Overview of the economics of clean coal technologies as compared with alternatives for power generation

摘要

For new coal-based power plants to be competitive they must have low capital cost, high efficiency, and excellent environmental performance. Continued deregulation of the electric utility market in the U.S. and overseas has resulted in "bottom line" economics becoming the key criteria for selection of new power generation technologies. Since the early 1990's there have been significant reductions in the captial cost of most power generating technologies in response to the global market demand for competitive power generation. Natural gas-fired combustion turbines and combined cycle plants have dominated the recent power generation markets in the U.S. and in much of Europe, with total plant costs for combined cycle plants dropping to as low as