Clean coal technology can fuel state's energy needs

Pennsylvania still is the fourth-largest producer of coal in the United States. We have reserves that might extend some 300 years. And our coal resource supports jobs not only in the coal sector, but in energy, transportation, steel and other heavy industry. In other words, coal is among the key engines of our economy. But, new challenges have emerged. Specifically, global warming is a threat to our health, our economy and our way of life. Severe storm systems, droughts and the spread of infectious diseases are some of the consequences of a disrupted climate system. The greenhouse gas pollution that causes global warming comes largely from our use of coal and other fossil fuels in power plants and transportation.

Clearly, we have to get serious about climate change and move with speed and determination to cut the pollution that threatens chaos with our climate.

Does this mean the end of fossil fuel use or that we have to stop burning coal? No. Technologies are available today to help us, substantially to clean up our act. This subject is complex and important to Pennsylvania's future.

In cleaning up energy, efficiency should be our first tool. This past February, Gov. Ed Rendell proposed important energy legislation that calls on the state's utilities to support strong economic growth through conservation and what's called ''demand-side management.'' By replacing big old boilers in Pennsylvania factories, or smaller air conditioners, refrigerators and lights in our homes, we cut energy needs, which enables our power plants to serve a growing economy, but without additional pollution. We think we can save about four major coal-fired power plants worth of electricity annually just through efficiency improvements. The plan would cut not only pollution, but it would also cut at least $10 billion out of Pennsylvania's electricity bill over the next 10 years.

Coal can be gasified, too. Instead of burning coal, we can, essentially, cook it in a closed vessel. Through this process, gases are produced that can be burned to generate electricity. Coal gasification plants operate more efficiently and, because they gasify coal instead of burning it, achieve much better pollution reduction, resulting in lower sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, toxic compounds, particulate matter and mercury emissions. Clean-coal facilities use 30 percent less water and reduce solid waste by as much as 50 percent of a conventional coal plant.

In Fayette County, Duke Energy has been leading the way in investigating the feasibility of producing clean electric power from the gasification of coal at the site of an existing natural gas power plant.

But, what about conventional power plants that burn the coal to produce electricity? Are the days of those plants numbered if the state or the country acts to restrict greenhouse gas pollution? No. Whether we gasify the coal or we burn it, new technologies are enabling us to capture and properly handle the associated emissions.

The primary greenhouse gas pollutant in coal-based power plants is carbon dioxide. Companies are now selling equipment that can be added to power plants to pull the CO2 out of the flue gases. Air Products and Chemicals Inc. is offering technology that boosts oxygen in the combustion chamber and pumps up the efficiency of CO2 removal.

Once we get hold of the carbon dioxide in a coal gasification or combustion plant, what do we do with it? Here, teams of geologists are hard at work. They are looking for rock formations that safely can store the CO2 underground. Rock formations that include salt water in rock pores, or unmineable coal seams, or gas seams that are too deep to be produced are the kind of areas that can effectively hold CO2. The process is called ''carbon capture and sequestration.''

Pennsylvania has been participating in a national research effort spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Energy that is aimed at charting the locations of these promising geologic formations. The southwest part of our state is fairly well understood in this regard since the long history of oil, gas, and coal extraction in the area means that it has been well studied and mapped. The area is underlain with some of the geological formations of most interest.

Much work is needed to move the idea of carbon capture of storage to reality. We have to build plants that prove the technology. We also have to store the carbon dioxide and show it can be locked up permanently.

While there are many questions, we have extensive experience on which to rely. Pennsylvania is the storehouse, for example, for the natural gas that heats our homes and businesses as well as those of a large part of the northeast United States and New England. The gas is stockpiled during spring and summer months in depleted gas or oil reservoirs in the state and then drawn down to meet winter energy needs. We possess the ''know how'' involved in underground natural gas storage that is clearly relevant to the related work we now need to do in carbon dioxide storage.

Pennsylvania should be at the forefront of this work. By doing so, we will keep Pennsylvania coal a key and growing part of the energy mix. And, of absolutely vital importance, we will also be helping to solve the climate change problem that poses so grave a threat to our future.

Of added benefit, when we tackle this problem, we will also have a terrific export, since every state in the nation and every nation in the world is searching for just this kind of solution to meet energy needs while preserving the natural systems on which all life depends.

Kathleen A. McGinty is secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.