Coal and the US National Security

8/7/2019 Coal and the US National Security

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Bronco Energy Fund Initiative for a National Dialogue on Gasification and Sequential Technologies

© Copyright 2005 Bronco Energy Fund Inc.

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ACCESS ENERGY U.S.A.“ Advanced C lean-C oal Energy & S ynfuel Security™”

A Bold New Approach for Enhancing

Strategic Access to America’s Abundant Coal Assets

For the Benefit of Energy Sustainability, National Defense,

Environmental Integrity, and Economic Advancement and Stability

here is growing support—widespread and multi-constituent in nature—for a comprehensive,environmentally-friendly energy/security initiative to leverage the immediate and long-term value of

coal, one of America’s most prized and virtually inexhaustible natural assets. The vanguard initiative at theforefront of future energy planning and development in the United States and abroad is the well-provenconversion technology of “gasification,” including IGCC, or Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle. Thisprocess, together with the associated down-line Fischer-Tropsch Technology, is a highly efficientmethodology for converting carbon-based feedstocks into diverse, high-demand products—including electricpower, synthetic natural gas, clean diesel fuels, hydrogen, and chemicals—with emissions factors far lowerand more easily controlled than with conventional coal-fired energy plants.

CRITICAL NEEDS—At the heart of this unfolding development are three urgent national needs:

1. Energy Sustainability—The need to accommodate in systematic and reliable ways America’s criticaldemand for augmented power (electricity as well as fuel), using sourcing strategies that are flexible,sustainable, and dependable;

2. National Defense—The need to guarantee and enhance America’s self-sufficiency with respect to thosematerials and production capabilities that are essential to empower our economy, increase our nationalsecurity in the face of multi-faceted terror threats, and maintain our hegemony as a world power;

3. Environmental Integrity—The need to incorporate into all aspects of our national energy-productionenterprise the advanced technological systems that will certify and affirm the protection of our environmentand help to mitigate the impact of global warming.

AN OPPORTUNITY AND A PROMISE ANCHORED IN AMERICA’S STRENGTHS

At the juncture of these three daunting challenges is an opportunity of rare scope and promise for America,given our superiority and advantage with respect to three elements of critical importance in any emergingstrategy:

1. Natural Assets—Whereas America has only 2% of the world’s oil reserves and only 3% of the world’snatural gas reserves, we have fully 25% of the coal reserves—greater than those of any other country;

T





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2. Technology—The scientific and engineering breakthroughs now flowing from America’s community of thinkers and practitioners in the field of energy production offer encouraging options for improved efficiencyand innovation for both existing as well as future plants. Case in point: gasification, including IGCC(Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) and improved Fischer-Tropsch Technology;

3. Synergy—Already in place is a multiplicity of future-search cooperative ventures involving key energystakeholders: energy companies, financial institutions, investors, scientists, academic institutions,environmentalists, and governmental offices and agencies—all focused in interdependent and collaborativeways on finding optimum strategic solutions to America’s energy challenges.

CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIRS—The following figure summarizes the current situation:

Solving America’s Energy Challenges

Deriving from Key National Strengths

CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS—These three crucial energy challenges can be addressed effectivelythrough a coordinated national initiative targeting the timely deployment of a network of innovative energyplants based on gasification, especially IGCC— Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle, together withassociated down-line procedures such as Fischer-Tropsch Technology for the production of synthetic crudeand clean diesel. The following sections outline succinctly the role that this advanced clean-coal technologycan play in resolving collectively the referenced energy challenges and confirming that coal is truly

America’s diamond in the rough. In fact, coal is America’s safety vault of stored energy that can supply

our economy with the bulk of its vital energy and electricity needs for centuries to come.

WHAT IS GASIFICATION?

The technology behind Gasification is well-proven scientifically, having been in practice in various forms forover 100 years. Here are the basic elements:

• Conversion—Carbon-based feedstocks are subjected at high temperature and pressure—using less thanhalf the amount of oxygen required for total combustion—and converted under these reducing conditions

Strategic

OpportunityDeriving from Key

National Strengths 1. Vast Coal Resources2. Superior Technology3. Culture of Synergy

Challenge 2NationalDefense

Challenge 3Environmental

Integrity

Challenge 1Energy

Sustainability





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From Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle—IGCC: Clean, Affordable Energy for

Tomorrow’s World. U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy, Federal EnergyTechnolo Center Jul 1999 . 3.

into a clean synthesis gas (syngas) consisting of hydrogen and carbon monoxide (CO). Gasification canconvert a wide variety of feedstocks including biomass, municipal solid waste, biosolids, petroleum coke,tar sands, and, of course, coal.

