Japan Bets on 'Clean Coal' to Revive Fukushima

In the belly of a sprawling power complex almost 150 miles north of Tokyo, embattled Tokyo Electric Power Co. has hatched a plan to boost its bottom line and breathe life back into towns of the Fukushima Prefecture dealt a deadly hand in 2011 of monster earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown.

TEPCO's solution: "clean coal."

The utility plans to build what it calls the world's most efficient coal plant -- an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant -- on the seaside north of Hirono, a former coal mining town

Although coal's share in Japan's energy mix remains unclear amid talks of a nuclear restart, success of renewable feed-in tariffs and looming climate discussions, TEPCO's project highlights a national push to promote and export "clean coal" technology around the world -- maybe even to energy-starved Ukraine.

Bruce Buckheit, a technical expert for the Sierra Club in Japan who worked in the Department of Justice's Environmental Enforcement Section and later was director of U.S. EPA's Air Enforcement Division, said TEPCO's IGCC units may be an improvement from existing pulverized coal units, but they aren't a "silver bullet" when it comes to fighting climate change.

Japan Bets on 'Clean Coal' to Revive Fukushima