China Making Progress On ‘Cleaner Coal’
BANGKOK, THAILAND, November 14, 2008: Although China has many inefficient and polluting coal-fired power plants, it is taking large strides in adopting cleaner coal technologies when constructing coal-fired plants.
“Many of the plants they’re building now are very efficient,” said Peter du Pont of the International Resources Group and Chief of Party of the ECO-Asia Clean Development and Climate Program. Mr. du Pont was speaking on the sidelines of the Better Air Quality (BAQ) 2008 workshop in Bangkok, where he gave a presentation on trends in coal use in power production and options for mitigating its impact in Asia.
Dirty but relatively cheap, coal is used increasingly by the power sector in developing Asia to meet rising energy demand. ECO-Asia estimates that the use of coal to generate electricity in Asia will increase fourfold by 2030. The use of cleaner coal technologies and practices can increase overall plant efficiency, resulting in significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.
“Coal is inherently dirty. Our approach is to promote harm reduction – to reduce pollutant emissions from existing or planned coal plants using cleaner technologies and practices that increase plant efficiency and reduce emissions,” said Pradeep Tharakan, also of the ECO-Asia Clean Development and Climate Program.
“Asia as a region is becoming more focused on protecting the environment. It has high efficiency standards for automobiles and for appliances. It should do the same on the power generation side,” said Mr. Tharakan.
In general, the following challenges hamper the use of cleaner coal technologies in Asia:
• high cost of cleaner coal technologies;
• inadequate monitoring and enforcement of environmental regulations;
• lack of pricing incentives for coal cleaning; and
• lack of attention to power plant maintenance and rehabilitation
But China, with its growing economy and large reliance on coal, has been able to marshal the technical and financial resources to adopt cleaner coal technologies.
China has long experience with the construction of efficient, “supercritical” pulverized coal plants. Nearly two-thirds of the new plants that started construction in 2005—representing a total of 37.8 GWs—are supercritical plants.
While some countries in Asia are catching up, China has been moving to build “ultra-supercritical” coal plants, which operate at higher pressures and temperatures and are more efficient than “supercritical” plants. In 2007, there were 16 ultra-supercritical units in China, each sized at 1,000 MW. Chinese manufacturers have developed joint ventures and licensing agreements, and the majority of the equipment will be made in China.
Other forms of cleaner coal technologies and practices include: coal cleaning, boiler and combustion system tuning/optimization, rehabilitation of existing power plants, post combustion environmental controls, high-efficiency pulverized coal designs, integrated gasification combined cycle, and carbon capture and sequestration.
China has also made a commitment to shut down a total of 50,000 MW of small, older, and less efficient coal-fired power plants by 2010. “Once they do that, the average efficiency of China’s coal-fired power plants will become significantly higher,” said Mr. du Pont.
As well as building efficient new plants, Mr. Tharakan says it’s also important to clean up existing ones. “Given the huge demand, the rehabilitation of existing power plants will increase efficiency by 2% to 5%, and this will result in about 12% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions,” he added.
Moreover, regional coordination is crucial to harmonize emission standards, establish requirements for minimum efficiency of new coal-fired power plants, and sharing of information and best practices.
Media enquiries:
Carmela Fonbuena, media@cai-asia.org
