Clean Coal | Clean Coal Roadmap

Canada's Clean Coal Technology Roadmap Document

TABLE OF CONTENTS
  • Foreword
  • Executive Summary
  • List of Acronyms and Units
  • Clean Coal - a Canadian Advantage
    • Why Clean Coal
    • Vision and Goals of Roadmap Exercise
    • Roadmap Overview
  • Coal’s Value Proposition
    • International Role for Coal
    • National Role for Coal
    • Section Summary
  • Challenges and Expectations
    • Environmental Challenges
    • Competing Alternatives to Coal
    • Establishing Performance Standards
    • Section Summary
  • Clean Coal Technology Pathways
    • Pathway Options
    • International Technology Development
    • Projections for Clean Coal in Canada
    • Section Summary
  • Clean Coal in Canada
    • Vision
    • Critical Gaps and Objectives
    • Five Strategies for SMART Objectives
    • CCT Roadway Ahead
    • Anticipated Impacts of CCT Strategy
    • Section Summary
  • Appendix A
  • Appendix B
  • Appendix C
  • Appendix D
  • References
  • Glossary

FORWARD
Canada is blessed with varied and abundant energy resources. This regionally diverse mix has allowed Canadians to prosper in spite of our small population spread across a vast land with all the difficulties of a northern climate. In Canada and globally there are huge proven reserves of coal which contribute enormously to our energy mix and to our nation's economic prosperity. To not continue to use coal is to deny many Canadians access to an inexpensive, secure, and readily available fuel, which is free from price volatility and completely capable of being utilized in an environmentally acceptably manner - as this Clean Coal Technology Roadmap illustrates.
The utilization of energy is directly linked to prosperity, which behooves us to produce energy with the smallest possible environmental effect and to consume that energy as efficiently as possible. As we look to the future, society will increasingly expect and demand that energy producers fully manage all of the emissions from their facilities including the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.
A critical look at all of the potential sources of energy and technologies for electricity production reveals that there are no clear winners. No one technology combines all of the most positive attributes of fuel source, waste management, reliability, cost, social acceptance, and environmental performance. Therefore, Canada will continue relying on a variety of fuel sources to meet our growing energy demand.
Future power plants enabled by clean coal technology require hardware and processes (which for the most part already exist in other industries) to be scaled–up, integrated, packaged, and optimized to meet utility performance standards. Canada is well positioned to become a world leader in the application of this technology because of the acknowledged excellence of ongoing work on both clean coal and carbon dioxide capture and storage technology. The availability of these technologies will allow utilities to move from current emissions levels to a near zero emissions profile in a single step, accelerating by years the normal incremental rate of improvement in environmental performance. Clean coal technology can form the basis for a new source of hydrogen, replacing, over time, our current dependence on natural gas reforming. Chemicals, feedstock, and other by-products add to the value proposition of future power plants enabled by clean coal technology.
Clean coal research is ongoing throughout the world, but the focus has not included the utilization of low-ranked coals such as the Canadian sub-bituminous and lignite varieties. An opportunity exists for Canada to take a leadership role (with respect to these types of coal) by accelerating the availability of clean coal technology and providing utilities with a powerful option to meet Canada’s energy needs and create highly exportable technology. Internationally, emerging economies will inevitably utilize coal to meet their rapidly growing energy needs and failing access to clean coal technology will implement conventional coal technologies thereby perpetuating current emission performance and adding to the global greenhouse gas emissions burden.
The time for additional feasibility studies has past. Canada needs a clean coal demonstration project so the real learning can begin and thereby create benefits for all Canadians, as has been the result of other endeavours not so long ago, including the Great Canadian Oil Sands project.
The Canadian Electricity Association states that over the next 20 years Canada will require 20,000 MW of new capacity per decade to meet load growth and replace retiring generating units. The availability of a commercially demonstrated clean coal technology will provide utility planners with an important alternative that will provide opportunities to produce the products and by-products noted previously with the added benefit of the physical mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, and thus the generation of emissions reduction credits for trading or for resale in international emissions markets.
On behalf of all involved in the research and writing of this Roadmap, I thank you for your interest and I urge you to provide your support in this important initiative for the nation.
Sincerely,
Rick Patrick, Vice-President Environment and Regulatory Affairs, SaskPower
(Chairperson of the Management Steering Committee and Technical Advisory Committee for the Clean Coal Technology Roadmap)
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For a printed copy of this publication, please contact:
Donna Baskin
CanmetENERGY
1 Haanel Drive
Ottawa, ON KIA 1M1
Phone: (613) 947-2651
Fax: (613) 992-9335
Email: cleancoal.info@nrcan.gc.ca
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