The Co-Firing of Pine Biomass and Waste Coal in 100 and 600 MW Power Plants: A Sustainable Approach to Reduce GHG Emissions

Prakashbhai R. Bhoi () and Surja Sarkar
Additional contact information
Prakashbhai R. Bhoi: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA 30460, USA
Surja Sarkar: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA 30460, USA

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 10, 1-22

Abstract: Climate change is a global issue that has gained much attention recently. Co-firing biomass with coal/waste coal reduces the electricity sector’s GHG emissions sustainably. This study uses commercial software to model waste coal and biomass co-firing in 100 MW and 600 MW power plants. The objective is to assess the effects of fluid types (subcritical and supercritical), plant capacities (100 MW and 600 MW), boiler types (pulverized coal and circulating fluidized bed boilers), biomass and waste coal co-firing ratios (0:100, 20:80, 40:60, 60:40, 80:20, and 100:0), and carbon capture and storage efficiencies (0%, 90%, 95%, and 97%) on performance parameters such as net plant efficiency, heat rate, net plant CO 2 and SO 2 , and particulate matter emissions. The feedstocks selected for this investigation include anthracite waste coal and loblolly pine biomass. As the biomass fraction increases from 0% to 100%, co-fired power plants net efficiency increases by 3–8%. Supercritical plants had a 6% higher net plant efficiency than the subcritical plants. The study found that the biomass’s high heating value decreased the fuel flow rate and reduced plant CO 2 emissions by 10–16%. With 100% biomass power plant feed and 90% carbon capture and storage efficiency, CO 2 emissions drop by 83% and SO 2 and PM emissions drop to zero.

Keywords: waste coal; biomass; co-fired power generation; CO 2 emission; SO 2 emission (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/10/4473/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/10/4473/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:10:p:4473-:d:1655746

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().