A new role for coal.

For J. Davitt McAteer, the opening days of 2006 were hardly auspicious as he waited, along with the rest of the nation, to see whether or not a group of trapped miners in West Virginia could be saved.

Fielding calls from dozens of journalists, McAteer, the former assistant secretary of labor, mine safety and health administration, sought to explain the world of mines and miners. He ultimately came to view the final tragic result, which saw 12 miners perish (and four more in two accidents before the month ended) as a metaphor not just for the miners and the industry they work in, but also for how the nation at large perceives the industry.

"This is a world where change very often comes at a slow pace," says McAteer, "and that not only means with safety issues, but also the industry's embrace of new technologies and whether or not the people who rely on coal are supportive of those technologies and want to see them more widely developed."

McAteer, who is now the vice-president of sponsored programs at Wheeling Jesuit University and director of its Coal Impoundment Project, has been at times critical of the industry on safety issues. But he also thinks the industry has been victimized by a lack of government support in developing the kind of advanced technologies that could greatly reduce the mercury and sulfur dioxide pollutants normally associated with coal production.

To that end, as one of the authors of the report "Advanced Coal Technologies" published last Spring, McAteer made several recommendations. One suggests the federal government provide up to $4 billion over the next 10 years to help establish integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) coal technology. At the same time, he suggests an additional $3 billion in incentives for commercial-scale carbon capture and storage demonstration projects.

"Obviously this is a new technology that holds out great promise, not only in terms of addressing our nation's energy needs, but also regarding the important environmental challenge of making coal use cleaner," says McAteer. "But whether or not we as a country are going to embrace this new technology depends on a lot of things, in particular our willingness to enter what would be an entirely new era for coal."

By posing such questions, McAteer has joined a growing list of industry and technology experts who believe that clean coal technology is the wave of the future.

But that future, those same experts add, is on the verge of being forestalled by the battles and preconceptions of the past.

AN IMAGE PROBLEM

"The image that people have of coal and how coal is produced is admittedly not the best," says Carl English, the president of American Electric Power, the nation's largest electricity generator. "They see it as something from the past that creates a lot of pollution by the manner in which it is produced."

Ashok Gupta, the director of Natural Resources Defense Council's air and energy program, agrees. "Anyone who is promoting some kind of new coal technology is going to have to deal with the old questions of public perception," he says. "It is hard to see how any kind of new technology can ever be fully utilized and accepted unless steps are taken to address the concerns that people have about coal, whether those concerns are centered around emission issues or what we call the 'upstream impacts,'" Gupta says.

NEW PLANTS NEEDED

Either way, nearly all industry experts agree that with the rising cost of fuel and an increasing demand for electricity, the next decade is expected to see a dramatic up tick in private-power developers interested in building clean-coal plants.

The move toward clean coal technology is also bolstered by the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Air Interstate Rule issued on March 10 of last year and the Clean Air Mercury Rule five days after that.

Described by the EPA as a move that will achieve "the largest reduction in air pollution in more than a decade," the Clean Air Interstate Rule permanently caps emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides in some 28 states, including the District of Columbia, by mandating that all airborne emissions be controlled at their source.

The Clean Air Mercury Rule, in addition, imposes a permanent cap on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, making the United States the first country in the world to regulate mercury emissions that come from utilities.

"There is absolutely going to be a boom in the construction of these kinds of plants as well as in the use of this kind of technology," says James Childress, executive director of the Gasification Technologies Council.

"We are always going to have growing energy needs in our country, and even though we are always going to use oil and gas, we need to diversify our energy mix," says Childress, "and the best way to do that is to use coal."

But Childress does not believe that future energy mix will have a role for the kind of coal that has been traditionally produced by the nation's pulverized coal technology, which crushes the coal and burns it. That is what is generally regarded as the dirty way of using coal.

Instead, Childress believes the nation is on the verge of using coal "within the framework of an entirely new technology that is also going to represent a huge step in the right direction of making us energy independent."

There are many methods and practices bunched under the general heading of clean coal technology. But undoubtedly the most important is gasification, which heats solid coal at temperatures exceeding 2,000 degrees and by adding steam and a small amount of oxygen creates a gas similar to natural gas.

ENVIRONMENT'S FRIEND

Gasified coal can then be burned relatively cleanly and used for electric power generation.

American Electric Power proposes what it calls an "integrated combined gas technology," that along with heating up the coal and removing the gas from it, says English, "takes the bad stuff out and burns the gas. This is much the same way that you burn natural gas," he explains. "It is a cleaner technology and takes care of the carbon dioxide by storing it underground someplace in rock formations."

The promise of coal gasification has even won, at the very least, the interest of some environmental groups that have long opposed the continued use of pulverized coal plants, even though upgrades and the adaptation of such practices as Ultra Super-critical Coal technology, which increases efficiency by roughly 10 percent, have made those plants cleaner.

"By turning coal into a gas through heat and pressure you can strip out much of the pollution before you burn it," says Bruce Niles, Midwest representative for the Sierra Club, a long time foe of pulverized coal technology.

"And that's where the real promise of this technology lies because it is finally offering to do something about carbon dioxide emissions," continues Niles, "and if the process works the way proponents say it will, it really would represent a major breakthrough and an important piece of the puzzle."

THE COST FACTOR

The problem with gasification, however, is that its costs are significantly more, certainly at the start-up level.

English, of American Electric Power, estimates that the capital costs of this new technology may be up to 25 percent more than the costs associated with a pulverized coal plant, even without carbon capture and storage. But the basic operating costs could be 100 percent more simply because gasifiers tend to require a lot of maintenance.

"No doubt about it, the cost issue is a big issue," says Childress. "And a regulated utility has to provide a lower cost of electricity, whether it comes from gasification or a pulverized coal plant."

