Emerging technologies for coal-fired generation

Coal has been the backbone of the electric utility industry. Coal was used almost exclusively to power utility generators across the US and the world. In subsequent years, many improvements were made to the simple coal-fired power plant design that led to increased capacity and efficiency. It was recognized early in the development of coal-fire plant technology that a plant´s steam conditions would have a significant impact on plant efficiency. Cleaner burning coal-fired plants must be developed. Scientists and engineers have worked extensively to develop coal-fired systems that will operate efficiently with minimal emissions. Flue gas cleanup systems are now a necessary part of plant design and have been widely used in retrofit applications. Entirely new coal plant processes have been developed, collectively known as clean coal technology. The rest of the paper presents some of the pollution control devices currently in place along with two of the most viable clean coal technologies