Clean coal
technology is a collection of technologies being developed to attempt to help
lessen the environmental impact of coal energy generation and to mitigate
worldwide climate change. When coal is used as a fuel source, the gaseous
emissions generated by the thermal decomposition of the coal include sulfur
dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), mercury, and other chemical byproducts
that vary depending on the type of the coal being used. These emissions have
been established to have a negative impact on the environment and human health,
contributing to acid rain, lung cancer and cardiovascular disease. As a result,
clean coal technologies are being developed to remove or reduce pollutant
emissions to the atmosphere. Some of the techniques that would be used to
accomplish this include chemically washing minerals and impurities from the
coal, gasification (see also IGCC), improved technology for treating flue gases
to remove pollutants to increasingly stringent levels and at higher efficiency,
carbon capture and storage technologies to capture the carbon dioxide from the
flue gas and dewatering lower rank coals (brown coals) to improve the calorific
value, and thus the efficiency of the conversion into electricity. Concerns
exist regarding the economic viability of these technologies and the timeframe
of delivery, potentially high hidden economic costs in terms of social and
environmental damage, and the costs and viability of disposing of removed
carbon and other toxic matter.
In the present book, twelve typical
literatures about clean coal energy published on international authoritative
journals were selected to introduce the worldwide newest progress, which
contains reviews or original researches on clean coal and health, clean coal and the environment, energy development, Fossil fuels, and renewable sources, etc. We hope this book can
demonstrate advances in clean coal energy as well
as give references to the researchers, students and other related people.