We can lead the world in clean coal technologies

When U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu visited China this summer, he had one goal in mind: to open China’s market to American clean technology products while pushing China to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Chu also laid out plans for how the U.S. would export and transfer the technology to China.

Clearly, Chu recognizes that the U.S. is a leader in technologies like carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).

It’s easy to understand why – there are more than 200 clean coal programs and projects across the U.S. and nearly $6 billion in research underway in 41 states. Some American engineers, scientists and geologists have been working on clean coal technology for more than a decade.

With the new administration’s support of CCT, U.S. energy companies are making headway – just last week, the Southern Company (an ACCCE member) announced that China would be the first to implement Transport Integrated Gasification, the company’s technology for producing low-emission coal-based electricity.

Other U.S. energy companies are choosing to team up with their Chinese counterparts. Houston-based Future Fuels and Beijing-based Thermal Power Research Institute will focus on constructing coal-based electricity plants in both the U.S. and China.

As we’ve been saying, if we don’t develop the technology here, it won’t make its way to China, India and other places in the developing world that will continue to use massive amounts of coal no matter what we do in the U.S.

They need CCT just as much we do – but we have the technology know-how. It’s time for the U.S. to step up to the plate and lead the way in mitigating climate change.

Comments

[rearden215]

Why is no one in the United States implementing TIG?

Why must China be the one of the first coal-dependent nations to move forward in a balanced plan for coal as part of the energy question?

[Monica from ACCCE]

This is a good question. In the article, Joe says that we have the research background and the resources to deploy clean coal technology on the commercial scale, but the only problem is that we don't have the funding. We need to create public-private partnerships to help drive down the cost of clean coal technology.