PERSPECTIVES ON BROWN COAL
THE NEWSLETTER OF BROWN COAL INNOVATION AUSTRALIA
October 2012 : Number 4
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BCIA Activities Presented at US Clean Coal Conference
By Prof Klaus Hein, BCIA Research Fellow
For the first time, the Australian brown coal R&D scene was presented at this year’s ‘International Technical
Conference on Clean Coal & Fuel systems’; better known as the ‘Clearwater Clean Coal Conference’.
A number of Australian experts in the brown coal field attended the conference held in Florida, United
States, in June this year. The Australian delegates participated in panel sessions and provided 10 technical
presentations which were all well attended.
Now in its 37th year, this annual conference was first held in 1975 and has been held in Clearwater, Florida
since 1998.
The conference is a well-established forum for exchange between industry and science in the field of coal
utilisation in both application and research, with the aim to provide attendees with the most
comprehensive and up-to-date information.
Panel discussions with international experts, plenary and technical sessions and tutorials present detailed
information on fuels, advances in technology and equipment as well as strategies and regulatory and
political issues. An exhibition and a technical site visit complete the program.
Approximately 250 delegates participated in the conference with 45 per cent representation each from
industry and academia and 10 per cent from government.
Technical highlights this year included sessions on advanced and high efficient coal combustion and multi
emission control, biomass co-utilisation, gasification and syngas conversion to high value products and
carbon capture technologies such as chemical looping, oxyfuel and post-combustion processes.
As well as participating in the conference, Australia also had an information stand on ‘Coal in Australia’ as
part of the exhibition. The stand proved popular with conference delegates and included representatives
and information from Xstrata, BCIA, ANLEC R&D, CSIRO and Monash and Newcastle universities.
International presentations on the use of brown coals and lignites were specifically included in this year’s
conference program.
Experts from the USA, Europe, China, Japan and Australia participated on a panel titled ’Utilisation of Low
Rank Coals – Present Status and Future Chances’, organised by the conference co-chair and BCIA Research
Fellow, Professor Klaus Hein.
Views were presented on the on-going or potential utilisation of these fuels for electricity generation, as
well as for the production of high value goods such as fuels and chemicals. A summary is provided below:
 Prof Dr Yue Guanxi, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, showed the large resources of lignites
predominantly situated in inner Mongolia and the strong increase in the utilisation of these fuels
for the production of both power and chemicals.
 Mr Frank Kluger, Alstom Power, Stuttgart, Germany, gave an insight into the present utilisation of
brown coals in Europe, the technology development for large scale combustion equipment and the
recent activities on efficiency improvements and CO2-emission reduction.
PERSPECTIVES ON BROWN COAL
THE NEWSLETTER OF BROWN COAL INNOVATION AUSTRALIA
October 2012 : Number 4
Page 2 of 2
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Mr Katsuya Tanaka, Nippon Steel Engineering, Tokyo, Japan, explained the Japanese strategy to
convert low rank coals into syngas as feedstock for the chemical industry and described a proposed
technology for such processes.
Mrs Jenny Tennant, Department of Energy, Morgantown, USA, explained the Low Rank Coal
Research Program of the US Government and described the on-going activities of the various
partners involved, followed by the expectations related to gasification application for highly
efficient electricity generation in the USA.
Dr Michael Swanson, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, USA, described recent developments
in industrial application of gasification of lignite in his country.
Dr Phil Gurney, CEO of BCIA, Melbourne, Australia, presented an overview of the brown coal sector
in Victoria, strategies and technologies for low emission use of such fuels and highlights of brown
coal research projects supported by BCIA.
In addition, several papers on brown coal R&D activities in Australia were presented in the conference
technical sessions including ’Carbon Capture Considerations for Victorian Brown Coal’ by Dr Gurney.
Two papers were also presented on BCIA co-funded research projects on-going at Monash University and
CSIRO and CO2CRC presented papers detailing their post-combustion projects at the Loy Yang and
Hazelwood power plants in the Latrobe Valley.
The conference closed with a visit to the 300MWe IGCC Polk Power Plant of the Tampa Electric Company.
Based on the strong interest evident in low rank coal technology this year, the 2013 Clearwater Clean Coal
conference program will again include this topic. Visit www.coaltechnologies.com to view the call for
submissions.