China, Australia sign clean coal agreement

Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) will soon have a toehold in China.

As part of the formal agreement signed between CSIRO and China's Thermal Power Research Institute, a post combustion capture pilot plant will be installed and operated in Beijing under CSIRO's aegis.

The post combustion capture process traps carbon dioxide emissions in liquid. Researchers estimate it could reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants by more than 85 percent.

The pilot plant is expected to capture as much as 3,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually from the Huaneng Beijing Co-Generation power plant.

"This project is part of a major research program to identify ways to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector," said John Wright, director of CSIRO's Energy Transformed National Research Flagship.

"It will allow PCC technology to be progressed in the Chinese energy sector which will have a much greater impact than operating in Australia alone."

Wright said the TPRI researchers expect to have the Beijing PCC plant running by August.

The Beijing PCC plant is part of CSIRO's Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate initiative. The Australian government is supporting CSIRO’s involvement through a $12 million AUS grant, a third of which is funding the PCC project in China.

The CSIRO-TRPI agreement is only one of China's forays into clean coal. Last year Peabody Energy (NYSE: BTU) decided to invest in the GreenGen near-zero emissions power plant (see Peabody joins China's GreenGen clean coal project).

GreenGen expects to have a 250 megawatt plant online by 2009.