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The Environment Today
Published in Anco S. Blazev, Power Generation and the Environment, 2021
Waste coal, known as “culm,” “gob,” or “boney,” is basically unused coal mixed with soil and rock during the mining operations. It has no commercial value, so it is dumped nearby as waste. Runoff from these waste coal sites will leach into the soil, polluting it and the water table.
Systematic error and uncertain carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants
Published in Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, 2019
Jeffrey C. Quick, Eric Marland
Notably, seven of the plants that burned waste coal had EIA CO2 emission tallies that were about 13% less than the CAMD tallies. Waste coal is reclaimed from stockpiled material that was rejected by coal wash plants. Waste coal has low heating values and high ash yields but can be efficiently burned in fluidized-bed combustion boilers. Table 1 shows that the EIA waste coal emission factor (205.7 lb CO2/MMBtu) is the same as the emission factor for bituminous coal. This emission factor is appropriate for waste coal derived from bituminous rank coal. However, the seven plants with low EIA emission tallies burned anthracite culm that was reclaimed from waste coal stockpiles in the anthracite region of eastern Pennsylvania. For these plants, the EIA anthracite emission factor (228.6 lb CO2/MMBtu) is more appropriate and was used in this study to correct the EIA emission tallies. This increased the EIA emission tallies for the seven plants that burned anthracite culm by about 9%. Although the EIA-923 data do not include anthracite culm as a fuel type, it can be identified by its low sulfur content (<1%). As might be expected, these plants are all located near waste-coal stockpiles in Schuylkill, Northumberland, and Northampton counties in the anthracite region of Pennsylvania.