Release Date: June 18, 2001

MORGANTOWN, WV - With President Bush's National Energy Plan calling for mandatory reductions in the release of mercury from electric power plants - part of the Plan's multi-pollutant reduction strategy - the U.S. Department of Energy today named six new projects to develop innovative technologies that can curb mercury emissions from coal plants more effectively and at a fraction of today's costs.

The winning projects were submitted by the University of North Dakota's Energy & Environmental Research Center in Grand Forks; URS Group. Inc., of Austin, TX; CONSOL, Inc., of Library, PA; Southern Research Institute in Birmingham, AL; Powerspan Corp., of Durham, NH; and Apogee Scientific, Inc., of Englewood, CO.

"The cutting-edge projects we are announcing today provide a dual benefit - they can help safeguard the health of Americans while ensuring that we can continue to use our nation's abundant supplies of coal to generate affordable electricity," said Secretary Spencer Abraham. "The National Energy Policy calls for this type of technological ingenuity to meet many of the nation's energy and environmental goals."

If the new technologies are successful, they could save ratepayers billions of dollars. For example, if utilities were required to use only today's technology to reduce mercury emissions by 90 percent, as much as $7 billion per year could be added to consumers' electric bills. The Energy Department hopes that new technology can cut those costs at least in half and perhaps by as much as one-fourth by the end of this decade.

For some coal-fired power plants, new technology will be essential. No pollution control system on the market today reduces mercury emissions uniformly across the full spectrum of power plant configurations. The effectiveness of today's emission controls can range from 90 percent to virtually zero.

The department wants to develop a wider array of mercury control options for power plants that can reliably reduce emissions by 50 to 70 percent by 2005 and 90 percent by 2010. Many of the new technologies would tie in mercury controls with processes that reduce other air pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.

Although it exists only in trace amounts in coal, mercury is released when coal burns and can accumulate on land and in water. Bacteria transform the mercury into a hazardous form that can collect in fish and marine mammals.

Last December, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that sufficient concerns existed over the toxic effects of mercury on the nervous systems of humans and wildlife to require coal-fired utilities to control the release of mercury from power plants.

EPA has until December, 2003, to propose a rule requiring mercury emissions to be reduced from coal-fired plants. A year later, the agency must issue a final rule, and utilities would have until December 2007 to comply.

Last month, the National Energy Policy Development Group recommended that President Bush direct EPA to propose new multi-pollutant legislation. The legislation would establish "a flexible, market-based program to significantly reduce sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury from electric power generators."

Last August the department selected two companies to test full-scale advanced mercury control technologies at several of the nation's coal-burning power plants. With the six new projects, the department is looking farther into the future at more novel concepts in earlier stages of development that could provide utilities with a wider range of options.

The six winning proposals, selected by the department's National Energy Technology Laboratory, will receive nearly $8 million in federal funds. The proposers will contribute nearly $2.3 million in cost-sharing. The proposals were submitted by:

• The Energy & Environmental Research Center at the University of North Dakota, Grand, Forks, ND, which will develop an advanced particulate collector that combines the best features of baghouses and electrostatic precipitators and offers the potential of removing 90 percent of all mercury emissions released by a coal-fired combustor.

• URS Group. Inc., Austin, TX, which will test chemical catalysts that can convert mercury into an oxidized form that can be removed by the flue gas "wet scrubbers" and particulate collectors now commonplace on many power plants.

• CONSOL, Inc., Library, PA, which will adapt a mercury control system now used on municipal waste incinerators to function on a coal-fired power plant and remove not only mercury but also sulfur pollutants that can create visible plumes and contaminate other pollution control devices.

• Southern Research Institute, Birmingham, AL, which will test the effectiveness of calcium-based chemicals -- such as lime and silica lime additives -- that collect mercury and oxidize it into a form that can be separated from a power plant's flue gas. The calcium sorbents also remove sulfur dioxide pollutants.

• Powerspan Corp., Durham, NH, which will also test a multi-pollutant removal system that uses an electrical discharge to convert mercury to mercuric oxide, nitrogen oxides to nitric acid, and sulfur dioxide to sulfuric acid. In its oxidized form, mercury can be captured in an electrostatic precipitator along with other tiny solid particles.

• Apogee Scientific, Inc., Englewood, CO, will study the effectiveness of up to a dozen carbon-based and other chemicals that show promise in removing more than 90 percent of mercury and costing 40 to 75 percent less than commercial sorbents.