Advanced and Cleaner Traditional Technologies

Coal Gasification

Power Systems Development Facility

Over the past decade, Southern Company, with the Department of Energy, has been developing cleaner, less expensive, more reliable methods for power production from coal.
The Power Systems Development Facility near Wilsonville, Alabama, has developed promising gasification technologies with near-term practical applications.
Rather than burning coal directly to make electricity, gasification first breaks coal down into chemical components.
Gases that result from this chemical breakdown can be used to fuel power plants using integrated gasification combined cycle technology.

Coal

The United States has enough coal to last 250 years, and therefore coal should remain an important resource for our country's existing and future energy needs.
Georgia Power is investing almost $5 billion on environmental controls at our coal-fired generating plants. By 2015, our investments will have decreased emissions of sulfur dioxide by 93 percent, nitrogen oxides by 85 percent and mercury by 75 percent from 1990 levels.
Southern Company — in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy — is evaluating the feasibility of carbon capture and sequestration in deep underground formations.

Natural Gas

Since 2000, Southern Company has added 8,500 megawatts of cleaner, natural gas-fueled generation. In fact, most utilities in the U.S. have added only natural gas-fueled plants to their fleets in the past several years.
Natural gas-fueled combined cycle power plants continue to grow in efficiency through advances in turbine technology.
Natural gas prices have increased dramatically in the past few years and are expected to continue to fluctuate around a relatively high price trend.
However, natural gas-fueled power plants will remain a viable option because they are clean and relatively fast and less costly to build.
Natural gas-fueled plants produce carbon emissions, but at a rate about half that of coal-fueled plants.