Clean-coal plant planned in Calvert City
May 3--CALVERT CITY, Ky. -- By Brian Peach, The Paducah Sun, Ky. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
A new multimillion-dollar facility designed to produce cleaner, more efficient coal will be built at the Calvert City Terminal facility here, facility owner SCH Services LLC announced Monday.
According to SCH, the technology, in development for seven years, will refine
raw coal from low-grade to high-quality.
The reduction in moisture, ash and sulfur contents makes the coal burn more
efficiently, meaning cheaper power for local businesses and consumers.
Also, the BTU (energy) content should increase by 50 percent, and various
emissions at the burn site will drop by as much as 70 percent, meaning less
pollution.
Bill Rager, vice president and general manager for SCH Services, said the
investment of millions into the facility will "translate into more
jobs," but he wouldn't speculate as to how many.
"That site has grown over the time that it's been there," Rager
said of the two years since it was built. "The employment has continuously
gone up."
SCH doesn't plan to stop there. It's continuing to look into other land
acquisitions in Kentucky and Illinois, including 206 acres along the Ohio River
in Paducah. The land is owned by the city and controlled by Paducah Water Works.
The city commission recently authorized selling the land to West Paducah
Terminal, LLC (another company owned by SCH) for $300,000, but City Manager Jim
Zumwalt said Monday that the deal had not been signed off on by both parties.
Rager said nothing is planned for the Paducah land, adding that it's not
uncommon for the company to purchase land and not use it for years.
In addition to more jobs for the Calvert City area, CoalTek claims its system
will convert low-grade raw coal into high-grade equivalent clean coal that will
be used by power generating utilities and industrial power generation
facilities.
In a statement released through SCH, CoalTek president Chris Poirier said the
coal will be cleaner because the electromagnetic energy lowers the amount of
water in the coal. He also said the process means less carbon will be lost than
during the traditional coal-washing or therma-heating process.
SCH also hopes that the Calvert City Terminal location near the confluence of
the Tennessee and Ohio rivers means the improved coal will be available to
"a majority of the coal-fired utilities operating in the United
States" using railroads and barges. The terminal has the capacity to
process 10 million tons of coal annually.
Typically, coal in the region is sub-bituminous, which means it's not as
efficient to burn as coal found elsewhere in the country. CoalTek said its new
process will create an "ultra-low-sulfur alternative to Appalachian and
Colorado coals." And if local power generators don't have to go as far for
high-quality coal, that should translate into lower consumer costs.
This is a "new process for western coal," Rager said. "It's
totally brand new and the first facility in the U.S. to do this."
-----
To see more of The Paducah Sun, or to subscribe to the
newspaper, go to http://www.paducahsun.com
.
Copyright (c) 2005, The Paducah Sun, Ky.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
For information on republishing this content, contact us at
(800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail
reprints@krtinfo.com.