Pulverized coal plants, however, very often end up being expensive too. Emission regulations are constantly being updated, requiring generators to install high-tech equipment like electrostatic precipitators and flue gas scrubbers.

"If it's a pulverized coal plant, at some point in the future, maybe 10 years from now, that plant is going to be required to put on some kind of new controlling equipment in order to keep up with current standards and make its operations cleaner," says Childress.

"A gasification plant, on the other hand, is going to be clean from day one," he adds. "So if the issue is cleaner air earlier, and if the people are going to pay for it later, why not pay for it now? Get the cleaner air now and lower rates over the long term."

COAL COUNTRY

According to the Department of Energy, there are currently more than 100 proposed new coal-fired plants in the United States, the vast majority of which will be using traditional pulverized coal technology and will be mostly located in coal-rich states and regions like Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and the upper Midwest.

But of that number, roughly two dozen are defined as either Supercritical or gasification facilities. And none of them will be able to capture carbon or store it, which the Sierra Club's Niles characterizes as "the most important element in the clean-air debate," largely because such technology is still at the talking stage.

"Actually, the people in this business have a pretty good handle on how to capture the carbon," says Melissa McHenry, the manager of American Electric Power's corporate media relations. "It is the storage side of the question that is yet to be proven."

But the industry remains confident that such challenges will be eventually overcome, so much so, adds McHenry, that "our plants are being built with a design parameter to allow for retrofitting carbon capture in the future when we have the technological ability to both capture and store it."

The challenge, of course, is not confined to the United States--gasification plants are currently up and running in the Netherlands, Spain and Japan. None of them possess carbon capture or storage abilities.

In Indiana, where coal currently supplies more than 95 percent of the state's energy needs, the Cinergy and Vectren corporations have proposed a joint coal gasification plant that its supporters say will generate four times as much energy as the 60-year-old pulverized power plant it will replace.

The Cinergy/Vectren gasification plant would also reduce current pulverized plant emissions by some two-thirds.

State officials say Indiana is a logical place to locate a gasification plant largely because so much work has been done to provide a welcoming environment for clean coal technology.

"The legislative empowerment for clean coal technologies has been on record for some time here," says Dave Hadley, a member of the Indiana Regulatory Commission. "We really have both a legislative and regulatory roadmap we can follow for bringing a new industry like that in here."

Indiana legislative initiatives, says Senator Beverly Gard, chair of the Senate Environmental Affairs Committee, allow a utility to recover all expenses associated with preconstruction costs for using clean coal technology at a new or existing coal-burning facility and a state tax liability credit for investing in a gasification power plant.

"We have about a 300-year coal reserve and the fourth lowest electric rates in the country," says Gard, "so this is really a state where coal is part of the culture. That made it easier for us to pass incentives encouraging these different kind of plants to build here."

Indiana is also the home to the Wabash River Coal Gasification Repowering Project, the first full-sized commercial gasification plant built in the United States, which started operations near West Terre Haute in the fall of 1995.

Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Montana and West Virginia, among others, are exploring coal gasification, and by so doing may be helping to pull the industry toward a place where it really wants to go anyway--with new plants built in anticipation of future government emissions requirements.

"A lot of the investment companies have been saying that there needs to be a recognition that more regulations are on their way, particularly as it pertains to global warming," says the Sierra Club's Niles. "It's expensive for any business to have to be in a position of constantly upgrading its equipment. Plants that are truly implementing real clean-coal technology would obviously not have to worry about that as much."

In Pennsylvania, Governor Ed Rendell has unveiled a plan that would provide state financing for converting the state's mid-20th century pulverized coal plants into coal gasification facilities.

Rendell has also proposed a $612 million liquefaction plant that will annually produce upwards of 40 million gallons of synthetic diesel fuel from an estimated 250 million tons of waste coal.

In West Virginia, Governor Joe Manchin, with the backing of U.S. Senator Robert Byrd, the sponsor of the Coals-to-Liquids Fuels Program, is also encouraging the development of coal gasification and liquefaction.

In a state where the mining industry still directly employs more than 13,000 and indirectly benefits many more than that, Manchin says that "coal conversion plants can help America achieve energy self-reliance and will mean new economic development opportunities for West Virginia and its citizens."

In the wake of an energy symposium last fall spearheaded by Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, coal gasification and liquefaction is also being touted as an answer to that state's energy future. But Anne Hedges, program director with the Montana Environmental Information Center, remains skeptical that the state can move in the direction of either gasification or liquefaction because of what she calls "the traditional coal preconceptions" in the state.

"Most people here, at least, have no problem with pulverized coal," says Hedges, "which means that any move in the direction of getting coal another way, or turning to an alternative energy source like wind, would require a great effort on the part of the governor and the legislature."

But Montana Representative Alan Olson, who describes himself as cautiously optimistic regarding the potential of both gasification and liquefaction, thinks the ultimate obstacle to embracing any kind of new technology may be what he calls a "lack of any kind of stable regulatory environment."

"If we are going to have a reasonable expectation of getting a developer to come into our state and make the kind of investment and commitment that this kind of operation would require, then the least we can do is provide some kind of tax and regulatory stability," says Olson.

"You can't expect anyone to make any kind of commitment if we are changing regulations and tax policies every two years," adds Olson.

It is a point that is not lost on the American Electric Power's English, who says his company is willing to sit down with environmental groups to discuss the potential of clean coal technology.

"But we really cannot go anywhere with this new kind of technology unless we also have the support of legislators and regulators first," he says. "We can offer the technology, but it is only through innovative policies implemented at the state level that we can actually make it become a reality."

Garry Boulard, a frequent contributor to State Legislatures, is a freelance writer from Albuquerque, N.M.