China is pushing ahead in coal technology, rolling out plants that generate far more electricity from the coal they burn, according to an article in the New York Times. Whether this constitutes “clean coal” as the headline - but not the article - states is another matter.
The new plants incorporate highly efficient technology, turning as much as 44% of the energy in coal into electricity. The least efficient plants achieve a range of 27% to 36%. The more efficient plants are able to reduce their carbon emissions by up to a third and they constitute 60% of all the new plants being built, the article states.
By adopting “ultra-supercritical” technology, which uses extremely hot steam to achieve the highest efficiency, China has cut its cost dramatically through the economies of scale from building many identical power plants at the same time.
It now costs as much as a third less to build an ultra-supercritical power plant in China than to build a less efficient coal-fired plant in the United States.
Given that China now burns more coal than the United States, Europe and Japan combined, this is good news. Whether this rise in efficiency will be enough to offset the growing carbon emissions from the expansion of coal is another matter. At best, the rate of increase will slow.