Energy report

Fluidized bed pilot plant construction advances. The Department of Energy has awarded the Curtiss-Wright Corp., Wood-Ridge, N.J., $8.23 million to continue construction of its 13-megawatt pressurized fluidized-bed (PFB) coal-burning facility there. To date, 75 percent of the project has been completed at a cost of $53.86 million. The plant will burn coal in a turbulent mixture of limestone or dolomite under approximately seven times the atmospheric pressure. Under these conditions, the sulfur contained in the coal will mix with the limestone and precipitate out, leaving a relatively clean, high-pressure gas to propel turbines that generate electricity.