Clean Coal Technology and Advanced Coal Technologies, Recommendations

The West Virginia Energy Opportunities Document, which is the state's energy plan, and the West Virginia Division of Energy recommend to pursue clean coal teahnology to meet the state's goal of freedom from foreign energy imports by 2030.  The goal is to displace 1.3 billion gallons of oil by 2030, 60% of West Virginia's oil use, which is the current level of oil imports.

                                               From the preamble to the West Virginia Energy Opportunity Document

• Using advanced coal technologies, coal can be gasified and liquified, representing the most viable option for the nation to transition away from imported oil
• Conventional oil and gas reserves could be materially depleted in decades, coal reserves are plentiful.
• West Virginia's high BTU coal is ideally suited to advence coal technologies such as those to be employed by integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plants.
• Coal can be a substitute for liquid transportation fuels and pipeline natural gas.
• Advanced coal technologies provide the same level of environmental benefication as pulverized coal plants with SOx, NOx and mercury controlled technologies applied.
• Advanced coal plans woud also be able to capture and sequester CO2.
• While CO2 sequestration technology is still in the experimental/demonstration stage and has not been proven to be financially and technically viable yet for existing plants, there is guarded optimism that current studies and experiments will refine and prove sequestration technology to be technically feasible, financially sound and environmentally safe.
• As is the case with unconventional resources, advanced coal technologies will need to be competitive with conventional energy souce.
• The largest contributor to the goal could be coal-to-liquids (CTL) plants.
• A 20,000 barrel-a-day CTL plant would cost more than $2 billion to construct.  It has been assumed that with certain oil price level (e.g. and upward) it would become economically attractive to construct a CTL plant.
• Commercially proven technologies and oil price stability are necessary to attract private sector investments in CTL plants.  Many would argue that our current energy situation would warrant a significant federal role in ushering and a coal-based economy.  National concensus has not been reached on the issue.

     We firmly believe that enhanced energy development can be accomplished consistent with environmental stewardship.

                                  SEQUESTRATION WORK UNDER WAY WITH THE WEST VIRINIA GEOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC SURVEY  

                                                                            Value added carbon collection and storage

         Screen target for value added processes

         Calculating Storage Volumes

         Calculating potential oil/gas recovery

         Assembly a cost model

         Performing scenario analysis

        Assembling relational data base

                                                                                 Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships

West Virginia's National Energy Technology Laboratory, the only DOE national laboratory dedicated to fossil energy, supports Regional Sequestration Partnerships, West Virginia is represented in these partnerships in the Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (www.scarbon.org) and the Midwest Carbon Sequestration Partnership (http://216.109.210.162/Default.aspx).;

                                                                       Natural Gas Recommendations to Follow (under construction)