New Process Takes Energy From Coal Without Burning It 365
rtoz writes "Ohio State students have come up with a scaled-down version of a power plant combustion system with a unique experimental design--one that chemically converts coal to heat while capturing 99 percent of the carbon dioxide produced in the reaction. Typical coal-fired power plants burn coal to heat water to make steam, which turns the turbines that produce electricity. In chemical looping, the coal isn't burned with fire, but instead chemically combusted in a sealed chamber so that it doesn't pollute the air. This new technology, called coal-direct chemical looping, was pioneered by Liang-Shih Fan, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and director of Ohio State's Clean Coal Research Laboratory."
Scaling is the Key! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:5, Interesting)
just build it bigger!
Or if that can't be done economically, just build millions of little ones!
Oh that's not economically feasible either because each one requires a lot of labor to build? Hmm.... *thinks*
Ok let's just forget about the whole thing and go nuclear.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:4, Insightful)
In principal I have no problem with the government subsidizing energy, just as long as it subsidizes the right stuff. Efficiency improvements and clean energy are fine, gas and nuclear not so much.
Re: (Score:3)
What's wrong with subsidizing nuclear? It is one way to clean energy.
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:4, Insightful)
If they raise taxes to implement whatever clean energy you prefer, but prevent climate change, a lot more people will come out ahead on that transaction than lose out. The only reason we're not already doing it is that the few would-be-losers are being astonishingly selfish and short-sighted.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe it's diamonds. Boy, are those Belgian airport thieves going to be pissed.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:4, Insightful)
there is a reason why China is gonna have 25 new nuclear reactors up and running before we get a single one out of committee
And that reason is quite simply, China does not care about it's people.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:5, Insightful)
"Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" (ST reference) is the basic theme of China.
You are forgetting that most of the western world, having industrialised earlier has been through the "let's trash the environment" stage, and after decades of rivers which burn or stink so badly they make a capital city nearly uninhabitable or spills of toxic waste which cause all sorts of nasty deaths, the western countries have solwly and painfully come to the realisation that it's actually not a very good idea to do all that.
I think this has little to do with cultural values and much to do with industrialisation being difficult and because it is easier to mess things up than not, and therefore comes earlier on in the process.
Also, it's a product of industrialising countries nort really quite realising how much they can mess stuff up until they experience it.
Re: (Score:3)
According to the process flow diagram, it's just compressed CO2 and water as the output. I assume the CO2 would be bottled and used for the various uses it is currently for.
Re: (Score:3)
The CO2 can be used as such [scientificamerican.com]
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:5, Funny)
It wouldn't work, anyways. Bullshit has a lower energy density than coal.
But coal is a finite resource. Washington DC alone proves there is an unlimited supply of bullshit.
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, but it contains a lot of hot air, so you can use that to drive a turbine. Unless they sell it first.
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:5, Interesting)
The part that worried me was more the fact that CO2 was still produced, it was just contained within the chamber (the benefit of their technique seemed to just be less/no air space required in the chamber).
Sequestering CO2 is not simple, and is currently done mostly by pumping it into used oil fields. It's not certain whether these costs were factored in.
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:5, Interesting)
Coal is 84% carbon, 10% oxygen, 4% hydrogen, and 2% nitrogen (or so). Short of nuclear fission or fusion, you're going to get carbon and oxygen out of it no matter what you do.
The question is how much energy you get out. If this process were twice as efficient (in terms of CO2 per MW) then it would still be a worthwhile improvement wouldn't it?
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:5, Informative)
You are forgetting the other part of the reaction. Air is 78% Nitrogen and 21% Oxygen. In this reaction the Iron removes the Oxygen from the air before it gets into the reactor. So no Nitrogen in the reactor means NOx and no Nitrogen gas to remove from the waste stream.
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:4, Insightful)
Coal is 84% carbon, 10% oxygen, 4% hydrogen, and 2% nitrogen (or so). Short of nuclear fission or fusion, you're going to get carbon and oxygen out of it no matter what you do.
