It’s no secret that fossil fuels are the worst energy sources around, contributing significantly to carbon emissions and air pollution. And among them, coal emits the most carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions) per unit of energy. So why is the world’s dirtiest and oldest industrial source of energy still the most popular choice in many countries, the Philippines included?
The fact remains that it is still generally the cheapest source of power worldwide. Coal energy may be nonrenewable, but it does have the largest reserves in the world. In the Philippines, the in-situ coal reserves as of December 2020 total 315 million metric tons (MT), which is just 13.29% of the country’s total coal resource potential of 2.37 billion metric tons. The country is not running out of this fossil fuel anytime soon, so it is no surprise that coal still has the highest contribution to the country’s power generation mix (at 58% in 2021).
In Cebu, persistent regional energy supply issues and a looming energy deficit by 2027 have prompted talks of further expanding an AboitizPower coal plant in Toledo. The upside is that the original facility is already outfitted with clean coal technology, a solution that is designed to lessen environmentally harmful emissions during operations.
What is Clean Coal Technology?
The idea behind clean coal is to reduce or eliminate pollutants being released into the air. In the 1970s and 1980s, measures were taken to reduce sulfur emissions from burning coal, resulting in a significant decrease in sulfur rain. In more recent years, technology has been developed to reduce mercury and other emissions from coal. One such solution is the Circulating Fluidized Bed (CFB) technology, which is built into the Therma Visayas Toledo plant.
In a CFB combustion system, coal is mixed with limestone or dolomite before being fed to a fluidized bed furnace with silica sand. The limestone or dolomite captures sulfur oxide that are formed during combustion. The low furnace temperatures (800-950° Celsius) minimize nitrogen oxide emissions. Captured gases are stored or contained permanently, and therefore will never enter the atmosphere.
A Coal-lection of Different Energy Sources
While there are challenges and limitations to the use of clean coal technologies such as CFB, they do have the potential to greatly reduce carbon emissions from coal-fired plants and other industrial facilities, therefore mitigating air pollution and climate change. These modern solutions make it a little easier for Cebu to continue relying on coal as part of a sustainable and diversified approach to solving its energy supply problems. This means embracing new baseload capacities that make use of coal and liquefied natural gas while ramping up its renewable energy infrastructure.
The same is true for the rest of the Philippines. While the country slowly progresses on the renewable energy front, its continued reliance on coal is a necessary sacrifice that makes it possible to reach the goal outlined in the Department of Energy’s Clean Energy Scenario. According to the Philippine Energy Plan, the country aims to achieve a 35% renewable energy share in the power generation mix by 2030. This goes up to a 50% share by the year 2040. Until then, coal will still be the most affordable and most reliable option available to Filipinos. Fortunately, the world’s dirtiest energy source is a little cleaner to use nowadays.