• Purification—The syngas is then cooled and cleaned of particulates, sulfur, mercury, and othercontaminants using advanced technologies consistent with those applied in oil refining and natural gas

purification.• Diversity of Output Gasification is the only

advanced energy-generation technology with thecapability of concomitant production of a diversevariety of high-value commodity products,including gaseous fuels (such as synthetic naturalgas—SNG—and hydrogen for fuel cells andother applications in refineries and chemicalplants), liquid fuels (such as synthetic crude,methanol, and sulfur-free diesel), CarbonDioxide for enhanced oil recovery or other uses,and chemicals (such as ammonia for fertilizer

production, methanol, dimethyl ether, and higheralcohols). Thus the gasification process is theonly technology that offers a duality of advantages: upstream (feedstock flexibility) aswell as downstream (product flexibility). Thisfeature is critically important in the context of theneed for enhancing energy security andenvironmental protection.

GASIFICATION DETAILS—Let’s look in detail at the process for gasification-related power generationand the production of gaseous and liquid fuels:

• Gaseous Fuels—Raw syngas can be methanated to produce SNG (synthetic natural gas), which can be

marketed and consumed exactly like conventional natural gas. Given America’s rising dependence onimported natural gas (a trend that is parallel to the burgeoning scope of our oil imports), cost-effectivestrategies for producing domestic SNG in significant quantities will work toward enhancing nationalsecurity and energy independence. SNG as an extension of the gasification process can thus be producedfrom America’s vast coal reserves and other low-cost and waste feedstocks. Moreover, raw syngas fromthe gasification process can be cleaned further to produce pure hydrogen—laying the groundwork for thecoming Hydrogen Economy.

• Power Generation—These gaseous fuels can be used to generate power in either combustion or non-combustion modes (fuel cells). According to Robert S. Kripowicz, Principal Deputy Assistant SecretaryFossil Energy, U.S. Department of Energy: “Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle plants are thepowerplants of the next millennium.” Understanding the essence of the IGCC process for coal—whichwas first operationally tested in California in the mid-1980s—confirms why this will very likely be the

case. It works as follows: Syngas is combusted in a high-efficiency gas turbine power generator.Simultaneously, the heat from the turbine exhaust gas is extracted to produce steam to drive a parallelsteam turbine power generator. This combination of dual power-generating cycles is called “combinedcycle.” IGCC therefore blends gasification, gas cleaning, synthesis gas conversion, and power-generationtechnology into a unified procedure to produce clean and affordable energy that offers the advantages of ultra-low pollution levels, high efficiency, and flexibility of feedstocks (coal, biomass, petroleum coke,industrial wastes, municipal solid wastes, sludge, and other low-cost or no-cost base materials)—with thepromise of extending the current 40 percent level of IGCC units to as high as 50 and even 60 percent





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(compared with 35 percent for convention coal-fired power generation). This syngas output can also be inthe form of high-purity Hydrogen, once more contributing to the emerging Hydrogen Economy.

• Liquid Fuels—Raw syngas can be refined further into liquid fuels via the Fischer-Tropsch Gas-to-Liquids (FTGTL) process. Synthetic crude and diesel produced in this way are cleaner than fuels madefrom petroleum. The production of such synfuels as an extension of the gasification process can help to

leverage America’s abundant coal reserves and make use of other low-cost and even negative-cost wastefeedstocks as part of a strategy to enhance national security and lessen our dependence on foreign imports.

• Carbon Capture—In addition to greatly reducing regulated emissions in a cost-effective manner, pre-combustion decarbonization is the best technology to produce CO2 in a form readily captured and eitherused for economic benefit and/or sequestered. Such CO2 streams, for example, can be deployed inEnhanced Oil Recovery to increase the productivity of applicable oil fields, thus working to improve ourenergy security and lessen our dependence on foreign oil.