Now there's an idea. You'd actually get more energy running the 0.0...whatever percent thorium that's in coal through a fission reactor than you do by oxidizing the carbon.
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:5, Interesting)
Sequestering CO2 is not simple, and is currently done mostly by pumping it into used oil fields. It's not certain whether these costs were factored in.
Sequestering it is a lot simpler if you can simply draw if off the top of the CLOSED chamber rather than trying to scrub it out of the stack.
You've got half the battle won already.
What to do with it long term is another problem. But its a problem you would have anyway, so having the CO2 handed to you all
contained is better than where we are today.
Besides coal ash, it appears CO2 is the only by-produce that is not recycled back into the feed-stock.
But, hey, Clean Coal stories have to be knocked down immediately. We can't have it prove even partially successful under any /rollseyes.
circumstance.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
What to do with it long term is another problem. But its a problem you would have anyway, so having the CO2 handed to you all
contained is better than where we are today.
There are plenty of industrial uses for CO2 and carbon.
Having it handed to you on a platter is great news.
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:4, Informative)
Sequestering CO2 is easy. You just don't have a clue how it works. The CO2 is pumped into abandon oil fields at VERY high pressures. This actually results in a return of the field to oil production, as the CO2 forces out more oil. The hydrostatic pressure at that depth is so great that it forces the CO2 into its liquid form. It's not going to suddenly escape to the surfaces, it's miles down and under unfathomable pressure. If we had an earthquake strong enough to crack that, we'd have far more to worry about. Like the really nasty gasses getting released from natural fissures or the earth splitting asunder.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Better to put the CO2 into a stable form rather than just 'another place'.
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:5, Informative)
It's not going to suddenly escape to the surfaces, it's miles down and under unfathomable pressure. If we had an earthquake strong enough to crack that, we'd have far more to worry about.
If you think that nothing could happen, read about Lake Nyos disaster [wikipedia.org].
RTFA-ing is the Key! (Score:5, Informative)
The researchers are about to take their technology to the next level: a larger-scale pilot plant is under construction at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Carbon Capture Center in Wilsonville, AL. Set to begin operations in late 2013, that plant will produce 250 thermal kilowatts using syngas.
From 25 kw to 250kw
Sounds like they're scaling it up.
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure where this process generates syngas. I think you are confusing two different technologies.
Re:RTFA-ing is the Key! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:4, Informative)
Sounds nice, except for the 'combusted in a sealed chamber' bit. How is this going to scale up so they can feed 100 tons/hr through the plant cycle? That is the question.
The key to the technology is the use of tiny metal beads to carry oxygen to the fuel to spur the chemical reaction. For CDCL, the fuel is coal that’s been ground into a powder, and the metal beads are made of iron oxide composites. The coal particles are about 100 micrometers across—about the diameter of a human hair—and the iron beads are larger, about 1.5-2 millimeters across. Chung likened the two different sizes to talcum powder and ice cream sprinkles, though the mix is not nearly so colorful.
The coal and iron oxide are heated to high temperatures, where the materials react with each other. Carbon from the coal binds with the oxygen from the iron oxide and creates carbon dioxide, which rises into a chamber where it is captured.
They ran this for 9 days straight. They only stopped because they were tired. Scaling it up probably is not that much of a problem.
The bigger problem might be obtaining both the fuel and the oxidizers in quantity economically.
Coal powered that finely would be rather dangerous, because it has so much surface area. Exposure to air, any spark could set it
off. Handling it would require special care never to let it flow around or accumulate around the crushers. They might have to
make it in a slurry just for safety, then waste more heat drying it before use.
TFA shows them handling bottles of it, and even then they are wearing masks.
Re: (Score:2)
You really don't want any sort of small powder to get in your lungs. Coal is not particularly dangerous.
Coal contains small amounts of mercury, but not much more so than most other natural ores. The problem with
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:5, Informative)
Coal powered that finely would be rather dangerous, because it has so much surface area. Exposure to air, any spark could set it off.
