Is it going to be possible now? This process seems to work so far in testing and is almost completely pollution free.
Between this and the expanding oil and natural gas exploration plus any gains in wind/solar it would be great if the US could become energy self sufficient. I've seen predictions that just with the increases in oil/gas exploration, plus the more fuel efficient auto fleet, the US could become self sufficient within ten years. This clean coal seems to be a biggie if it works since the US also has huge reserves of coal.
Quotehttp://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/20/coal-cleanest-energy-source-there-is/
Researchers have discovered a stunning new process that takes the energy from coal without burning it -- and removes virtually all of the pollution.
The clean coal technique was developed by scientists at The Ohio State University, with just $5 million in funding from the federal government, and took 15 years to achieve.
"We've been working on this for more than a decade," Liang-Shih Fan, a chemical engineer and director of OSU's Clean Coal Research Laboratory, told FoxNews.com, calling it a new energy conversion process. "We found a way to release the heat from coal without burning."
The process removes 99 percent of the pollution from coal, which some scientists link to global warming. Coal-burning power plants produced about one-third of the nation's carbon dioxide total in 2010, or about 2.3 billion metric tons, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
'We found a way to release the heat from coal without burning.'
- Liang-Shih Fan, a chemical engineer and director of OSU's Clean Coal Research Laboratory
Retrofitting them with the new process would be costly, but it would cut billions of tons of pollution.
"In the simplest sense, conventional combustion is a chemical reaction that consumes oxygen and produces heat," Fan fold FoxNews.com. "Unfortunately, it also produces carbon dioxide, which is difficult to capture and bad for the environment."
And simply put, the new process isn't.
Heating, Not Burning, Coal
Fan discovered a way to heat coal, using iron-oxide pellets for an oxygen source and containing the reaction in a small, heated chamber from which pollutants cannot escape. The only waste product is therefore water and coal ash -- no greenhouse gases. As an added benefit, the metal from the iron-oxide can be recycled.
"Oxidation" is the chemical combination of a substance with oxygen. Contrast this with old-fashioned, coal-fired plants, which use oxygen to burn the coal and generate heat. This in turn makes steam, which turns giant turbines and sends power down electric lines.
The main by-product of that old process — carbon dioxide, known chemically as CO2 — is released through smokestacks into the earth's atmosphere.
Fan's process, called "coal-direct chemical looping," has been proven in a small scale lab at OSU. The next step is to take it to a larger test facility in Alabama, and Fan believes the technology can be commercialized and used to power an energy plant within five to 10 years, if all goes smoothly. The technology generated 25 kilowatts of thermal energy in current tests; the Alabama site will generate 250 kilowatts.
Can Coal Ever Be 'Clean'?
Some environmentalists are skeptical of the technology, and of the idea of clean coal in general.
"Claiming that coal is clean because it could be clean -- if a new technically unproven and economically dubious technology might be adopted -- is like someone claiming that belladonna is not poisonous because there is a new unproven safe pill under development," wrote Donald Brown at liberal think tank Climate Progress.
Yet the federal Department of Energy believes that the process can create 20 megawatts to 50 megawatts by 2020, said Jared Ciferno, the agency's director of coal and power-production research and development, in a statement.
The government plans to continue to support the project, as well as the concept of "clean coal" in general.
Meanwhile, Fan is exploring the possibility of establishing a start-up company and licensing the process to utilities, and has the potential to patent 35 different parts of the process.
Other scientists and experts are enthused about the prospects for this technology.
Yan Feng with Argonne National Laboratory's Environmental Science Division, Climate Research Section, called it "an advancement in chemical engineering. "It is very important that we act on CO2 capturing and sequestration as well as emission controls of other warming agents like tropospheric ozone and black carbon."
Adds Rebecca Taylor, a spokesman for Kingsport, Tenn.-based Eastman Chemical Company, a global Fortune 250 chemical manufacturer that works in clean energy, "researchers continue to uncover innovative ways to use coal efficiently/sustainably."