A NOTE ABOUT THE FISCHER-TROPSCH PROCESS

As an extension of the gasification sequence, Fischer-Tropsch Technology (FT) converts syngas (from coal,natural gas, or low-value refinery or waste products) into a high-value, clean-burning synthetic crude or

diesel. Such synfuel is virtually free of sulfur and aromatics and more readily reformable as pure hydrogenthan conventional gasoline or diesel. Moreover, it is virtually interchangeable with conventional diesel fuelsand can also be blended with diesel in any desired ratio with minimal or no modification. Compared withconventional diesel, Fischer-Tropsch fuels offer important emissions benefits, including reduced nitrogenoxide, carbon monoxide, and particulates. In the FT process itself, syngas (a mixture of hydrogen and carbonmonoxide) is reacted in the presence of an iron or cobalt catalyst, generating a mixture of linear paraffinicand olefinic hydrocarbons that are converted (through mild hydrotreating and hydrocracking) to the finalproducts such as methane, alcohols, and synthetic crude or diesel—with water or carbon dioxide produced asa byproduct. The temperature, pressure, and catalyst used determine whether a light or heavy syncrude isproduced. The FT technology is highly exothermic, and the heat energy produced can be used efficiently tosupport the reaction process and the plant operation itself. The FT reaction was discovered by German coalresearchers F. Fischer and H. Tropsch in 1923, and was used by Germany during World War II to produce

high-quality fuel.

SUMMARY OF THE ACCESS ENERGY U.S.A.™ TECHNOLOGY SEQUENCE

The following chart provides a simplified overview of the technology sequence involved in the “AdvancedClean-Coal Energy & Synfuel Security” program:

SteamTurbine

ACCESS ENERGY U.S.A.: “ADVANCED CLEAN-COAL ENERGY & SYNFUEL SECURITY”™

COALAmerica’s

mostabundant

energy asset GasificationProcess

Production

of syngas(hydrogenand CO)

CarbonCapture

Cleaning

process toremove

pollutants

HydrogenSeparation

CombustionTurbine

Fischer-Tropsch

Combustionof syngas

Fuel Cells ElectricPower

RefinementProcess

Syncrude &syndiesel

Generator

Generator

ElectricPower

Cars &Appliances

Pipelinedistribution

By-ProductRecovery

ElectricPower

Power linedistribution

Power linedistribution

CO2Production

EnhancedOil Recovery

ConventionalFuels

PipelineDistribution

MeetingAmerica’sEnergy

Needs

Value-AddedProducts

Diversity ofother low

cost or no-cost carbon-

basedfeedstocks

Biomass,petroleum

coke,industrial &municipalwastes

C o m b i n e d C y c l e

NationalDefense

EnergySustainability

EnvironmentalIntegrity

SteamTurbine





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From Ending the Energy Stalemate: A Bipartisan Strategy to Meet

America’s Energy Challenges. The National Commission On EnergyPolicy, December 2004, p. 70

From Annual Energy Outlook 2005-2025. Department of Energy/EnergyInformation Administration, p. 6.

CRUCIAL QUESTION—How does the gasification sequence contribute to the resolution of the threeenergy challenges listed above? Here are the essential facts and implications:

1. GASIFICTION AND ENERGY SUSTAINABILITY

Key Facts: America’s strong suit in the global energy arena iscoal. Currently, coal-based power generation produces some52% of the nation’s electricity (with nuclear and natural gas ataround one-fifth each and the balance from hydro and otherrenewable sources). Fully 86% of the nation’s coal productiongoes to generate electricity. Under the current volume of usage, we have enough coal to last some 258 years (withsome 250-275 billion tons of proven reserves—about 25% of the world’s reserves). By comparison, our reserves of naturalgas would last only 9.5 years and oil 11.3 years, according tofacts cited by the National Commission on Energy Policy(December, 2004).

Implications: The gasification sequence (includingIGCC) figures prominently in any equation to resolvethe nation’s future energy needs. The U.S. Departmentof Energy projects a 45% increase in the demand forelectricity from all sources over the next two decades.Currently the U.S. has around 300 GW of coal-firedpower generation capacity. Forward-reaching studiesestimate that the U.S. will need to add nearly 90 GW of new coal-fired capacity by 2025, the major portion of which (as much as 62%) will come from advanced clean

coal technologies such as IGCC. The West Coast alonewill have a demand for 69 GW of power 25 years fromnow. (It is instructive, in this context, that MidAmericanEnergy—controlled by billionaire Warren Buffettthrough his investment company, Berkshire Hathaway—has agreed to buy PacifiCorp for $5.1 billion, plus the

assumption of $4.3 billion in debt.) With the volatility and unpredictability of natural gas supplies(used in the generation of around a fifth of the nation’s electricity) the stability and dependability of coal will become an ever more important factor in the nation’s energy strategy. This is particularlytrue in the face of the perilous rise in oil prices in recent times. Clearly coal is the most preciouscommodity in America’s energy arena: inexpensive, clean, reliable, and domestic.