Uh, yoohoo, over here! [wikipedia.org] They already use coal dust in existing coal burning power plants. I think they have the processing handling issues down for that bit. And, there hasn't been a major coal dust accident since 1962.
BTW, for those that trashed my 'we need to stop burning stuff' [slashdot.org] comments regarding how we generate energy. THIS is exactly what I meant. Applause for the researchers. If this does scale and proves out, they should get a Nobel for it!
'Nuf said.
Re: (Score:2)
This is the kind of science that will save us from Global warming. I know how grand Solar and wind seem grand, but they aren't powering shit yet. Germany is the shining start of renewable energy right now, and they have 20 old school coal fired plants scheduled to be built in the next few decades. We have a LOT of coal. If there's a clean way to use it, we sure as hell better try. It's going to get used one way or another, and 99% efficiency with easy CO2 sequester seems like a pretty smart way to do it.
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:4, Interesting)
Wind is powering all sorts of "shit" in Europe. Denmark is pushing about 28% penetration of wind into their power market and many of the surrounding countries have penetrations of 10-20%. And they are building a hell of a lot of offshore wind farms.
Just because the U.S. is slow to get off its ass doesn't mean the rest of the world is.
Re: (Score:2)
Pipebomb scalability is limited only by your imagination and supplies on hand.
Know how I know you didn't read the article? (Score:5, Interesting)
From TFA:
No other lab has continuously operated a coal-direct chemical looping unit as long as the Ohio State lab did last September. But as doctoral student Elena Chung explained, the experiment could have continued.
“We voluntarily chose to stop the unit. We actually could have run longer, but honestly, it was a mutual decision by Dr. Fan and the students. It was a long and tiring week where we all shared shifts,” she said.
Fan agreed that the nine-day experiment was a success. “In the two years we’ve been running the sub-pilot plants, our CDCL and SCL units have achieved a combined 830 operating hours, which clearly demonstrates the reliability and operability of our design,” he said.
His entire staff of grad students manned the thing and kept feeding it coal for a week and it ran nonstop the whole time, and could have kept going. So this appears to be a solved problem.
Re: (Score:3)
How much babysitting would a much bigger reactor need?
No more than the automated machinery that is currently used in coal plants can already provide. The industrial revolution isn't exactly new, this is just a refinement of an existing tech.
Re:Scaling is the Key! (Score:4, Informative)
As this is chemical, and not combustion, (yes yes, sealed chamber...) it should not take up as nearly as much land as required by current plants. Also, just think of all the job creation all those small power plants will require!!!
Any chemist will tell you that combustion is a chemical reaction. What's interesting about this process is that oxidized iron is used to provide oxygen to "burn" the coal instead of injecting air into the combustion chamber. Not using air lowers the overall gaseous output you need to deal with and the output is a bit cleaner as you don't have to scrub some of the crap like NOX out. You still get sulfur compounds and the heavy metals you'd see with traditional burning.
You keep using that word... (Score:4, Informative)
Verb
1. Consume by fire.
2. Be consumed by fire.
Re:You keep using that word... (Score:5, Informative)
A better word might have been "oxidized" but the good professor probably was trying not to confuse the journalism major
who wrote the story with words too big for their tiny world view.
Lots of CO2 is produced, but it is retained in the chamber and captured, and oxygen and coal are fed in continuously.
They operated it for 9 days straight.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, the writer [osu.edu], Pam Frost Gorder, is no dummy, but she knows who she is writing for.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Combustion (pron.: /kmbs.tn/) or burning is the sequence of exothermic chemical reactions between a fuel and an oxidant accompanied by the production of heat and conversion of chemical species.
Re: (Score:3)
"Conversion of chemical species" is just another term for "reaction", and "production of heat" through a reaction is the same thing as "exothermic", and a shorter term for "chemical reactions between a fuel and an oxidant" is "oxidation". Thus to put it even shorter: combustion is exothermic oxidation.
Chill mate.
