Bringing coal into the 21st century

By converting coal to gas and burning it in combined cycle configurations, utilities can produce electricity more cleanly and efficiently to meet future energy needs. The coal-burning technologies used today, however, would allow only 10,000 megawatts to be added without exceeding the sulfur dioxide limits set by the Clean Air Act. But by using high-efficiency clean-coal systems such as integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC), the United States, which gets 56 percent of its electricity from coal, could add more than 100,000 megawatts to its energy supply.