Concludes Dawei Wang, a research associate at OSU, the technology's potential benefits even go beyond the environment and issues like sustainability.
"The plant could really promote our energy independence. Not only can we use America's natural resources such as Ohio coal, but we can keep our air clean and spur the economy with jobs," he said.
That's only if the energy sector wants to invest in it, and they won't. Hell, it was tough enough to get them to install scrubbers to meet EPA standards, and you know how they feel about building nuclear power plants.
It's a pipe dream.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on February 20, 2013, 04:38:28 PM
That's only if the energy sector wants to invest in it, and they won't. Hell, it was tough enough to get them to install scrubbers to meet EPA standards, and you know how they feel about building nuclear power plants.
It's a pipe dream.
I'm sure we could find a way to incentivize it if we really wanted to.
Quote from: KRonn on February 20, 2013, 04:32:47 PM
Quotehttp://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/20/coal-cleanest-energy-source-there-is/
. . . Yet the federal Department of Energy believes that the process can create 20 megawatts to 50 megawatts by 2020, said Jared Ciferno, the agency's director of coal and power-production research and development, in a statement. . . .
That's nice, but the United States consumes almost 4 billion MWh per year. Assuming constant operation with no downwtime, 50MW would supply 438,000 MWh of that, or just over .01% of consumption needs.
Quote
"Claiming that coal is clean because it could be clean -- if a new technically unproven and economically dubious technology might be adopted -- is like someone claiming that belladonna is not poisonous because there is a new unproven safe pill under development," wrote Donald Brown at liberal think tank Climate Progress.
What question was hippy boy responding to? :huh:
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on February 20, 2013, 04:48:50 PM
Quote from: KRonn on February 20, 2013, 04:32:47 PM
Quotehttp://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/20/coal-cleanest-energy-source-there-is/
. . . Yet the federal Department of Energy believes that the process can create 20 megawatts to 50 megawatts by 2020, said Jared Ciferno, the agency's director of coal and power-production research and development, in a statement. . . .
That's nice, but the United States consumes almost 4 billion MWh per year. Assuming constant operation with no downwtime, 50MW would supply 438,000 MWh of that, or just over .01% of consumption needs.
I'm assuming the Fox news item is badly worded and it's better to look at that 20-50MW vs total installed capacity.
Perhaps even that that's the improvement they're expecting on each large power station, in which case a couple of percentage improvement would be big news and worthy of a report ? :unsure:
edit:
Oops, mis-scanned the OP, seems it's an entirely new process.
So the only thing standing in it's way, assuming it pans out, is the issue of the capital investment in replacing or retro-fitting the existing plants.
Quote... the process can create 20 megawatts to 50 megawatts by 2020...
I'm hoping there's a 'per facility' missing there.
They're working with a 5 million dollar mini-version of what it would be in practice. How well would it scale is a question.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on February 20, 2013, 04:51:15 PM
Quote
"Claiming that coal is clean because it could be clean -- if a new technically unproven and economically dubious technology might be adopted -- is like someone claiming that belladonna is not poisonous because there is a new unproven safe pill under development," wrote Donald Brown at liberal think tank Climate Progress.
What question was hippy boy responding to? :huh:
Who knows, I didn't know people were prescribed belladonna, that is outside of renaissance Italy.
Quote from: fahdiz on February 20, 2013, 04:41:05 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on February 20, 2013, 04:38:28 PM
That's only if the energy sector wants to invest in it, and they won't. Hell, it was tough enough to get them to install scrubbers to meet EPA standards, and you know how they feel about building nuclear power plants.
It's a pipe dream.
I'm sure we could find a way to incentivize it if we really wanted to.