2. GASIFICATION AND NATIONAL DEFENSE

Key Facts: President George W. Bush signed a sweeping new bi-partisan energy bill on Monday, August 8,2005, at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. “It means less dependence on foreign oil,” he isreported to have said. The reason for concern is manifest: America currently consumes some 99 quadrillionBtus of energy each year. We produce around 72 quadrillion Btus of this amount (73%). As part of thatequation, we consume fully 25% of the world’s petroleum. Well over half of the petroleum we use is





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imported—54% of the 19.6 million barrels we used daily in 2002, projected to reach as high as 70% by 2025if current trends persist. There is urgent need for a change in course.

Implications: Any increase in foreign energy dependence brings with it a concomitant decrease in nationalsecurity. It is essential to increase America’s domestic energy supplies. It is essential to augment and protect

America’s energy delivery system. The security of U.S. national energy depends on having energy suppliesadequate to support the economic growth of the nation and, by extension, global economic growth. Nationalenergy security begins with maximizing our own capabilities of producing, processing, and delivering adiverse mix of domestic energy resources to meet our demands—and by doing so in an efficient andenvironmentally-friendly manner. In the context of national security, clean coal technology offers greatpromise for advancing national as well as global goals for economic progress, environmental integrity, andenergy security. Coal is among the most potent of our national defense assets.

3. GASIFICATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRITY

Key Facts: In the year 2000, worldwide annual energy carbon emissions amounted to 6.3 billion metric tons,some 24% coming from the U.S. (the largest emitter). Around one-third of U.S. carbon emissions come from

power plants. One-third of global emissions come from coal combustion. It is not surprising that the federalgovernment has promulgated proposals such as the Clear Skies Initiative for power plant emissions(February 14, 2002—caps SOx, NOx and Hg emissions), the Clean Coal Power Initiative (demonstratesadvanced coal technologies), National Climate Change Technology Initiative (June 11, 2001—reducesemissions of the greenhouse gas, CO2), Homeland Security (to increase the security of our energy productionand delivery infrastructure), and the Integrated Sequestration and Hydrogen Research Initiative (February 27,2003), among others. It is encouraging, in this context, that advanced technology IGCC plants canaccommodate all projected environmental regulations associated with power generation and liquid fuelproduction. IGCC plants operate at higher efficiency levels than conventional counterparts and thus emit lessCO2 per unit of energy produced. The IGCC process emits sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides at only afraction of allowable levels. Furthermore, the water needed to operate an IGCC plant is less than half thatrequired in a conventional coal-fired plant with a flue gas-scrubbing system.

Implications: The clean-coal gasification sequence takes the stigma out of current coal-fired technology. It isthe key to providing low-cost energy for continued U.S. economic growth and furthering national goals forprotecting the environment and mitigating global climate-change concerns. IGCC features promisingenvironmental attributes: Sulfur is removed from syngas to a level of 98.5-99.99%; NOx emissions arecontrolled through temperature modulation in the gas turbine; particulates are removed from the syngas by filtersand a water-wash process prior to combustion (making emissions negligible); Mercury is removed from thesyngas by absorption on an activated-carbon bed; CO2 is removed using less energy than convention coal-firedsystems and made available as a by-product (e.g. for Enhanced Oil Recovery) or readied for sequestration (indepleted gas fields and oil fields, unmineable coal seams, deep saline formations, basalts, etc.).Understandably, clean-coal technologies such as IGCC are projected to play a vital role in future energyproduction, along with the associated Fischer-Tropsch process for producing synthetic crude and cleandiesel, plus the development of more efficient renewable energy sources (solar, wind, hydro, and renewablefuels such as hydrogen, corn ethanol, etc.).

ADDITIONAL ISSUE: ECONOMIC VIABILITY—Any strategy designed to resolve these threefundamental energy challenges must also satisfy the demands of economic exigency, i.e., power plants basedon the gasification technology must be able to operate successfully as commercial ventures in a competitiveenergy marketplace. Will this be the case?





