|
"Abatement through Efficiency: Opportunities for Carbon Mitigation in the US Coal Fleet"
The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) conducted three distinct benchmarking analyses on coal-fired units in the US power generation fleet to characterize the operational potential for efficiency improvements. The results of these analyses indicate a potential improvement of approximately 4% in overall fuel consumption assuming a constant generation level. Such a fuel reduction would deliver a concomitant reduction in solid wastes such as fly ash, bottom ash, slag, gypsum, and related wastes from sulfur removal; as well as reductions in airborne emissions such as particulate matter, acid rain species, mercury, and greenhouse gases (primarily CO2).
An efficiency increase of this magnitude would reduce CO2 emissions from the coal fleet by 4.1%, or 75 Teragrams of CO2 per year. This contribution represents approximately 1.3% of the total anthropogenic CO2 emissions in the US economy. Furthermore, these efficiency improvements could be achieved before 2020, thereby contributing to the near-term efforts by the United States to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. |
