CLEAN COAL

Scrubbers to clean stack gases are not just expensive, unreliable and only partially effective, but their whole philosophy is cockeyed: To create pollution first and then try to get rid of it is like relying on the cures of typhoid fever rather than on a water treatment plant that will keep the drinking water clean.

Coal is more difficult to clean than water, but it now appears that it can be done and economically at that. TRW, Inc., is about to build a $5 million pilot plant in California to test a process invented by Robert Myers, a rocket propulsion chemist. Pyritic (but not chemically bonded) sulfur is leached out of the coal in a sulfate bath, and the sulfur is then removed by washing the coal in naphta or by vaporizing it through heat. Originally, the coal had to be powdered, but Myers found a way to treat the coal in pellets, enabling clean coal to be shipped to power plants in open railroad trucks. About 25% of all US coal qualifies for the Myers process, which is not only more reliable and effective than scrubbers, but is also twice as cheap in both operating and capital costs.

Meanwhile, another pilot project run by a Gulf Oil subsidiary in Tacoma, Wash., has been running for more than a year. It uses a solvent process, in which powdered coal reacts with hydrogen at high temperature and pressure to produce hydrogen sulfide, which can then easily be removed. This process works better on bonded sulfurs, and the hope is that the two processes can one day be combined. But even as the solvent process now stands, Southern Co., an Atlanta-based power company, is so pleased with the results of its small pilot plant that it has contracted for a feasibility study for a 1,000 ton/day demonstration plant that could be scaled up to clean 10,000 tons of coal daily.

Meyers is concerned that if utilities are forced to adopt scrubbers now, there will be no market for the coal cleaning technology when it is commercially ready.

What is the use of clean water, EPA's policy leads one to ask, if everybody has typhoid already?