Coal - a Blessing or a Curse?

So as I watch oil prices skyrocket due to the turmoil in the Middle East, I am reminded that the United States has a huge reserve of coal.  So, why don’t we just burn more coal for electricity and convert more coal to synfuels for automobiles and chemical manufacture?  Coal already generates 54% of the power in the United States, [1] so it seems logical to expand its usage. 

Well, it turns out coal is quite dirty and has a huge environmental impact.  A typical 500 MW coal plant generates each year as air pollution: [2]

·         3.7 million tons carbon dioxide (CO₂);

·         10,000 tons sulfur oxides (SOx), which lead to acid rain and respiratory issues;

·         500 tons of small airborne particles, which can cause respiratory issues and even early death, as well as haze;

·         10,200 tons nitrogen oxides (NOx), which among its obvious hazards also forms toxic ozone;

·         720 tons of carbon monoxide;

·         220 tons of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), hydrocarbons, which form ozone;

·         170 pounds of mercury (Hg).  Less than one gram will make all the fish in a 25 acre lake unsafe to eat;

·         225 pounds of arsenic (As).  Causes cancer in 1% of all people who drink water containing 50 parts per billion;

·         114 pounds of lead and 4 pounds of cadmium.

In addition, the coal plant generates as solid waste 125,000 tons of ash and 193,000 tons scrubber sludge containing heavy metals such as arsenic, mercury, chromium, and cadmium.  Over ¾ of this gets disposed of in unlined, unmonitored onsite landfills and impoundments.  The plants also use cooling water, which gets discharged into waterways.  The thermal pollution causes thermal stress to fish and also contains chorine and other toxic chemicals used to treat the water.  [3]

The coal of course needs to be mined.  60% of all coal is strip-mined, an environmentally destructive technique which deforests over 300,000 acres of forest and destroys 1000s of miles of streams.  Then the coal needs to be transported to the electricity plants.  This takes 14,600 rail cars for each 500 MW plant.  The locomotives burn more fossil fuel and generate NOx.  [4]

One report commissioned by the Clean Air Task Force reports that pollution from Indiana coal plants has led to 347 deaths, 584 heart attacks, and 264 visits to the emergency room in the Greater Chicago area.  And these figures are exceeded in the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan areas.  Fortunately, the EPA has recently reached an agreement with Northern Indiana Public Services to close one plant and to install scrubbers on three others.  [5]

The EPA by January 31, 2014 will finally issue rules to reduce the amount of toxic heavy metals and other pollutants entering the air and waterways.  These rules are over 30 years overdue.  The Clean Water Act requires the states to set limits on the discharge of pollutants from power plants, but the states have largely ignored this.  This source also mentions the toxicity of As and Hg in the waterways.  “Power plants produce more toxic waste than any other industry in the U.S.”  A major issue with using pollution controls is that, although the toxic metals are kept out of the air, they are collected as solid waste and wastewater, which still leaves the environment at risk if discharged into waterways or improperly in solid waste disposal.  [6] 

There may be a renewable substitute to coal.   A company called New Earth Renewable Energy has created a renewable coal-like product and claim that it burns clean without toxic metals, sulfur oxide emissions, and is carbon neutral.  It comes from a plant called ArundoDonax, which is a very robust plant and a formidable CO₂ consumer.  [7]  This solution sounds too good to be true.  At any rate, the technology seems to be several years from being commercially available and there is little reputable literature either for or against the material on the Internet.  And it is unclear what the cost of such a material will be.  If it is true, though, it could be a revolutionary way of reducing the negative impact of coal on the environment.

One thing that is clear is that we can’t give up coal immediately.  The European Union is as a result promoting research to help lessen the impact of coal on the environment: [8]

1.  Clean coal technologies (CCT): target to scrub out NOx, SOx, and particulate containing heavy metals from the air emissions from a coal plant.  Although not perfect in that what is captured becomes a solid waste that needs to be disposed of, at least these toxins are kept out of the air;

2.  CO₂ capture and storage (CCS): is an effort to keep the CO₂ out of the environment, provided that it can be safely sequestered underground;

3.  Raising the conversion efficiency to electricity a mere 10% will reduce pollutants and CO₂ footprint by the same percentage.  Technologies exist today to increase efficiency by over 40%.

Industry in Europe has challenged themselves to build 10 – 12 zero emissions fossil fuel power plants. (ZEP TP).  [9]  Europe is taking a big gamble in front-running these strict types of environmental standards, but don’t they have it right  - sacrifice now for the betterment of humanity?  Of course, these technologies will likely raise electricity costs, but is that a bad thing?  Higher prices will promote electricity conservation and allow alternative energy to be more cost competitive.

Coal is by far a dangerous source of energy which, unfortunately, is abundant in the United States and China, two major energy consumers.  It is too large of a sacrifice to make too quickly to ban the use of coal; meanwhile, while we continue to develop renewable sources of energy to replace the fossil fuels, cleaner coal-burning and waste/carbon dioxide sequestering technologies may be adapted.  Efficiencies of coal plants may be increased to reduce the impact of the waste products per BTU of energy produced.  Finally, energy conservation efforts need to be adopted world-wide to reduce the need for fossil fuels and to allow the emergence of clean, renewable sources of energy to take hold.  These types of measures will help us protect the amazing planet we live on as well as preserve our amazing species.

[1]        http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/c01.html

[2]        Ibid

[3]        See [1]

[4]        See [1]

[5]        http://rusustain.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/epa-deal-will-close-indiana-coal-fired-power-plants-polluting-chicago

[6]        http://www.sustainablecitynetwork.com/topic_channels/environmental/article_7bbefd8e-ec7f-11df-b687-00127992bc8b.html

[7]        http://www.newearth1.net/downloads/E-Coal.pdf

[8]        http://ec.europa.eu/energy/coal/sustainable_coal/sustainable_coal_en.htm

[9]        http://eur-ex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52006DC0843:EN:NOT