Sep. 22--The nation and the coal industry must get more serious about research to ensure the use of so-called "clean coal," especially if the United States wants to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent by 2050, a Carnegie Mellon University engineering professor said Monday.

Stabilizing the world's climate and preventing damage from global warming will require a "portfolio of strategies and technologies" to cut emissions, Granger Morgan told about 250 people at the International Pittsburgh Coal Conference in the Westin Convention Center, Downtown.

"Coal with carbon capture and sequestration will be an essential part of the solution," Morgan said.

Two other experts in coal usage agreed with Morgan, saying that capturing emissions from coal-fired power plants needs to be part of the solution because the nation relies on coal to generate about 50 percent of its energy needs.

"No one can make the bridge from the present to the future without coal," said Albert Whitehouse, director of the Department of Interior's International Technical Assistance Program.

Whitehouse said that of the 1.1 billion tons of coal produced worldwide last year, 1 billion tons went into coal-fired power plants to produce electricity. The use of coal is not going away in the world's two largest coal producers, China and India, Whitehouse said. Both of those countries are projected to have large increases in coal production within the next 25 years, he said.

Technology has been available for carbon capture and sequestration for decades, Morgan said. Emissions are captured from a coal-burning process, impurities are separated from useful byproducts and the carbon dioxide is liquefied and pumped underground under high pressure, where it remains stored in a deep geological formation.

"If coal is going to continue to be a major part of the U.S. energy supply for the next 50-plus years, both the government and the coal industry need to get serious about research to assure 'clean' extraction," Morgan said.

That research is being conducted by companies such as Consol Energy Inc., the Southpointe-based coal producer. It is involved in a project to cut carbon dioxide emissions by working with other coal producers and electric utility companies to develop the first zero-emissions coal-burning power plant in central Illinois. That project is moving forward under the FutureGen Industrial Alliance.

Today, Consol is expected to receive $1 million from the state for more testing of a process for capturing carbon dioxide from coal-burning power plants. The testing is being conducted at Consol's research and development center in South Park, using a boiler from PFBC Environmental Energy Technology Inc. of Monessen.

Most of the legislation directed at reducing carbon emissions is aimed at the power industry, even though coal still is projected to provide two-thirds of the power for electric generation between now and 2030, said Benjamin Yamagata, executive director of the Coal Utilization Research Council, an industry advocacy group based in Washington.

"The legislation does not do enough to preserve and protect the (coal) industry," Yamagata said.

Still, using a range of technologies and strategies, including a carbon capture and sequestration program, is no guarantee that the world will reach the goal of reducing emissions by 80 percent by 2050, Morgan said.

"Even then, there is a very good chance we will not make it," he said.

Joe Napsha can be reached via e-mail or at 724-836-5252.

-----

To see more of The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/.

Copyright (c) 2009, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

NYSE:CNX,

A service of YellowBrix, Inc.