Coal vs. GreenCoal vs. green
Can SEK play in the coal picture again?
By Kevin Flaherty | THE MORNING SUN
Southeast Kansas was built in the mines.
Through effort, sweat and heart in dirty conditions, immigrant workers toiled to create a better future for their families and the area. The area still bears witness to that history, with abundant coal pits and even an almost-finished Miners' Memorial paying tribute.
But with the push to make everything "green", will southeast Kansas's coal reserves see the action and the industry that they once did?
That's a question Rep. Bob Grant, D-Cherokee, asked when the issue of the Sunflower Power Plant in Holcomb came up this Legislative session.
"I wanted to see if there would be any economic boon, any impact for southeast Kansas workers and for the coal down there," Grant said a couple weeks ago. "I just don't know if there's the technology to use southeast Kansas dirty coal."
With some legislators and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius pushing for more "clean" energy, just what sort of role will southeast Kansas coal play in future plants, if there's any role at all?
Is the technology there?
Tim Vail, CEO of Houston-based Synthesis Energy Systems, said the technology for cleanly using dirty coal was under development. Vail said that the company produced fuels such as methanol and DME — a propane-like transportation fuel — through a process called gasification. Gasification burns the coal to release, then capture the gas and liquid elements from otherwise "dirty coal."
SES is licensing the process, known as U-GAS technology, from the Illinois-based Gas Technology Institute. It is now on display in China, where Vail said it was succeeding with high-ash coal, before the company brings it back to the U.S.
"It is not only reasonable, but a very profitable," Vail said. "You can turn something of a negative value into gas and into liquid at a very high efficiency level and do it very cleanly. So you're taking a low-value input to a high-value output."
Vail said that SES was classified as an alternative fuel company, and added that clean coal could be used both for electricity as well as alternative transportation fuel.
"The United States as a country needs to work to find ways to cleanly utilize products indigenous to here, and that includes coal," Vail said. "We need to have both the business and the political will to end reliance on foreign fuel. It can be done, we just need to give it the strength to be done."
Is the will there?
George Peridas, Natural Resources Defense Council science fellow, said one of the main barriers to pushing forward was the cost, or ignorance of ways to improve the power process. One of the topics Peridas studies is carbon capture, the reduction of emissions from coal.
"Our position, briefly, is that we don't think that coal is green," Peridas said. "I would fundamentally object to the term ‘clean coal.'"
Peridas said people often referred to carbon capture and scrubbing techniques as ways to clean up coal, but added that other analysis, such as the impact on communities or nearby water supplies were also necessary. Other items such as dumping waste and the problems left behind from ripple mining also went by the wayside occasionally, he said.
Peridas said he was opposed to the construction of any coal plants that do not capture carbon dioxide emissions, and added that the technology existed to help.
"You'll hear some arguments, people say it hasn't been proven, it hasn't been tested," Peridas said. "But the real barrier is the added cost. It's expensive policy framework."
Peridas said other studies, such as ones designed to find uses for the carbon dioxide had also been successful. He said it could be put underground where it helps to push up and extract oil that would have remained underground.
"But of course, it makes it more expensive," Peridas said. "You end up spending more energy, and that energy costs you money."
Paul Jacobson, vice president of corporate communications for Evergreen Energy, Inc., in Denver, said customers could also feel the price increase of new technology.
"Some of these technologies are economically viable, others aren't unless people pay more for their energy," Jacobson said by e-mail. "The fact is if we choose to live in a carbon constrained economy we will all pay more for our energy."
What's going on now?
Bob Shufflebotham works with Phoenix Coal Sales, Inc., a company that strip mines and sells southeast Kansas coal. In the past year, Shufflebotham said the company pulled out 300,000 tons.
But with coal technology limited, Shufflebotham's coal goes mostly to the Empire Electric District, shipping to Missouri City and Blue Valley.
"The mine in Holcomb wouldn't help us at all, honestly," Shufflebotham said. "Our strength is that we have our niche market. We're able to mine competitively and sell to local coal-fired plants within 50 to 80 miles of us."
Shufflebotham said he doesn't see coal use declining.
"They keep talking like it is, but 42 percent of the country's electricity comes from coal," Shufflebotham said. "And that has actually gone up."
As has the quality of the product. Shufflebotham said emission rules meant that the company had to blend its coal.
Jacobson said coal today generated 70 percent more electricity than it did in 1970, but created 30 percent less pollutants.
"If coal opponents want it to go away, they should tell us which 12 hours of electricity each day they wish to do without," Jacobson said. "Current methods of coal burning will be gradually replaced with clean coal technology, but it could take decades and decades."
Jacobson said some companies were working on gap-bridging technologies, but that nothing was certain.
Until then, Shufflebotham said he would continue on his job.
"We're producing as clean an energy as there is, and we're producing it locally, making jobs for local people and employing local technologies," Shufflebotham said. "All we hear is coal is bad, coal is bad. Well, coal isn't bad. It's the one resource we have in North America that is very viable for us. We shouldn't forget that."