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Under the Kyoto Protocol many countries have targets to reduce carbon emissions and increase renewable energy production. In order to do this effectively the impact and efficacy of differing schemes must be determined. One option for producing electricity is through the use of a tidal barrage. The largest potential barrage scheme considered in the UK is the Cardiff-Weston barrage scheme in the Severn estuary. The scheme would be a single, renewable installation and is predicted to constitute 4% of the UK electricity supply. Therefore a carbon and energy assessment was completed on the Cardiff-Weston Severn barrage scheme. The assessment shows that the energy and carbon intensity of the Severn barrage is small in comparison to the National Grid mix and that, given reasonable assumptions, the Severn barrage can contribute to meeting the UK carbon reduction target. Importantly, the operation stage was identified as both the most energy and carbon intense by a large margin. This is a notable finding as preceding studies have tended to dismiss the consequences of the barrage operation as minimal or nil. Whilst these findings are for the Cardiff-Weston barrage, the implications will be similar for tidal barrages in other sites in the UK and globally.

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Although remarkable progress has been made in developing technologies for the clean and efficient utilization of coal, the biggest challenge in the utilization of coal is still the protection of the environment. Specifically, electric utilities face increasingly stringent restriction on the emissions of NO x and SO x , new mercury emission standards, and mounting pressure for the mitigation of CO 2 emissions, an environmental challenge that is greater than any they have previously faced. The Utah Clean Coal Program addressed issues related to innovations for existing power plants including retrofit technologies for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) or green field plants with CCS.The Program focused on the following areas: simulation, mercury control, oxycoal combustion, gasification, sequestration, chemical looping combustion, materials investigations and student research experiences. The goal of this program was to begin to integrate the experimental and simulation activities and to partner with NETL researchers to integrate the Program's results with those at NETL, using simulation as the vehicle for integration and innovation. The investigators also committed to training students in coal utilization technology tuned to the environmental constraints that we face in the future; to this end the Program supported approximately 12 graduate students toward the completion of their graduate degree in addition to numerous undergraduate students. With the increased importance of coal for energy independence, training of graduate and undergraduate students in the development of new technologies is critical.ii