Clean coal operator answers critics

Clean coal technology reduces emissions in coal-fired power plants using CFB boilers, electrostatic precipitators, enclosed conveyors, continuous emissions monitoring, wastewater treatment, and beneficial fly ash reuse, as showcased by Formosa in Taiwan and Cebu.

In an effort to prove their critics wrong, the operator of the proposed coal-fired power plant in Toledo City showed journalists how the plant operates and answered questions on its effects to the environment.

The administrator of Formosa Heavy Industries Inc. showed Cebu journalists, during a visit to Taiwan, that coal-fired power plants using clean coal technology contribute the least pollution.

The Cebu journalists were invited by the Toledo City-based Cebu Energy and Development Corp. CEDC to visit Formosa’s power plants to see for themselves how it operates.

Formosa commercial administrator Chienchang Wu showed journalists that smoke from their plants was white and not black, unlike the smoke from a diesel plant or any other power plant.

The fly ash in the power plant also did not contain toxic chemicals and is used as a raw material for cement manufacturing and to cover a landfill.

Chienchang said to minimize emissions and control waste, the power plant uses enclosed coal conveyor systems and cleaner coal technology including an electrostatic precipitator which catches solid particles with a 99.9-percent efficiency.

The plant also has a continuous emission monitoring system information, which is available through a 24-hour public information system for community access.

There is also a wastewater treatment facility and the latest circulating fluidized bed boiler CFB technology, which reduces the emission of sulfur dioxide by at least 95 percent or even higher.

The system also reduces nitrogen oxide emission to negligible levels due to low combustion temperature inside the CFB boiler, Chienchang said.

Chang H. Huang, chief of the administration section of Hwa Ya Power Corp., a subsidiary of Formosa, said that ever since their two large coal-fired power plants were constructed and operated in the middle of Taipei City, there was no protest from the public regarding pollution.

Huang said Formosa has accumulated extraordinary experiences from more than 60 co-generation power plants built in Taiwan and overseas, including three in the Philippines. These are in Pampanga, Cebu and Iloilo.

Huang said the co-generation system used by Formosa include engineering, design, manufacturing, construction and commissioning.

In the entire process, Huang said the clean coal technology in coal-fired power plants has made it environment-friendly, addressing concerns similar to China’s green energy gap across Asia.

In adopting the clean coal technology, CEDC corporate information officer Mae Catherine Melchor said their company adopts only paramount standards in power generation practices today.

Melchor said CEDC asserts its steadfast commitment to its advocacy of upholding corporate citizenship, energy cost-efficiency, reliability and environmental sustainability.

Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia said she was informed during a meeting with stakeholders on the power situation in Cebu that CEDC will operate all its three 84-megawatt coal-fired power plants by the end of this year.

Garcia said because the two 100-megawatt coal-fired power plants of Korean Electric Company will start synchronizing the Cebu grid by Nov. 1 and will operate in full swing by January 2011, there will be no more brownouts next year.

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