Clean coal technology: The new coal era

摘要

The Clean Coal Technology Program is a government and industry cofunded effort to demonstrate a new generation of innovative coal processes in a series of full-scale showcase'' facilities built across the country. Begun in 1986 and expanded in 1987, the program is expected to finance more than $6.8 billion of projects. Nearly two-thirds of the funding will come from the private sector, well above the 50 percent industry co-funding expected when the program began. The original recommendation for a multi-billion dollar clean coal demonstration program came from the US and Canadian Special Envoys on Acid Rain. In January 1986, Special Envoys Lewis and Davis presented their recommendations. Included was the call for a 5-year, $5-billion program in the US to demonstrate, at commercial scale, innovative clean coal technologies that were beginning to emerge from research programs both in the US and elsewhere in the world. As the Envoys said: if the menu of control options was expanded, and if the new options were significantly cheaper, yet highly efficient, it would be easier to formulate an acid rain control plan that would have broader public appeal.