(Bloomberg) — Tokyo Electric Power Co. will work with
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and a group of other companies
to bolster the development of coal-fired power projects with
emissions-reducing technology slated for Fukushima, site of the
2011 nuclear disaster.
Mitsubishi Heavy, Mitsubishi Corp., Mitsubishi Electric
Corp., and Joban Joint Power Co. will join Tepco to promote the
development of two 540-megawatt units, the companies said in a
statement Wednesday. One unit will be set up at Tepco’s Hirono
station, with the other located at the Nakoso power plant
operated by Joban.
The new generators will use a process called integrated
coal gasification combined cycle. The Nakoso station already has
one IGCC generator, which has capacity of 250 megawatts.
Resource-poor Japan is keen to develop clean coal
technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power
plants while all but one of its fleet of nuclear reactors remain
idled for safety checks after the Fukushima disaster.
IGCC, a type of gasification technology that turns coal
into gas, is at the heart of Japan’s renewed hopes for the fuel.
Impurities are removed from the synthesized gas before it’s
burned, lowering carbon emissions compared with plants where
coal is burned directly.
The five companies are aiming to start operating the plants
in the early 2020’s, according to the statement.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Chisaki Watanabe in Tokyo at
cwatanabe5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
landberg@bloomberg.net
Iain Wilson, Abhay Singh