What are gasification's main advantages?
Gasification is the cleanest coal-based power system available today. There are five main advantages or benefits of gasification technology.

• Feedstock flexibility – Gasification can produce syngas not only from coals having a wide range of heat values but also from low-value carbon feedstocks such as petroleum coke (“pet coke”), high-sulfur fuel oil, municipal wastes, and biomass. This flexibility increases the economic value of these resources and lowers costs by providing industry with a broader range of feedstock options.
• Product flexibility – The syngas produced by gasification can be converted into many valuable products, ranging from electricity and steam to liquid fuels, basic chemicals, and hydrogen. Integration of multiple products gasification into industrial applications increases opportunities for added revenues since plant operations can focus on the most lucrative products, provides economies of scale associated with production of multiple commodities and increases opportunities for added revenues.
• Near-zero emissions – Gasification systems can meet the strictest environmental regulations pertaining to emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO₂), particulate matter, and toxic compounds other than coal contaminates such as mercury, arsenic, selenium, cadmium, etc.. Further, gasification provides an effective means of capturing and storing or sequestering carbon dioxide (CO₂), a greenhouse gas. The carbon dioxide produced during gasification is present at much higher concentrations and at higher pressures than in streams produced from conventional combustion, making them easier to capture. The vision is to convert synthesis gas into pure hydrogen using the water - gas shift reaction and use the hydrogen as an ultra-clean fuel with an exhaust gas of nothing but water.

• High efficiency – Gasification can be integrated with other technologies for advanced power generation, particularly combustion turbines and eventually solid oxide fuel cells. The resulting systems are highly efficient, squeezing more value from each pound of feedstock. Systems using advances in gasification and related components can achieve efficiencies of up to 60 percent, compared with an efficiency limit of 40 percent for conventional plants.
• Energy security – By making better use of America's abundant energy resources such as coal, gasification can lessen over-reliance on fuel imports, contributing to U.S. economic well-being and energy security.

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