Clean coal to play key role in decarbonisation

Many domestic coal companies are making deeper forays into the integration of clean coal power and CCUS technologies. — China Daily

BEIJING: China has been making strides in the green transition of coal energy in recent years amid the country’s push toward renewables, with domestic coal companies actively promoting clean utilisation of coal while stepping up integration with carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), experts say.

Many domestic coal companies are making deeper forays into the integration of clean coal power and CCUS technologies, as well as carbon sinks and carbon trading mechanisms, to offset carbon emissions and realise zero-carbon production.

Clean coal usually means capturing carbon emissions from burning coal and storing them in underground pockets of porous rock.

China Energy Investment Group, for example, started operations at Asia’s biggest coal-linked CCUS facility in June in Jiangsu province, which will capture 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year, it said.

China Energy is the world’s largest coal company as well as the world’s leading coal-to-chemical company.

It is also operating the world’s largest coal-to-hydrogen project in Yulin, Shaanxi province, with an annual hydrogen production capacity of 350,000 tonnes. The project uses coal as the raw material to generate hydrogen from fossil fuels.

The project overcomes the difficulties in designing and manufacturing large-scale coal-to-hydrogen plants and uses self-innovative patented technologies, which will further facilitate the development of such projects in the future, it said. — China Daily/ANN