Coal-Fired Generation Draws New Interest

摘要

Coal is starting to glow again. Since last fall, plans for more than 10,000 Mw of new coal-fired powerplants have been announced, and Round 2 demonstration project proposals will be due in June under President Bush's Clean Coal Power Initiative. Last month's solicitation called attention back to coal-fired power generation, which was all but neglected in the last construction boom. Driving the interest are forecasts of natural-gas prices well above $4 per million Btu and an ongoing federal effort to encourage clean-coal development. Despite the high cost of emission controls, what remains by far the nation's most abundant fuel appears to have a new lease on life.