Clean coal program research activities: Final report: Reporting period 07/01/2006-05/31/2009

Although remarkable progress has been made in developing technologies for the clean and efficient utilization of coal, the biggest challenge in the utilization of coal is still the protection of the environment. Specifically, electric utilities face increasingly stringent restriction on the emissions of NOx and SOx, new mercury emission standards, and mounting pressure for the mitigation of CO2 emissions, an environmental challenge that is greater than any they have previously faced. The Utah Clean Coal Program addressed issues related to innovations for existing power plants including retrofit technologies for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) or green field plants with CCS. The Program focused on the following areas: simulation, mercury control, oxycoal combustion, gasification, sequestration, chemical looping combustion, materials investigations and student research experiences. The goal of this program was to begin to integrate the experimental and simulation activities and to partner with NETL researchers to integrate the Program's results with those at NETL, using simulation as the vehicle for integration and innovation. The investigators also committed to training students in coal utilization technology tuned to the environmental constraints that we face in the future; to this end the Program supported approximately 12 graduate students toward the completion of their graduate degree in addition to numerous undergraduate students. With the increased importance of coal for energy independence, training of graduate and undergraduate students in the development of new technologies is critical.