IGCC demonstration plant at Nakoso Power Station, Iwaki City, Japan.

The article presents information on the expansion of coal-fired power plants in Japan. It informs that Japan tripled its installed coal-fired generating capacity from 8,000 MW in 1988 to 23,400 MW in 2004. For Japan, which lacks indigenous coal reserves, one of the big attractions of Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power plants is their ability to burn imported coal feedstocks whose low fusion temperatures would wreak havoc on a conventional pulverized coal (PC) furnace. The design of a demonstration plant began in 2001, and an environmental impact assessment of it was submitted in June 2004. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) supplied the plant's gasifier and desulfurization system, its steam turbine and gas turbine, and its heat-recovery steam generator (HRSG).