The EU and China are launching a project which aims to cut greenhouse gases by setting European CO2 emission quotas and building 'green' coal-fired power stations in China.
The three-year, €3m Coach project, the result of a SINTEF initiative, is dedicated to coal-based generation of electricity and fuel together with CO2 capture, and is a twin of the EU’s Dynamis project.
The aim of Dynamis is to develop a full-scale coal or natural gas-fired demonstration plant for electricity generation and hydrogen production with CO2 capture. The plant will be in operation by 2015.
In the Dynamis project, industry representatives and researchers will consider where in Europe the plant should be located and what technology it should employ. In Coach, 11 European and nine Chinese industrial companies, universities and research organisations will carry out a similar evaluation process in China.
Among other activities of the Coach project, its members will identify which of China’s ageing coal-fired power stations will be replaced by new plants. They will also evaluate which of the new-building projects are most suitable for CO2 capture and recommend what sort of technology and methods should be used to deal with the CO2 produced by individual power plants.
In order to make itself independent of major imports of oil and gas, China is keen to develop its national energy supply through gasification of the country’s huge coal deposits. This will involve transforming coal into hydrogen-rich gas that can be used as fuel in power plants and for transport, in the form of pure hydrogen and synthetic petrol and diesel oil.
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