‘Clean coal’ has a role to play in emissions reduction template
Innovation could change the smudged face of coal - Canada's top emissions culprit
Sherritt is building a clean coal research center in Fort Saskatchewan to develop this process, and hopes to have the center running this summer.
Beneficiation is widely used in the metals mining industry to reduce the amount of waste materials in ore, but the process has only recently started to be investigated for coal in the U.S., Japan and elsewhere as concern grows over carbon emissions.
A Sherritt official, who asked not to be named, compares the result of coal beneficiation to a higher grade of gasoline, a value-added product that burns cleaner and causes less wear and tear on a vehicle. While the approach could be expensive, it won’t necessarily push up the cost of power. Extra power would be generated. Less carbon would have to be captured. The fuel would be less abrasive on the power plant, saving money on maintenance.
If the pilot project is successful, Sherritt could have a technology it would be able to use widely in its own mining operations and market to other countries.
Engineering is also continuing for Sherritt’s Dodds-Roundhill gasification project east of Edmonton, despite economic factors that will delay the schedule. Sherritt also touts that project as one that will reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The plan is to put coal through a process somewhat similar to what Epcor plans for the new generator at Genesee to create a synthetic fuel gas for use by bitumen upgraders. The end result could drastically cut the amount of emissions related to the upgrading of bitumen to crude oil.
This gasification plant is intended to provide energy products such as hydrogen for upgraders planned for the industrial heartland northeast of the Edmonton, but it will also provide other products for the wider market such as natural gas and low-sulfur diesel fuel.
All of these carbon-reducing projects will require huge capital investments in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars. While industry says carbon reduction needs government support to be economical, it remains to be seen how much of the province’s $2-billion carbon reduction fund will flow to the coal sector.
Regardless of all the popular and political attention given to carbon capture and storage from the U.S. president on down, it won’t happen overnight, Isaacs says.
“I look at CCS as an immature technology right now,” Isaacs says. “It will take around 15 or 20 years before it actually matures.”
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