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Strategies & Market Trends : China Warehouse- More Than Crockery -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (5236)	8/1/2005 8:29:38 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6370

China signs up for Aussie clean coal Nigel Wilson, Energy writer August 02, 2005 BEIJING'S "green" credentials for the 2008 Olympics could be boosted by revolutionary Australian technology to clean coal. Sydney company UCC Energy has signed an arrangement with Datang International Power to use its technology for a power station which is hoped to be operating before the Olympics. But it is unlikely the new product will be used to reduce emissions in the Australian electricity industry any time soon. UCC Energy's managing director, John Langley, said yesterday that ultra-clean coal, which was developed in a joint venture with CSIRO, could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from processing high-value coals by 10 per cent to 20 per cent. If it were used as power-station fuel, the emissions from coal-fired stations -- which account for about 83 per cent of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions -- could be cut by 25 per cent to 30 per cent. At Cessnock in the NSW Hunter Valley, UCC Energy, which is ultimately owned by the publicly listed Felix Resources, has commercialised the CSIRO-developed ultra-clean process, which uses chemicals to reduce mineral impurities in coal to less than 0.2 per cent. CSIRO, which has patented the process, receives an undisclosed royalty on commercial sales of the process. Mr Langley said UCC produced a fuel so pure that it could be fired directly into high-efficiency gas turbines. This could form the basis for substantial reductions in greenhouse gases in the power industry. UCC is working with the world's biggest producer of gas turbines, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, to modify high temperature gas turbines to use UCC fuel. Mitsubishi has been involved in the development of the process since 1998. "What we have is coal that is processed to remove impurities which then can be turned into briquettes for shipment or for direct feed into power stations," Mr Langley said. "We've already sent bulk tonnages of the product to Japan where it has tested very well. "We've also processed four different coals from China and demonstrated the process can work just as well on their high-quality coals as ours." Mr Langley said he expected that once Mitsubishi had decided on suitable modifications to turbine blades, fuel injectors and igniters, a test program would take between 12 and 18 months. The turbine technology would then be available for Datang to incorporate into a power station using UCC fuel. Mr Langley said that while energy was used to process the coal, UCC Energy's calculations showed that the final product covered both its higher production cost and greenhouse emissions. He said the ultra-clean coal would compete with natural gas. This coal, he said, could be supplied to Japan for $US3.30 to $US3.60 a gigajoule compared with $US4.50 to $US5.00 a gigajoule for gas. Mr Langley said the process was suitable only for high-quality coals, which meant it could be used on black coals from NSW and Queensland. But the power generation industries in both states, which are effectively government-owned, were not interested. "It seems they just don't want to be involved in developing technology that will reduce greenhouse emissions from coal," Mr Langley said. theaustralian.news.com.au