Meh, utilities are dropping fossil fuel plants whenever and wherever they can. I don't see any incentives working for them regarding investing in new technology unless it's a marginal thing that makes the local greens happy.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on February 20, 2013, 05:08:16 PM
They're working with a 5 million dollar mini-version of what it would be in practice. How well would it scale is a question.
Yes, I'm assuming the 20-50MW is the output from prototype facilities.
What they've not saying is what are the necessary energy inputs to get this process going, I can't be just magic, stick these things together and presto low cost energy. Since it's appears to be melting the iron that must be quite a temperature gradient maintain.
Did anyone else notice that the director of OSU's Clean Coal Research Laboratory is a PRC spy?
Quote from: Neil on February 20, 2013, 05:17:29 PM
Did anyone else notice that the director of OSU's Clean Coal Research Laboratory is a PRC spy?
I also noticed they used the definite article.
:hmm:
On the one hand, Kentucky is a state that produces a lot of coal.
On the other, I have a significant position in Entergy, which is a major nuclear operator in the US.
1. When us Chemical Engineers talk about what is colloquially called "burning" we use the word Oxidization.
2. As Minsky pointed out this is a ridiculously small amount of electricity.
3. This process produces the same amount of CO2 as regular coal burning.
4. This process is ridiculously convoluted and user unfriendly.
5. This process manages to capture and segregate all waste products.
Points 1-3 suggest journalistic science illiteracy, point 4 is the reason why the amount of energy in point 2 is so small and point 5 can be achieved by building a flue gas separator in the building next to the power plant using proven technology.
It is not a big deal.
In laymans terms what happens in this process that is different from regular coal burning is that it replaces oxygen from the air with oxygen from rust (that what us chemical engineers call iron-oxide). The rust and coal are then funneled mechanically as solids into the reactor where as with coal water, co2 and nasty shit are produced. The claim here seems to be that the water, co2 and nasty shit can all be captured. Water released, co2 used in carbon sequestering (pumping back into the ground) and the nasty stuff dealt with some other way.
The mechanical transport of solids is bad, since it doesn't work anywhere. You either need lots of men shoveling coal or you need repeated and near constant maintenence. Modern coal power plants grind the coal into coal dust which they then pump into the reactor with air, as a "sandstorm" like process with coal dust rather than sand. The coal dust burns and then the flue gas is then sent on to get rid of the co2 and water in smokestacks and cooling towers allowing the nasty shit to escape. This process promises to prevent the nasty stuff from escaping and that seems to be it's only advantage.
All the goals of this technology can be achieved at lower cost with lower technological difficulty while producing less CO2 by going all in on shale gas and replacing the existing coal reactors with natural gas ones.
This technology only makes sense if you have shitloads of money and no natural gas.
Quote from: Iormlund on February 20, 2013, 05:05:49 PM
Quote... the process can create 20 megawatts to 50 megawatts by 2020...
I'm hoping there's a 'per facility' missing there.
I don't think so:
QuoteThe next step is to take it to a larger test facility in Alabama, and Fan believes the technology can be commercialized and used to power an energy plant within five to 10 years, if all goes smoothly
It looks like they are hoping for a 5-10 year period before the first commercial prototype is up and running.
No one is going to invest billions in reconverting old coal plants before there is a clear demonstration of the technology and firm numbers on capital costs and run costs, including maintenance.
Quote from: Viking on February 20, 2013, 05:22:12 PM
1. When us Chemical Engineers talk about what is colloquially called "burning" we use the word Oxidization.
2. As Minsky pointed out this is a ridiculously small amount of electricity.
3. This process produces the same amount of CO2 as regular coal burning.
4. This process is ridiculously convoluted and user unfriendly.
5. This process manages to capture and segregate all waste products.
Thanks - this helps clarify a lot of the confusion in the article - particularly how the pollutants somehow get trapped in the reaction chamber and then mysteriously seem to vanish from the picture.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on February 20, 2013, 05:56:22 PM
Quote from: Viking on February 20, 2013, 05:22:12 PM
1. When us Chemical Engineers talk about what is colloquially called "burning" we use the word Oxidization.
2. As Minsky pointed out this is a ridiculously small amount of electricity.
3. This process produces the same amount of CO2 as regular coal burning.
4. This process is ridiculously convoluted and user unfriendly.
5. This process manages to capture and segregate all waste products.
Thanks - this helps clarify a lot of the confusion in the article - particularly how the pollutants somehow get trapped in the reaction chamber and then mysteriously seem to vanish from the picture.
