Co-firing of coal and straw in large boilers

The issue of reducing CO₂ emissions is gaining an increasing importance. The Danish government has decided that CO₂ emissions from power production should be reduced by 20% by 2005 compared to the emissions in 1988. ELSAM is a Danish utility group operating power stations with a total output of approx. 4500 MW. Midtkraft and Vestkraft are members of this group. The coal-firing degree of the power stations is 95%. ELSAM uses approximately 6 mill. t of coal per annum which means that at least 1.2 mill. t of coal are to be converted into a CO₂ neutral fuel. Since biomass is regarded as a CO₂ neutral fuel it would be advantageous to substitute fossil fuels by biomass. The application of biomass, however, involves a number of problems which have to be solved before a large-scale usage can be started