In the near future, the Ohio State Coal and Ash Reactivation project will take over boiler No. 8 in McCracken, the plant’s only coal-fired boiler.

Oscar is a method of reducing the sulfur dioxide emissions, which are characteristic of burning Ohio coal with a high sulfur content.

The project was ready to begin last summer, but one of the plant’s smoke stacks was struck by lightning, which broke needed emissions monitoring equipment. Then the plant started having internal troubles that have kept boiler number eight out of order.

“If the OSCAR project works, there will be an affordable emissions system for existing power plants that can capture up to 90 percent of the sulfur dioxide, as well as considerable amounts of mercury, arsenic and selenium,” said Theodore Thomas, the project manager and a professor at OSU.

“OSU has patented a way to alter the structure of lime particles that makes them much more effective in the capture of sulfur dioxide. We’ve found it works well in the lab, and now it’s time to get it in McCracken,” Thomas said.

The technology — if it works — will be oriented to the retrofit market, which is essentially every power plant in Ohio except one, Thomas said.

The project is part of a larger effort to increase the economic opportunities for Ohio coal. When the Clean Air Act put emissions caps on power plants, many of them switched to a lower sulfur content coal rather than adopt expensive pollution control technologies. This unpredicted move has had serious results in Ohio and other similar states, which have large beds of high sulfur coal. It is hoped technology like this can breathe new life into Ohio’s coal industry.

Ohio is the third-largest coal-consuming state in the nation. It burns 58 million tons of coal a year, but produces only 22 million tons a year, said Mike Carey, president of the Ohio Coal Association,

“We are a coal importing state primarily because of the high sulfur problem. Technology like the OSCAR project will be very beneficial to our local coal production sector,” Carey said.

Ohio’s coal industry employs 2,600 people and that there are 11 spin-off jobs for every coal job.

Carey said Ohio has 250-350 years worth of coal left in the ground.

“The U.S. is blessed with some of the largest coal reserves in the world, and we certainly aren’t using them to the best of our ability,” said Jackie Bird, director of the Ohio Coal Development Office within the Ohio Department of Development. “This technology and Ohio State are definitely part of the solution.”

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