Currently in the United States, there are more than five hundred coal-fired power plants producing a total of 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year.<
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The total annual CO<
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sequestration and transportation cost for the five hundred coal-fired power plants in the United States can surmount $98.6 billion per year.<
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Therefore, power generation technologies that utilize domestic coal resources while reducing carbon emissions are heavily sought in order to maintain energy security while decreasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Coal gasification can convert domestic coal resources into syngas which can be used in a combined cycle power block to generate power while reducing GHG emissions. In addition, carbon capture and sequestration technologies are more economical in gasification processes than in direct combustion, which reduces capital and maintenance costs for power generation. Under a Department of Energy (DOE) Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program entitled ?Hybrid Solar Coal Gasifier?, (Contract number: DE-SC0008355) Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) designed and developed an innovative, indirectly heated, fuel flexible, heat pipe driven gasification reactor that can be hybridized with concentrated solar power (CSP) towers to further reduce the carbon emissions over current gasification processes. This hybridization of solar and coal gasification technologies helps to bridge the transition from traditional fossil fuel power generation towards systems based on more sustainable, renewable energy resources. The nine month program started on May 28, 2012 and ended March 27, 2013.