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From Clean Coal Technology Roadmap: “CURC/EPRI/DOE Consensus

Roadmap”—Background Information. NETL, n.d., p. 24.

Key Facts: The end-use price of electricity in the U.S. is greater than $230 billion dollars per year—a vastarena in which to seek strategic cost savings. Coal offers compelling leverage in the economics of powerproduction. The cost for power from coal is currently around $2 per million Btu, compared with around$7.25 per million Btu from natural gas. The associated arbitrage potential is enormous. With advanced IGCCtechnology, increased efficiencies are projected to generate additional savings, especially since use of a

diverse array of alternative low-cost feedstocks is possible. Furthermore, IGCC technology substantiallyreduces the footprint and complexity of plants and thus works toward capital savings in new plantconstruction or retrofitting older plants. Dual phase production of power in the “combined cycle” process,plus the associated co-generation of valuable by-products (hydrogen, plus environmentally superiortransportation fuels and chemicals), further mitigate the cost burdens associated with the power generation.Moreover, IGCC technology offers distinct advantages with respect to the secondary costs of distribution:With gasification, the conversion technology can be set up on site and the gaseous fuels produced can then betransported economically by pipeline—with fewer environmental concerns than with major over-groundtransmission lines. In addition, the IGCC decarbonization process yields CO2 in a more concentrated formthan conventional coal-fired plants, making it easier to capture and sequester CO2 or deploy it in theEnhanced Oil Recovery arena, thus reducing the costs associated with emissions control and other pollutants.

In this context, a further word about the Hydrogen Economy is pertinent: The role of hydrogen is alreadyhuge in the nation’s economy—as in the production of hydrogen from natural gas for use in refining andfoodstuffs. However, there is not yet a wide-spread perception among the populace in general of theenormous potential of hydrogen to contribute to our energy needs as they relate to cars and home heating. Itis critical for us to understand and advocate the powerful linkage between coal and hydrogen. The sequenceof coal to IGCC to syngas to hydrogen will play an increasingly potent role in solving the nation’s energychallenges in real and practical ways.

Implications: Clearly the gasification system associated with clean-coal technology offers persuasiveeconomic advantages, including low-cost feedstocks, high efficiency in the use of national resources,

economically efficient control of environmentalpollutants, co-generation of valuable products, significant

capital savings in plant construction, and enhancedtechnology exports (far beyond the current level of $30-$35 billion per year in a global energy technology marketof $400 billion per year). The projected cumulativebenefits of clean coal deployments to 2020 amount toapproximately $100 billion dollars. This represents nearlya 10-fold return on a projected investment of approximately $11 billion in government/industrycooperative ventures. In addition, there could well be abenefit of $500 billion to $1 trillion through the year 2050on the basis of lower electricity costs associated withadvanced coal-related power generation. Because of thiseconomic environment, innovative energy firms thatproduce a diversity of energy products (steam, chemicals,and fuels)—as contrasted with the single-purpose, single-technology powerplants of today and yesterday—willinevitably capture an increasing volume of electricitysales in a period of deregulation. In a competitive energy

market of this type, systems such as IGCC and the down-line Fischer-Tropsch technology that offer theproducer opportunities for reduced market risk and enhanced revenues from an array of high-value productsare likely to prosper. IGCC and its sequential options is demonstrably the key to leverage the value of coal at





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a turning point in the nation’s economic well-being and security. The government is understandably in favorof cooperative investments and tax incentives to further the cause of future IGCC development anddeployment.

SUMMARY AND ACTION STEPS

1. Partnership for the Future

There is already in place a growing, broad-based support for clean-coal technology initiatives, includingIGCC and the sequential Fischer-Tropsch conversion process. The comprehensive Clean Coal TechnologyRoadmap of the U.S. Department of Energy was developed cooperatively by the National EnergyTechnology Laboratory, the national laboratory of the DOE Office of Fossil Energy, and the coal and powerindustry, specifically the Coal Utilization Research Council (CURC) and the Electric Power ResearchInstitute (EPRI). At work already are proceeds from past and current government grants (some $2 billiondollars) for collaborative undertakings to develop and perfect clean coal technology. The Energy Policy Actof 2005 provides additional revenues in support of innovative technological advances in the energy domain.A projected combined investment of nearly $11 billion would yield some $100 billion in benefits for the

country to the year 2020 and ensure the continuing leadership of America in the global energy arena. Inaddition, forward-looking governors and legislators in states with abundant coal reserves are taking steps tofacilitate the process of bringing on line clean-coal initiatives that will address the nation’s urgent energyconcerns. The question is: Can the broad-based deployment of advanced IGCC energy plants and associatedFischer-Tropsch conversion units take place soon enough to achieve the optimum results with the maximumfavorable economic impact?

