Cleaner Coal-Burning Power Plants? Texans, Don't Be Fooled!

TXU is about to be bought up and the buyers are looking for ways to appease environmentally concerned citizens. The industry is experiencing a boom and is planning to expand its production by building new coal-burning power plants to ensure the future supply of electricity. Recent protests by Texas citizens prompted the new buyers, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Texas Pacific Group, to cut a deal with national environmental groups that looks promising on the surface, but still leaves much to be desired. They plan to use a technology, new to Texas, which reduces emissions dramatically over conventional coal-burning plants.

Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle plants - or IGCC's - have just been made more palatable by the Texas Senate after a tax break was created to alleviate the somewhat higher costs of operation. IGCC technology is ground breaking by reducing the coal to a gas, which is then used to power a turbine. The excess heat from the turbine is then redirected through a steam turbine to produce additional electricity and reduce the energy wasted and given off to the environment. These plants are promising because they dramatically reduce dangerous emissions and greenhouse gases. It is also possible to install a carbon recapturing mechanism to further reduce greenhouse emissions. TXU and its buyers promised to team up with IGCC vendors to build two of the future plants with this new technology.

This may sound good, especially to Texans who live near the scheduled sites, but others won't be so lucky. Three more power plants are scheduled to be built, 'dirty' ones, using traditional methods of coal burning, now a thorn in the eye of environmentally conscious Texans. One such location is Oak Grove, where, according to Dallas Morning News staff writers Elizabeth Souder and Randy Lee Loftis, two scheduled plants would "...put out as much smog-causing pollution as 350,000 cars..." (The Dallas Morning News, Saturday, March 10, 2007)

While many praise TXU for their public recognition of IGCC technology, others voice concern that the company is not progressive enough and is still infusing Texas with increasing amounts of highly polluting coal emissions. It behooves us as citizens to support cleaner technology, even if it comes with a slightly higher price tag. Reducing smog and dangerous emissions will benefit us all. In response to widespread public protests, TXU agreed not to build eight more traditional plants that were part of the expansion package. With enough pressure, perhaps they can be dissuaded from building the last three.

If coal is to be used to produce energy, IGCC is the way of the future. Several informative websites show how the technology works and what it can do for us. I encourage you to read about this ground breaking method. You never know. You may end up living next door to a coal-burning power plant some day.

Data from Coal21, Dallas Morning News, Wikipedia, and The Energy Blog.