Coal

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a final rule in December that strengthens its National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) to 12.0 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m³) but declared it would not finalize a proposal to update separate secondary PM2.5 standards. The final rule’s issuance was lauded by environmental and public health groups, though industry groups opposed it, citing concerns that nonattainment areas would suffer economic setbacks.

Fuel for power generation will account for about 55% of demand-related energy growth through 2040, ExxonMobil forecasts in its latest annual energy forecast. Like several other forecasters, the Irving, Texas–based oil and gas company also predicts that natural gas will emerge as the leading source of electricity generation by 2040.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Dec. 20 finalized changes to a specific set of adjustments to the Clean Air Act that apply to coal, oil, natural gas, and biomass boilers and certain solid waste incinerators.

The world’s first supercritical pulverized coal–fired low mass flux vertical tube Benson boiler is Jinzhushan 3, located in the Hunan Province of the People’s Republic of China. The 600-MW Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group Inc. once-through boiler burns Chinese anthracite using downshot pulverized coal (PC) technology. Part 1 of this three-part article presented a summary of the project design features. Part 2 discussed the boiler technology. This third and final part reviews the plant’s performance test results.

Proposed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rules and a greater reliance on newer generation technologies have put the nation’s aging fossil-fueled generation units at risk of retirement. The numbers demonstrate that the U.S. power generating fleet is older than you may believe.

While the war on coal is working to reduce coal generation and consumption and associated carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, many world economies are looking toward coal for future generation needs. China, India, Russia, and Germany, to name a few, are building coal-fired power plants.

Among the surprises in President Barack Obama’s second Inaugural Address on Monday was his promise to address the challenges of climate change and sustainable energy. An independent draft report released about a week earlier on climate change and its impacts in the U.S. may have helped to fuel his renewed resolve on these intertwined issues.

A federal court on Tuesday ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) exceeded its authority when it established a screening tool that could allow some new power plants to be exempted from certain requirements under the EPA’s October 2010-finalized rule aimed at curbing emissions of particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter.

A proposal released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday could require owners of the 2.3-GW coal-fired Navajo Generating Station (NGS) near the Arizona-Utah state line to install emission controls worth $1.1 billion to improve visibility at 11 national parks and wilderness areas in the Southwest.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to review challenges to a 2010 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule setting the acceptable limit for sulfur dioxide (SO2) in the air at 75 parts per billion (ppb) over a 1-hour period. The denial of certiorari leaves intact the EPA’s final revision to the primary National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for SO2 emissions from power plants and other industrial facilities.