Environmental Impacts of Coal Use

The use of coal in combustion - whether to generate electricity or heat, or for use in steel or cement manufacturing - creates a number of environmental challenges. The primary environmental issues relating to the use of coal are:

Viable, highly effective technologies have been developed to tackle the release of pollutants – such as oxides of sulphur (SOx) and nitrogen (NOx) – and particulate and trace elements, such as mercury. More recently, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) have become a concern because of their link to climate change.

Climate change is a global challenge and requires a concerted global response. CO₂ makes up 80% of anthropogenic (human induced) GHG emissions. Over the last century, the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere has risen, in large part driven by fossil fuel use but also because of other factors, such as land-use change and deforestation.

There is growing recognition that technology developments have to be part of the solution to climate change. This is particularly true for coal because its use is growing in so many large economies, including the largest and fastest growing countries such as China and India. There are two primary ways of reducing CO₂ emissions from coal use.

The greatest potential is offered by carbon capture and storage (CCS) which can reduce CO₂ emissions to the atmosphere by 80-90%.

• Improving efficiencies at coal-fired power stations – meaning lower emissions per unit of energy output.
• CCS technologies enable emissions of CO₂ to be stripped out of the exhaust stream from coal combustion or gasification and stored in geological formations so that they do not enter the atmosphere. CCS offers the potential of moving towards near-zero emissions to the atmosphere from coal-fired and gas-fired power stations.