2. IGCC and the Timeline for the Future

Currently the projections in the U.S. are to have a high-efficiency, virtually zero-emissions IGCC powerplant in service as early as 2015—one that is fuel flexible, sequestration-ready, and capable of product co-generation. The operant formula is ERD3 = energy research, development, demonstration, and early

deployment. In the opinion of many stakeholders, included Bronco Energy Fund Inc., there is a compellingneed to jumpstart this process. A ten-year term (and by some estimates as much as 20 years for acommercially-viable plant) may well be too long for deploying operational IGCC systems. A more desirabletarget range would be five to ten years maximum. What can be done to shorten the time span for successfuldeployment?

3. Action Steps

There is no question that intense, focused, cooperative action is needed to unlock the value of America’s coalin a timely, systematic manner. Few would question the IGCC advantages: higher thermal efficiency (40% to50% or higher, compared with 35% for conventional coal techniques); the removal of sulfur, mercury, andother contaminants before combustion (eliminating scrubbers); a diversity of feedstock options; facility ingenerating valuable by-products; less input water required and less cooling water discharge generated; theelimination of post-combustion flue gas desulfurization for reducing SOx emissions; the production of synthetic crude and clean diesel through sequential Fischer-Tropsch technology, and efficiencies incontrolling and sequestering CO2 or deploying it for productively for Enhanced Oil Recovery.

Coal is America’s diamond in the rough. A concerted energy strategy around clean-coal technology andIGCC is truly America’s “DEED” to the future, addressing as it does our vital concerns for Defense,Economy, Environment, and Development. Therefore, Bronco Energy Fund recommends the immediatefacilitation of dialogue with interested and engaged governmental leaders at the state and federal levels—





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plus other concerned stakeholders from industry and the scientific community—to facilitate the emergence of strategies for accelerating the refinement and deployment of advanced gasification/FT technologies as a keyfor leveraging America’s vast coal reserves in support of future energy and synfuel production. Such anacceleration of the process would serve to resolve more expeditiously America’s three urgent energychallenges listed earlier: energy sustainability, national defense, and environmental integrity. Bronco Energy

Fund stands ready to support and facilitate such a dialogue and use its technological and organizationalknow-how to ensure progress in this critically important arena of activity of finding effective solutions toAmerica’s energy needs.

ABOUT BRONCO ENERGY FUND, INC.

Bronco Energy Fund, Inc., is a public Nevada corporation formed in June 1997 and restructured tocommence energy sector operations in December 2004. The company's principal offices and operationscenter is in Tucson, Arizona. The Company is led by an experienced team of industry professionals and isfocused on key areas of investment in the energy sector which, in the opinion of the management team, willprovide the strongest growth for shareholders in the coming decade and beyond and contribute to strategicsolutions for America’s energy challenges. Through its subsidiaries, Bronco Energy Fund is investing in and

will invest in such industries as coal, oil and gas, clean electrical power generation and emergingtechnologies such as Nano-Solar and Gas-to-Liquid (GTL). Bronco Energy Fund has already acquired twomajor coal plants (in Indiana and Utah) through support from an international financial institution with long-standing experience in the energy field, particularly IGCC. Bronco Energy Fund expects to augment its coalacquisitions in the near future.

Bronco Energy Fund aspires to be the prototype of the emerging new genre of integrated oil and energycompany that will be crucially important for 21st century energy development and production. BroncoEnergy Fund is structured around the philosophy that only the comprehensive, multi-purpose organizationcapable of integrating the interdependent roles of asset ownership, stakeholder servicing, and productprocessing and delivery (for a full range of central and co-generated products)—across the entire spectrum of operations related to clean coal technology and associated energy initiatives—will survive and prosper in the

21st

century.





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SELECTED REFERENCES

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Financial Incentives. Robert R. Nordhaus, July 29,2004

Advanced Combustion Technology: Coal Burner Low NOx

Upgrades, n.d.