Yes, it sounds more like a conjuring trick at the moment than anything else, but I guess addict will latch on to almost any magical solution.
Ohio State. :wub:
Quote from: Viking on February 20, 2013, 05:22:12 PM
1. When us Chemical Engineers talk about what is colloquially called "burning" we use the word Oxidization.
I got in trouble when I said the car was "merely undergoing rapid oxidation", rather then saying it was on fire.
Quote from: mongers on February 20, 2013, 06:02:51 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on February 20, 2013, 05:56:22 PM
Quote from: Viking on February 20, 2013, 05:22:12 PM
1. When us Chemical Engineers talk about what is colloquially called "burning" we use the word Oxidization.
2. As Minsky pointed out this is a ridiculously small amount of electricity.
3. This process produces the same amount of CO2 as regular coal burning.
4. This process is ridiculously convoluted and user unfriendly.
5. This process manages to capture and segregate all waste products.
Thanks - this helps clarify a lot of the confusion in the article - particularly how the pollutants somehow get trapped in the reaction chamber and then mysteriously seem to vanish from the picture.
Yes, it sounds more like a conjuring trick at the moment than anything else, but I guess addict will latch on to almost any magical solution.
It's not a conjuring trick. Coal industry PR and Conservative wishful thinking are the problems here. The science is actually pretty interesting, they have built a solid fire. They are burning coal with rust rather than air. The fascinating bits here are the use of rust for oxidization and the apparently functioning mechanical solid feed to a continuous reactor. The Rust bit presumably only works because rust has a higher chemical potential energy level than carbon dioxide. However you get less bang per unit co2 by burning with rust rather than oxygen. One of the waste products here iron (bizarrely) and no process we know of can produce energy by converting it rust. So, on the whole you get much less power per pound of coal than you do normally. The mechanical feed is probably the most significant part of the process, usually with solids you either have to have a leaky open reactor (which pollutes and is polluted by the surroundings) or an ineffective batch reactor (low efficiency and low effectiveness, basically less reaction per unit mass and more cost per unit mass)
Their tricked out reactor seems to be the most interesting bit here, but, sadly, pointless for power generation.
Quote from: Razgovory on February 20, 2013, 06:10:44 PM
Quote from: Viking on February 20, 2013, 05:22:12 PM
1. When us Chemical Engineers talk about what is colloquially called "burning" we use the word Oxidization.
I got in trouble when I said the car was "merely undergoing rapid oxidation", rather then saying it was on fire.
You were in the right. BTW, I should have gotten into trouble for using Oxid
ization, which is not the correct word, Oxidation is.
Quote from: Ed Anger on February 20, 2013, 06:07:08 PM
Ohio State. :wub:
Yes, all those researchers have very distinctly historical Buckeye names.
So maybe this new clean tech isn't as doable as the scientists lead us to believe. Besides, with so much natural gas being produced in the US now coal plants are changing to gas which is cheaper and a lot cleaner.
Still though, if the technology pans out maybe it will be put to use. But with cheaper alternatives like natural gas it might be a hard sell to go with new coal tech.
Quote from: Neil on February 20, 2013, 05:17:29 PM
Did anyone else notice that the director of OSU's Clean Coal Research Laboratory is a PRC spy?
He's Isreali?
