Coal Consumption and Its Waste Product in Malaysia
Nowadays Malaysia promotes coal as an option for fuel in electric power generation. Coal is a secondary important energy after gas in Malaysia. In year 2010, about 40% of electric power in Malaysia will generated by coal-fired power plant compared to year 1999 and 2003 with about 8% and 25% respectively (Energy Commission Malaysia, 2006). Increasing of electricity demand has led to increase the coal consumption and thus significantly produced more coal waste products.
Coal fired power plants in Peninsular Malaysia
At present, in Peninsular Malaysia have four coal fired power plants which are Jimah (2 x 752 MW), Manjung (3 x 700MW), Tanjung Bin (3 x 748 MW) and Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz (4 x 300MW, 2 x 500 MW). Sarawak has two coal fired power plants which are Mukah (2 x 135MW) and Sejingkat (2 x 50MW, 2 x 55MW) (Coal-Fired Power Plants in Malaysia, 2010). Each of those coal fired power plants produced large quantity of coal waste products. In this study, the source of bottom ash is taken from Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Power Station the major power station in Kapar, Klang region of peninsular Malaysia and located in Kapar, Selangor.
Further study to maximize the use of coal ash is needed !
Therefore, further study to maximize the use of coal ash is needed such as in construction industry can be a good alternative since large volume of utilization coal ash is required. Before this, several studies and researches have shown that coal ash has good engineering characteristics for geotechnical applications and was successfully used for highway embankments, fill material, improvement of soils behavior, road subgrade construction etc.
