified low emissions coal technologies as critical to powering their economic development while reducing emissions.

The article contradicts the extreme-green narrative that the world is abandoning coal, citing International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that coal will still be the single biggest source of electricity in 2040.

Sporton's message is consistent with our own.

Coal will continue to be used for decades. As much as we'd all like to see a rapid transition to low or zero emissions, it's unaffordable and unreliable. So, in the meantime, we need to work to bring down the emissions intensity of the system using the least-cost methods.

HELE technology is the best method for increasing the efficiency of coal-fired generation. However, it's not suitable for use with brown coal due to brown coal's high moisture content.

This is where Coldry comes in.

Our Coldry technology can enable the use of HELE technology for brown coal through cost-effective, zero-emissions drying.

Read more...