Quote from: Ed Anger on February 20, 2013, 09:09:27 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on February 20, 2013, 09:05:56 PM
Quote from: Ed Anger on February 20, 2013, 06:07:08 PM
Ohio State. :wub:
Yes, all those researchers have very distinctly historical Buckeye names.
U jelly.
They've probably committed NCAA violations during their research anyway.
CLEAN COAL = NO BOWL
:lol:
Ching Ching got some tats.
Coal is dead in this country, shut down West Virginia and cede it back to the Old Dominion. Make Puerto Rico a state to keep the number at 50.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on February 21, 2013, 05:24:38 AM
Coal is dead in this country
:rolleyes:
Also, I'm pretty sure Virginia wouldn't
want West Virginia back. Yay, shitloads of welfare trash to support!
Quote from: Caliga on February 21, 2013, 09:45:20 AM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on February 21, 2013, 05:24:38 AM
Coal is dead in this country
:rolleyes:
Also, I'm pretty sure Virginia wouldn't want West Virginia back. Yay, shitloads of welfare trash to support!
They'd rather have them then the affluent northerners who have migrated into the Washington Metro area.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on February 21, 2013, 05:24:38 AM
Coal is dead in this country, shut down West Virginia and cede it back to the Old Dominion. Make Puerto Rico a state to keep the number at 50.
Thanks, Phil.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on February 21, 2013, 03:21:48 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on February 21, 2013, 05:24:38 AM
Coal is dead in this country, shut down West Virginia and cede it back to the Old Dominion. Make Puerto Rico a state to keep the number at 50.
Thanks, Phil.
Phil would have posted an uninformative picture.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on February 21, 2013, 05:24:38 AM
Coal is dead in this country, shut down West Virginia and cede it back to the Old Dominion. Make Puerto Rico a state to keep the number at 50.
It would make more sense to merge the Dakotas...or RI and Connecticut. Hell, lump both of those into Massachusetts and split California in two, or make Guam a state as well.
Tack on the US Virgin Islands to PR while we're at it.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on February 21, 2013, 05:17:53 PM
Quote from: Caliga on February 21, 2013, 09:45:20 AM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on February 21, 2013, 05:24:38 AM
Coal is dead in this country
:rolleyes:
Cheap natural gas is killing it.
As demand for Natural gas increases so will price, and as demand for coal decreases so will price. So, no coal won't be going anywhere soon.
Quote from: Razgovory on February 21, 2013, 06:12:38 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on February 21, 2013, 05:17:53 PM
Quote from: Caliga on February 21, 2013, 09:45:20 AM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on February 21, 2013, 05:24:38 AM
Coal is dead in this country
:rolleyes:
Cheap natural gas is killing it.
As demand for Natural gas increases so will price, and as demand for coal decreases so will price. So, no coal won't be going anywhere soon.
You have no idea how much shale gas there is out there; at least an order of magnitude, possibly more, than there is coal. The price of natural gas has fallen so much that it is just above production cost. Shale gas is a direct reason why a couple of large gas projects in the arctic (producing more expensive gas) were cancelled and later the collapse in the gas price is the reason that larger international oil and gas companies have scrapped their plans not only for shale gas but also conventional natural gas projects in the us.
Clean coal my Yankee ass.
Besides, we're about to get buttfucked by a new lignite-burning coal power plant in Kemper County, MS, which will add a whopping 18.7% price increase to all MS Power customers, based on dubious technology. I'm seriously thinking about going off the grid, since this means an annual increase of roughly $300 in my electrical bill, forever, starting this year.
http://www.biggerpieforum.org/blog/kemper-natural-gas-price-comparisons
Fuckers.
We're buying a natural gas range for the house, and seriously considering installing a natural gas clothes dryer.
Quote from: Scipio on February 25, 2013, 02:23:00 PM
We're buying a natural gas range for the house, and seriously considering installing a natural gas clothes dryer.
Stick it to the man!