An Assessment of Geological Carbon Sequestration Options in

the Illinois Basin: Year One.

Annual Energy Outlook 2004-2025 and 2005-2025. Departmentof Energy/Energy Information Administration

Clean Coal Technology Roadmap: “CURC/EPRI/DOE

Consensus Roadmap”—Background Information. NETL, n.d.

Climate VISION Risk Framework for Advanced Clean Coal

Plants: Risks & Challenges. Presentation to Roundtable onDeploying Advanced Clean Coal Plants, July 29, 2004,Washington, DC

Coal & Power Systems Strategic & Multi-Year Program Plans.U.S. Department Of Energy, Office Of Fossil Energy, February2001

Coal and Climate. David G. Hawkins, Natural ResourcesDefense Council, July 29, 2004

Cost Comparison IGCC and Advanced Coal. Roundtable onDeploying Advanced Clean Coal Plants, July 29, 2004

EERC Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships Annual

Program Presentation, November 2004

Energy Policy Act of 2005

Ending the Energy Stalemate: A Bipartisan Strategy to Meet

America’s Energy Challenges. The National Commission On

Energy Policy, December 2004

EPA & Carbon Sequestration. Regional Carbon SequestrationPartnerships Annual Program Review Meeting. Energy andEnvironmental Research Center. Pittsburgh, PA, November 16–17, 2004

Financing IGCC for Near-Term Deployment . William G.Rosenberg, July 2004.

Forecasting the Benefits of DOE Programs for Advanced

Fossil-Fuel Electricity Generating Technologies: The EIA High

Fossil Electricity Technology Case. USDOE Office of FossilEnergy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, Office of Systems and Policy Support, October 2002

Gasification: Worldwide Use and Acceptance. U.S. Departmentof Energy, Office of Fossil Energy, National EnergyTechnology Laboratory, Gasification Technologies Council,January 2000

IGCC Outlook. Wall Street Perspective On IGCC Technology.Credit Suisse First Boston, July 2004

Impact of IGCC Investments on Power Company Financials.Deloitte, July 2004

Managing Climate Change and Securing a Future for the

Midwest’s Industrial Base. Midwest Regional CarbonSequestration Partnership. November 16, 2004

NETL Annual Review Meeting. West Coast Regional CarbonSequestration Partnership, n.d.

Strategic Initiatives for Coal & Power . Office of Coal & PowerSystems, U.S. Department of Energy, Coal Utilization ResearchCouncil, Queenstown, MD, April 8, 2004

“Strengthening Global Alliances: Enhancing National EnergySecurity and International Relationships,” National Energy

Policy, Chapter Eight

The Color of Oil: The History, the Money and the Politics of

the World’s Biggest Business. China Energy, January 17, 2003

The Environment: A Rating Agency View of the Effect of Environmental Concerns Upon the Electric Power Industry.Fitch Ratings, July 29, 2004

The Road to Sensible Carbon Sequestration: An Insurance

Policy for the Future. Southern States Energy Board, 2004Chairman’s Forum on Carbon Management in the SouthernStates, Coal Utilization Research Council. Washington, D.C.,May 20, 2004

The Road to Sensible Carbon Sequestration: Insurance Policy

for the Future. Southern States Energy Board 2004 Chairman’sForum on Carbon Management in the Southern States.Washington, D.C., May 20, 2004

The Utility Fuel Economics—National Power Model

Forecasting System. INFORMS Annual Meeting. San Antonio,

TX, November 7, 2000

Tipping Point or Opportunity for Clean Coal Technologies? National Energy Technology Laboratory, February 10, 2004

Tracking New Coal-Fired Power Plants: Coal’s Resurgence in

Electric Power Generation. NETL/DOE, December 22, 2004

U.S. Coal Resources, Use and Technology Needs. Dept. of Energy Facts and Plans of Coal Energy Rates and Uses, n.d.

U.S. Energy Policy: Mercury MACT Discussion. NationalMining Association Briefing with the

Updated Cost and Performance Estimates for Fossil Fuel

Plants with CO2 Removal. Interim Report. U.S. DOE/Office of

Fossil Energy/NETL. December 2002

Wisconsin Energy Proposed IGCC Plant

Lessons Learned : Clean Coal Roundtable,Washington, D.C., July 2004.

Documents

Coal and the US National Security