CLEAN COAL TECHNOLOGIES AND THE PATH TO ZERO EMISSIONS

摘要

There is renewed interest in development programmes for clean coal technologies (CCTs) to address concerns regarding the future security of electricity supplies in the context of tightening environmental requirements. The IEA Clean Coal Centre (IEA CCC) is currently examining the future for clean coal technologies, with reviews of the programmes in important coal using and producing countries, and of the technologies themselves, together with their R&D needs to keep them available as bridging technologies to ZETs. The next part of the process, reviewing the pathway to ZETs, is about to commence, and this paper takes a first look at strategies, R&D needs and costs. It is concluded that, although likely performance and costs for ZETs favour the integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) route, future strategies need to retain both pulverised coal combustion (PCC) and IGCC as two alternative or complementary bases for ZETs plants. PCC ZETs may be particularly needed in certain countries with very large existing capacities of PCC stations, such as China and India. Moreover, the relative economics could converge if, as seems needed, more advanced supercritical cycles with ZETs are developed. Rapid application of CO_2 capture on a wide scale would also need retrofits to existing PCC plants, upgraded to maximise efficiency.