Coal pollution mitigation Since air is mostly nitrogen, combustion of coal often leads to production of nitrogen oxides. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are primary causes of acid rain. For many years--before greenhouse gasses were widely understood to be a threat-- it was thought that these by-products were the only drawback to using coal. These by-products are still a problem, but they have been greatly diminished in most advanced countries due to clean air regulations. It is possible to remove most of the sulfur dioxide (SO), nitrogen oxides (NO), and particulate matter (PM) emissions from the coal-burning process. For example, various techniques are
Underground coal gasification oxidants (air, oxygen) and steam to ignite and fuel the underground combustion process. Separate production wells are used to bring the product gas to the surface. The high pressure combustion is conducted at temperature of , but it may reach up to . The process decomposes coal and generates carbon dioxide (), hydrogen (), carbon monoxide (CO), methane (). In addition, there are small quantities of various contaminants including sulfur oxides (), mono-nitrogen oxides (), and hydrogen sulfide (). As the coal face burns and the immediate area is depleted, the oxidants injected are controlled by the operator. There are