Vattenfall fires up clean coal plant

The Associated Press
Published: September 9, 2008

BERLIN: Energy provider Vattenfall AG fired up its carbon-capture lignite plant Tuesday, the latest effort in the industry's attempts to generate electricty by burning coal while burying greenhouse gases deep underground.
The 30-megawatt pilot plant at Schwarze Pumpe — in the Lausitz region of eastern Germany — is intended to capture and bury up to 100,000 tons (90,719 metric tons) of carbon dioxide in the next three years. The carbon dioxide will then be injected 3000 meters (almost two miles) below the surface about 124 miles (200 kilometers) north of the plant instead of being released in to the air.
Carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse gases believed to cause global warming.
This €70 million (US$99 million) project is the first of its kind, said spokesman Damian Mueller.
It couples lignite, or brown coal, with oxyfuel technology that burns the coal with pure oxygen, turning the product into nearly pure carbon dioxide ready to be injected into the ground. The CO2 will be stored or could potentially be put to industrial use, such as helping pump natural gas from the ground.

If the technology works, the Swedish-based company intends to build two large scale demonstration plants in Germany.
"We are very convinced that this technology will have a future," said Mueller said. "We are concerned, too, that nobody — China or India — will stop burning coal."
HE said the goal was "to provide this new technology in a few years for China and India and the world."