Kerry seeks ban on traditional coal plants

Washington (Platts)--27Apr2007

A bill prohibiting the construction of conventional pulverized coal plants was
introduced in the Senate Thursday by Democratic Senator John Kerry of
Massachusetts.

The Clean Coal Act of 2007 would mandate that all new coal-fired facilities
include technologies that significantly reduce emissions of air pollutants and
greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

The bill would set a carbon dioxide new source performance standard for
generating units that limits units to 285 pounds of CO2/MWh. No later than
2012 and every five years thereafter, the standard would be revised to further
reduce the maximum rate of CO2 emissions.

The bill also states that any facility that injects CO2 into geological
formations can subtract that amount from its reported emissions output.

"We cannot allow a straight pulverized coal plant to be built that doesn't
adopt either IGCC or one of the other technologies mentioned today in an
effort to reduce CO2 emissions," Kerry told reporters.

Those other coal gasification technologies Kerry approves of include
ultra-supercritical and supercritical.

"We're not trying to be onerous about it, but you have to adopt what's out
there. This is not a pie in the sky, it's existing technology that is already
in place," Kerry said.

Bill would amend others
The senator doesn't think the bill will move on its own but will have to be
linked to one of the other climate change bills already in the Senate.

Kerry, who is chairman of the subcommittee on Science, Technology and
Innovation, announced his bill at a hearing on clean coal technology where
panelists told him they were bullish on the future of clean coal technology
but pessimistic on funding from the federal government to help bring new
technologies to the marketplace.

--Regina Johnson, regina_johnson@platts.com