Coal-Fueled Electricity

Electricity demand has continued to increase over the past four decades. Demand has grown largely due to the emergence of new technologies as well as the urbanization and modernization of populations in emerging economies.

Why Coal Use is Growing
Coal is the only sustainable fuel, at scale, that can meet the world’s growing electricity needs.

The world’s more than 3,000 coal-fueled plants are the foundation of our electric power fleet, producing the most reliable, cost-competitive baseload generation. A historic global build out of coal generation is underway, with coal-fueled power production set to nearly double by 2035. The world's fastest growing nations, led by China and India, are driving this increase.
 
Coal fuels about 40 percent of the world's electricity; almost half of America's electricity; and more than 75 percent of Australia’s electricity. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that incremental coal for generation will surpass that of gas, oil, nuclear, geothermal and solar combined in the next quarter century.  

Where Coal Comes From
Coal deposits can be traced to many eras, but the most abundant come from lush forests in the warm, swampy river deltas some 320 million years ago. Coal was created through a series of powerful geological events over millions of years. When plants died, they formed a thick layer that was buried under prehistoric forests and seas. Eventually, the plant matter changed into a substance called peat. Massive layers of sand and sediments covered the peat, and as they became more compact, the ever-increasing pressure and heat transformed peat into coal.

How Coal is Transformed into Electricity
Electricity lights, heats and cools our lives, and serves as the backbone of our transportation, communication, healthcare, manufacturing and technology systems.

Converting coal into electricity is a multi-step process:

• Coal is pulverized into a fine powder, and mixed with hot air.
• The combination is transferred to a furnace, and heats a boiler containing water to create steam. Steam turns a turbine engine, transforming heat energy from burning coal into mechanical energy.
• The spinning turbine powers a generator, which transforms the mechanical energy into electric energy.
• A condenser cools the steam, turning it back into water that returns to the boiler.

A transformer transmits electricity from the power plant, along transmission lines to substation transformers, and then to distribution lines, which can be either above or below ground. These distribution lines deliver electricity into our homes and businesses.

How Clean Coal Becomes Green Coal
Coal also has a strong and improving environmental track record.  Since the first Clean Air Act became law in 1970 in the United States, emissions from U.S. coal-fueled plants have decreased more than 80 percent per megawatt hour as coal used for electricity has tripled. The next generation of supercritical, gasification and carbon capture and storage -- or green coal technologies -- build on this progress.
 
New efficient coal plants have significantly lower emissions than the existing fleet and a dramatically reduced carbon dioxide footprint. Continual technological improvement will lead to the ultimate goal of near-zero emissions coal-fueled energy. Studies suggest that coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) may be the low-cost, low-carbon solution, 15 to 50 percent less expensive than alternatives such as nuclear, wind or natural gas with CCS.

Firing up in 2011, the Prairie State Energy Campus includes a 1,600 MW (net) coal-fired, steam-electric generating station that is being constructed in Washington, St. Clair and Randolph counties in Illinois. The station is to be built utilizing state-of-the-art pulverized coal supercritical boiler technology.

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