Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 12, 1994 TAG: 9410120076
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ABINGDON LENGTH: Medium
U.S. Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary cited Virginia Tech's development of a coal-cleaning process Tuesday as an example of technologies the United States will be able to market to developing countries.
She said Tech created a licenseable micro-bubble technology and moved it into the marketplace where several coal companies, including Pittston Coal Co. in Southwest Virginia, will be using it.
O'Leary spoke at a conference on Appalachian coal sponsored by the Virginia Coal Council, moving around the meeting room at the Martha Washington Inn and stopping at a table where Virginia Tech Professor Roe-Hoan Yoon was seated to congratulate him for his role in the project.
``We have been working on it for more than 10 years. I mean, that's what it takes,'' said Yoon, who is with Tech's mining and engineering department. ``It's very well-accepted by the coal industry.''
The process involves removing sulfur and other impurities such as ash from coal, he explained. ``Apparently this administration, Secretary O'Leary, is very keen on exporting U.S. technology abroad; and the technology we developed represents the low-cost option for cleaning coal,'' he said.
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, said O'Leary already has paved the way for $7 billion in U.S. sales of the technology overseas through visits to China and India.
Boucher said such technology can head off global warming from carbon dioxide emissions. International agreements aim to put those emissions at 1990 levels by 2000.
The main increase in coal use no longer will be in the developed countries, he said, but in developing nations of Asia, Africa and South America that need a lot of energy.
America can best reduce worldwide emissions by transferring to those nations its technologies for cleaning coal and making energy production efficient, he said.
O'Leary led a delegation of U.S. business people two weeks ago to Pakistan, where $4 billion worth of technology sales were worked out. It is Pakistan's largest single investment in its 48-year existence. A similar trip to India this summer netted $3 billion worth of deals.
U.S. Clean Air Act provisions will get tougher, she said, but the Clinton administration wants the private sector to decide how to go about meeting them rather than the government's imposing procedures.
She estimated that $400 million to $600 million already has been saved by avoiding governmental command and control costs for earlier clean air standards.
by CNB