Quote from: Viking on February 21, 2013, 06:42:45 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on February 21, 2013, 06:12:38 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on February 21, 2013, 05:17:53 PM
Quote from: Caliga on February 21, 2013, 09:45:20 AM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on February 21, 2013, 05:24:38 AM
Coal is dead in this country
:rolleyes:
Cheap natural gas is killing it.
As demand for Natural gas increases so will price, and as demand for coal decreases so will price. So, no coal won't be going anywhere soon.
You have no idea how much shale gas there is out there; at least an order of magnitude, possibly more, than there is coal. The price of natural gas has fallen so much that it is just above production cost. Shale gas is a direct reason why a couple of large gas projects in the arctic (producing more expensive gas) were cancelled and later the collapse in the gas price is the reason that larger international oil and gas companies have scrapped their plans not only for shale gas but also conventional natural gas projects in the us.
Actually I didn't. This is your area of expertise, what will happen to the coal market?
Quote from: Scipio on February 25, 2013, 02:23:00 PM
Clean coal my Yankee ass.
Besides, we're about to get buttfucked by a new lignite-burning coal power plant in Kemper County, MS, which will add a whopping 18.7% price increase to all MS Power customers, based on dubious technology. I'm seriously thinking about going off the grid, since this means an annual increase of roughly $300 in my electrical bill, forever, starting this year.
http://www.biggerpieforum.org/blog/kemper-natural-gas-price-comparisons
Fuckers.
We're buying a natural gas range for the house, and seriously considering installing a natural gas clothes dryer.
Yeah, but isn't that probably just corruption in your government?
Quote from: Razgovory on February 25, 2013, 04:37:48 PM
Actually I didn't. This is your area of expertise, what will happen to the coal market?
Economically what is happening in the US natural gas market should be on the level of the fantasy "somebody invents a car that runs on water". Political interference aside... Coal power plants should operate until their planned decomissioning date at which point they will either shut down or get upgraded to gas burning, that is unless the environmental movement manages to tamper with this process and keep them burning coal.
Coal mining in europe is only kept alive with subsidies and the problematic politics of russia and algeria. The EU's primary objective in gas policy is diversity of supply so that it won't be at the mercy of russian caprice or algerian psychopathic murdering religious nutjobs. This is why most of the norwegian contracts are usually well over the price paid to gazprom or algeria, it's good to be stable and reliable. Thatcher was able to take on the miners unions in part because britain was switching over from coal to gas. This is one of the reasons why the UK is the (nontrivial) european country that is closest to meeting it's kyoto commitments.
Coal is a political hot potato. So I'm not going to predict what will happen. But, if Mark Ruffalo teams up with Mike Duncan (former RNC chair and coal industry lobbyist) they might just manage to keep US power generation expensive, polluting and unreliable.
I think we can count on the Republicans to back the most perverse and least helpful option.
I will take Vikings word for it. :)
Quote from: Neil on February 25, 2013, 07:39:24 PM
I think we can count on the Republicans to back the most perverse and least helpful option.
And you think Monarchists will choose a less perverse and less helpful one?
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on February 25, 2013, 07:55:05 PM
Quote from: Viking on February 25, 2013, 07:52:32 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on February 25, 2013, 07:46:51 PM
I will take Vikings word for it. :)
There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet. :osama:
Christopher Hitchens kept saying that the Shahada was precisely 7 words too long.
How witty.
Quote from: Viking on February 25, 2013, 07:51:20 PM
Quote from: Neil on February 25, 2013, 07:39:24 PM
I think we can count on the Republicans to back the most perverse and least helpful option.
And you think Monarchists will choose a less perverse and less helpful one?
No. Monarchists are the best.
Quote from: Razgovory on February 25, 2013, 04:37:48 PM
Actually I didn't. This is your area of expertise, what will happen to the coal market?
US producers will probably have to try and export it to overseas markets like China.
Hitchens should rethink that. "Mohammed is his prophet" is kinda ambiguous by itself.