Using Coal By-Products to Produce Energy
Co-Generation operations collect and reprocess culm (coal waste and refuse) to extract the additional coal attached to rock and burn it to produce electricity. Essentially, these specialized power plants can burn the coal and pass the rock through to an ash with a Circulating Fluidized Bed (CFB) technology. These plants also use scrubbers to control emissions with lime. This ash is then taken back to the strip mine and placed (usually still hot) in the pit. This ash sets up similar to portland cement in the pit and actually seals feature from conveying water into the underground mine pool complex. The water that does pass through the site will come in contact with the lime in the ash boosting alkalinity in the water. Many synergistic industries and businesses often accompany these plants such as greenhouses, fish hatcheries and large buildings using the steam for heat. Some plants use mine pool water as cooling water as opposed to our ever disappearing freshwater streams.
A new kind of electricity generation power plant is changing the landscape of Pennsylvania’s Anthracite and Bituminous Coalfields……For the Better!
View this PowerPoint Presentation for a greater understanding of the process of turning coal by-products into electricity.
EPCAMR partners with ARIPPA, a not-for-profit trade association comprising fourteen independent power producers in Pennsylvania that generate approximately 1400 megawatts of electricity by using environmentally-friendly Circulating Fluidized Bed (CFB) boiler technology to burn coal mining refuse. Please visit their website at www.arippa.org for more information.
