Former IFRF Research Station Head and Superintendent of Research Professor John Beer has advised the IFRF of the publication of two major reports relating to coal.  Both are available for download from the MIT web site using the links in this article.
 
 ‘Retro-Fitting of Coal-Fired Power Plants for CO2 Emissions Reductions’

On March 23, 2009, the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) sponsored a symposium on the retrofitting of coal-fired power plants to capture CO2 emissions.  This report summarizes the views of symposium participants and identifies many key issues, opportunities, and possible “next steps” associated with retrofitting coal-fired power plants for carbon capture.  The report represents a range of views expressed at the symposium and where possible, includes consensus or general recommendations from the presenters and participants;  it is in no way intended to represent the views of all the participants, of specific participants, or of the rapporteur.

Participants represented the range of stakeholders with expertise, equities, and interests in the topic and included 54 representatives of utilities, academia, government, public interest groups, and industry.  This invitation-only event was designed specifically to elicit different perspectives and identify areas in which research, policy development, and analysis are needed to address this critical environmental concern.

The report includes four papers, three commissioned for the symposium, to start discussion of current and long-range technologies and research management objectives and strategies.  The main report may be downloaded from http://web.mit.edu/mitei/docs/reports/meeting-report.pdf

‘The Future of Coal’

A group of MIT Faculty has undertaken a series of interdisciplinary studies about how the United States and the world would meet future energy demand without increasing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) or other greenhouse gases.  The purpose of the study “The Future of Coal” is to examine the role of coal in a world where constraints on carbon emissions are adopted to mitigate global warming.  The study’s particular emphasis is to compare the performance and cost of different coal combustion technologies when combined with an integrated system for CO2 capture and sequestration.

The report may be downloaded as a PDF from http://web.mit.edu/coal/