18 million tons of contaminated coal waste from new coal plants
- Pete Altman
- Climate Campaign Director, Washington, D.C.
- Blog | About
- Posted March 12, 2009 in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment , Solving Global Warming
Today NRDC is publishing new data on the contaminated coal waste that more than eighty proposed coal-fired power plants would create if built.
We are also publishing data on waste from existing coal plants, including our estimates of the toxic metals that are in that waste.
With the detailed spreadsheets, Google maps and Google Earth files, you can find out more about how much contaminated coal waste is in your community or state, and using Google Earth zoom in and get a close-up look of the power plants. The storage ponds used by many plants are easy to spot this way.
Resources:
Main web page on coal waste, with all the data and maps
Google Earth file with all the data included
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Comments
James Childress — Mar 13 2009 11:24 AM
A quick look at your list of plants reveals a serious problem -- it contains at least 15 gasification-based plants.
The report defines “contaminated coal waste” as “waste from combustion of coal including fly ash, bottom ash, scrubber sludge, gypsum”.
Gasification does not involve combustion of coal and does not produce ash. Gasification plants do not have scrubbers and do not use gypsum to remove sulfur. Gasification is a process technology that converts coal and other carbon containing materials to a clean gas that is then used in efficient turbines to produce electricity, or througth other processes to make products. Sulfur in the coal is converted to either elemental sulfur or sulfuric acid, both valuable commodities. The high temperature of the gasification process melts and fuses the ash and metals in the coal which, when cooled, become an inert, glassy, sand like material, called slag, which is non leachable and has commercial uses in construction. In fact, gasification is the cleanest way of producing electricity from coal .
We would hope the report's authors, those who reviewed it and those who approved its release would correct this error. We would be happy to work with them to identify the gasification-based plants.
James Childress
Executive Director
Gasification Technologies Council
Peter Altman — Mar 13 2009 01:38 PM
Jim, you rightfully point out that the nature of the waste at IGCC plants is significantly different than the waste from conventional coal plants, and because of the unique process used by IGCC plants the waste poses a lower environmental risk than conventional coal plants. NRDC has frequently pointed out this advantage of IGCC plants, and we will make this distinction plain.
However, the intent of the analysis conducted by NRDC is to make clear the urgent need to regulate waste from coal plants with a set of nationally uniform, protective standards.
Regardless of the particular technologies in use at any given plant, it is essential to know that public health and the environment will be protected from the waste that is produced.
James Childress — Mar 13 2009 04:04 PM
Peter,
Thank you for the note. We look forward to working with the NRDC to make the case that the residuals from a gasification-based plant (a number of the plants on the list will produce other products such as substitute natural gas)are not "contaminated coal waste", nor toxic.
At a minimum we would certainly wish to have the gasification plants identified separately with an indication that they do not generate "waste from combustion of coal including fly ash, bottom ash, scrubber sludge, gypsum”.
Thank you.
Peter Altman — Mar 15 2009 10:25 AM
Thanks Jim. We are reviewing your suggestion will take it into account as we make changes to clearly distinguish gasification-based plant waste from conventional coal plant waste.