There is a future in coal

Stephen Igo

WISE -- In spite of the ongoing gloom and doom that shrouds the coal industry these days, participants at Monday's coal technology symposium at The University of Virginia's College at Wise touted potential ways for better days ahead for the much maligned commodity.

Hosted by Virginia's 9th District Congressman
Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, some of the industry's top leaders and researchers -- including
David Mohler, deputy assistant secretary for clean coal and carbon management for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy -- addressed alternate ways the nation's most abundant energy resource can be used cleaner and to tap into other, more hard to find resources.

"While things are not good and there is no magic bullet," Griffith acknowledged in his opening remarks to participants gathered at the college's David J. Prior Convocation Center, "there is a future in coal" and that's why brainstorming sessions like his 'Future of Coal Focused Technology, Innovation & Industry" sessions are important.

Griffith said while he abides by the mantra, "the four D's: dig, drill, discover and deregulate," Monday's event was a focus on discovery, of which panel discussion participants proferred more than a few of the technology related research and development efforts underway across the nation.

Mohler also began his remarks that "there is a future for coal," vowing that his agency's perspective holds that "coal is in the game for decades to come" because it can help meet the nation's energy needs, holding out that technological breakthroughs are nigh to ensure benign environmental effects.

Mohler said a key to carbon capture technologies involving coal use is to "look at novel ways" to utilize carbon dioxide in ways to open or create new markets. Current carbon capture technologies in energy production is intensive and expensive, he said, "and we have to look for ways" to make it less so.

While referring to a pilot project in Canada, Mohler said "people in the media don't always know how technology works," bringing up a recent article in the New York Times he said homed in on startup issues at the Boulder Dam project.

Mohler said he is frustrated because "we think of the use of (carbon dioxide) as pure cost" and "done little to think of the value side" such as using carbon laden gases to boost oil production, grow algae for profit or tap into what are known as rare earth elements. There can be a "market pull on the value side" of the carbon debate, Mohler said.

Rare earth minerals are 17 elements that are actually common in geologic strata, but dispersed and difficult, as well as expensive to separate, from the mass of everything else within the earth's crust. Essentially, it's like finding and taking a speck of this and a speck of that out of a ton of dirt.

Rare earth metals are vital components in day to day technologies including smart phones and laptop computers, to name a few uses, depending on the element.

Mohler said there are significant amounts of rare earth elements in overburden strata and coal tailings from mining operations. China has pretty much had a lock on the world's rare earth elements' market, he said, and Appalachia's coal regions have the potential for the U.S. to break free and be an important player in that market, too.

The advantages to a resurgent coal industry in America includes a trained work force already in place, and existing mining supply chain, and academic expertise, Mohler said.

Bill Murray, public policy managing director for Virginia utility giant Dominion -- the utility that owns and operates the innovative Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center coal fired electricity generating station in St. Paul -- said his remarks would focus on 24/7, around the clock baseload generating capacity provided by coal, nuclear and natural gas for the nation, rather than renewables because they do not have that capability.

On his way to UVa-Wise on Monday, Murray said he drove past Dominion's St. Paul power station and noted that such generating stations possess advantages renewables do not, including a nearby, plentiful fuel source, it runs around the clock with an ability to adjust to demand, and produces a lot of energy on a fairly compact land footprint, particularly compared to renewables.

The equivalent footprint of a solar generating facility, Murray said, to produce the St. Paul coal fired facility's 585 megawatts of power, would require 17,000 acres of solar panels, and couldn't provide a 24/7 around the clock baseload capacity adaptable to demand anyway. The Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center sits on perhaps 17 acres tops if you include associated trappings like parking areas, administrative offices and fuel storage and supply facilities, and much less than that for the generating station itself.

Dr.
Roe-Hoan Yoon, Virginia Tech's distinguished professor and director of VT's Center for Advanced Separation Technologies, one of the world's leading research scientist into coal use technologies, also delved into coal's rare earth minerals potential.

Yoon provided an overview of current research into hydrophoic hydrophylic separation technology and how its applications could pose the potential to create $100 per ton, or higher, rare earth minerals value from coal waste products alone.

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