Eastman touts clean use of coal

Eastman touts clean use of coal

Kingsport company says its gasification process cuts down on pollution

BY DUNCAN MANSFIELD
Associated Press

A "clean coal" technology Eastman Chemical Co. has been using for 20 years to make chemicals is being touted as a way to generate electricity with less pollution.

But the Tennessee Valley Authority, the country's largest public utility and one of the region's largest producers of coal-plant pollution, isn't ready to place any orders yet.

Eastman formed a unit earlier this year to market its two decades of experience operating a "coal gasification" plant in Kingsport — the first commercial gasification plant in the United States.

"We believe it is a technology that is ready commercially, and we believe it is ready economically," said David Denton, business development manager of Eastman's Gasification Services unit.

The plant produces acetic anhydride, a key ingredient in plastics, fibers, coatings, photographic films and drugs. But Eastman says it could just as easily make gas for turbines to generate electricity.

However, TVA environmental chief John Shipp said the Knoxville-based federal agency has studied coal gasification periodically over 30 years and concludes it still "just doesn't make the cut economically."

Eastman Chemical Co.'s coal gasification plant in Kingsport has been in operation for 20 years, and Eastman says the same process can be used by utilities to produce electricity with far less pollution than conventional coal-fired plants.

TVA is not alone in that assessment.
The Wisconsin Public Service Commission recently rejected a request from Milwaukee-based Wisconsin Energy Corp. to build a nearly $2 billion coal gasification plant, saying the technology is unproven and the plant could cost as much as two conventional coal-fired plants the PSC approved.
"You are not talking about thousands of dollars," Shipp noted. "Any of these decisions are billion-dollar decisions."
TVA, which gets about 60 percent of its power from coal, is putting its money — more than $3 billion since the 1970s — into smokestack pollution controls for its 11 aging coal-fired plants.
By contrast, coal gasification eliminates virtually all the toxic mercury and the sulfur that causes acid rain and haze from coal-plant emissions, according to Eastman.
With sulfur standards tighten-
ing, regulation of mercury looming, and the price of natural gas rising, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said TVA should consider coal gasification.
"I would like for TVA to be a little bolder in its decision-making," said Alexander, who is chairman of the TVA congressional caucus. "TVA is not just any old power company. TVA is a unique asset for this country."
"It is a federal entity; it has a special role. I would like for it to be the leader in clean-coal technology. I would like for it to be a leader in cleaning the air."
"And if Eastman has been making coal gasification work for 20 years and if other parts of the country are beginning to use coal gasification to clean the air, then why isn't TVA?"
Shipp said TVA's stance is based on economics.
"You have to realize that just a little bit of difference (in power costs) makes a lot of difference in power rates," Shipp said.
According to Eastman's estimates, a power gas plant that burns natural gas would cost about $500 per kilowatt of capacity to build while a new coal-fired plant would cost about $1,200 per kilowatt and a coal gasification plant about $1,250.
In 1996 TVA considered converting its unfinished Bellefonte Nuclear Plant in Alabama to coal gasification, but the estimated cost of doing was pegged at $1.5 billion. TVA decided instead to restart a mothballed reactor at its Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Alabama at a cost of $1.8 billion. The Browns Ferry reactor should be in service by 2007.
Stephen Smith, director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, called TVA's position shortsighted because the agency will need to build new coal plants eventually and coal gasification is an environmentally superior process. He said TVA should be "getting on that learning curve" now.
Shipp contradicted Smith's assertion that TVA eventually will need to build coal-fired plants.
"I can tell you we have no plans to build a new coal-fired power plant," Shipp said.