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The long search for clean coal

Sicherheit, Energieeffizienz, Umweltschutz … Dank jahrzehntelanger Forschung unter den Auspizien der EGKS hat das Know-how der europäischen Kohleindustrie Weltspitze erreicht. Die Karte "saubere Kohle" ist der Haupttrumpf in der Strategie für eine unabhängige Energieversorgung der Union für die kommenden Jahrzehnte.

Safety, energy efficiency, environmental protection … thanks to decades of ECSC-backed research the European coal industry now leads the world in mining know-how. ‘Clean coal’ is now the trump card in the EU strategy to establish an independent energy supply system for the longer term.

The ECSC Treaty ended with a contradiction. For three decades its remit – successfully delivered – was to manage the gradual rundown of the Community coal industry, which was faced with the depletion of deposits and increasingly difficult access to European production areas.

Between 1989 and 2000 coal production fell from 200 to 85 million tonnes. Today only four western European countries are still mining coal: Germany, the UK and, to a limited degree, Spain and France. Lignite mining is also declining – a development that mainly affects Germany, followed by Greece and, some way behind, Spain. The lignite industry produced a total of 240 million tonnes in 2000, which is equivalent to about 50 million tonnes of coal (tce).

Focus on peak production

At the same time the ECSC tried through its research programmes to drive technical development in areas such as safety and productivity, energy efficiency and clean coal combustion. ‘Europe’s coal-fired power plant technology leads the world’, according to Christian Cleutinx, who has responsibility for conventional fuels at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy and Transport.

This peak productivity is a major plus-point for the economy of the new century. For one thing because coal remains a primary energy source of huge significance, and this applies not just worldwide – coal meets one quarter of global energy demand – but in Europe too. While Europe obviously produces less coal than it did, it now finds that it has to import increasing quantities to meet demand. In 2000 the EU imported 160 million tonnes, primarily for the purpose of thermal electricity generation.

For another, the Community of Fifteen is set to open up to new applicant countries where coal production and consumption levels are fairly high. These states too will have to face up to problems of modernisation, restructuring and pit closures and the challenge of upgrading existing combustion plant. In reality, however, coal is anything but an outdated energy source, as the Commission recognises in its Green Paper on Energy Supply Security that was published in 2000; it is in fact a strategically vital element for electricity generation in the years ahead.

‘Coal as a fuel is abundantly available in many regions of the world. OECD investigations put coal reserves at an estimated 100 billion tonnes, which represents 200 years of current world consumption. Compared with the hydrocarbon fuels coal’s huge supply potential alone is a guarantee of stable prices and availability’, explains Christian Cleutinx. Coal’s special advantage from a technical and economic standpoint is that it can be used in conjunction with other lower-grade solid fuels (lignite and peat), heavy hydrocarbon combustion waste and even with biomass.

However, exploiting these low-cost forms of energy is tied to an essential condition, namely environmental protection. As a major cause of SO₂, NOx und CO₂ emissions – and therefore one of the main factors in climate warming – the combustion of coal (and other solid fuels that may be burnt along side it) must now be made the subject of intensive research and innovation efforts whose objective is to find a solution to the overriding problem of clean energy.

The ECSC portfolio

This is a challenge that has to be overcome and ECSC research work has done much to prepare the ground. Two significant pieces of technology have now been developed in this area: the combined gas and steam turbine power station with pressurised fluidised-bed combustion (PFBC) and, more recently, the combined cycle power station with integrated gasification (IGCC).

Other ‘clean coal’ research projects are focussing on filtration and recycling systems for atmospheric emissions, CO₂ ‘sequestration’, waste-water management and solid-fuel combustion processes.

‘If solid fuel is to play a strategic role for energy security we need to solve the increasingly urgent environmental problems associated with climate change’, observes Andrew Minchener, member of the ECSC committee of experts for combustion and gasification. He goes on: ‘If Europe is not to lose its lead in this technology sector we need to focus our research efforts more intensively on modern combustion cycles, especially in relation to the high-performance option of gasification.’

Source: European Union
DG for Energy and Transport
January 2003