My point in reply to PP: "combustion does not require fire"
(as I'm growing old, I don't feel the same geekish urge to be absolutely exact - sometime I don't feel the need of being right)
.
huge costs (Score:2, Insightful)
"New technologies that use fossil fuels should not raise the cost of electricity more than 35 percent, while still capturing more than 90 percent of the resulting carbon dioxide. Based on the current tests with the research-scale plants, Fan and his team believe that they can meet or exceed that requirement"
good luck selling that
Other factors to consider (Score:5, Interesting)
How does the lack of pollution from the process compare against that generated from the acquisition of the coal?
Is it possible/practical to convert an existing coal power plant?
Is there an appreciable energy/pollution cost to produce the fine powder coal used in the process?
How much energy is consumed or how much pollution is produced in transporting the coal to the reactor?
Is the process itself efficient in regards to the energy output when compared against the total energy costs?
I'm sure there's a lot of other things that don't spring to mind instantly, but I'm certainly not an expert on any of this. Doubts notwithstanding, this is pretty cool.
Re: (Score:3)
I'll bite...
"How does the lack of pollution from the process compare against that generated from the acquisition of the coal?"
In many places, coal is mined using giant shovels that are electrically powered. Underground mines also tend to use electric shovels and other machinery, though not all. From the mine pit or shafts, its either directly loaded into train cars or haul trucks to trains cars. So its pretty much the same.
"Is it possible/practical to convert an existing coal power plant?"
Imp
No emission-less (Score:5, Informative)
Its not emission-less. If you read his presentation from 2008 you'll see that the C02 is the byproduct of the reaction that is is used to transfer heat to the steam boiler. The C02 still gets generated as before, just now it can be more readily sequestered - assuming that you want to spend the money on that part of the equation.
Coal Direct Chemical Looping Retrofit for Pulverized Coal-fired Power Plants with In-Situ CO2 Capture [doe.gov] (PDF - but why the hell in this day and age do I need t tell you that? Can't you just look at the link?)
Re:No emission-less (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if you don't sequester the carbon and just put it out a smoke stack you're still at an advantage over normal coal burning. One of the major problems with coal burning is not the CO2, but the fly ash that contains heavy metals and causes respiratory problems. This process allows for those heavy metals to be contained in the coal ash which is kept within the plant. Depending on the concentration of metals in the ash it may be economical to mine the ash.
Additionally since the CO2 is pure it can be used industrially without having to distill out the nitrogen that you would if you got it from regular burning.
Re: (Score:3)
Almost every byproduct of coal burning except the CO2 is a viable commodity these days.
Then why are there so many multi-million gallon fly ash ponds that can be seen from space?
Sounds like rubbish (Score:3)
So it captured 99% of the CO2 in a vessel. Great! Now what does it do with it? Vent it to the atmosphere for zero gain?
Or use some magic zero energy cost process to convert it to chalk or something? Guess the article was missing that.
This is like Sasha Cohen's Hoverboard invention - it's a plank that real scientists can figure out how to levitate. Can I have venture capital?
Re: (Score:3)
99% of the CO2 as a pure gas. That pure CO2 can be converted to methanol (at what cost?) ala:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=turning-carbon-dioxide-back-into-fuel [scientificamerican.com]
If not commercially viable as fuel stock it could be used for a variety of applications that adulterated CO2 can not.
Re: (Score:3)
Spend energy to convert CO2 to another fuel. Great. That has nothing to do with the article unless "unadulterated CO2" is something important. Unfortunately, "unadulterated CO2" is not exciting: it's cheap and hardly more useful than adulterated CO2.
Thanks for playing.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Pump it into algae tubes to make fuel out of.
Like the Redhawk powerplant does.
What happens to the carbon dioxide? (Score:3, Insightful)
Another important question is the efficiency. Are they able to produce the same amount of electrical energy from each ton of coal as traditional methods? If their efficiency is worse, then I am very unimpressed. If their efficiency is better, then that may be a more interesting story than that of capturing the carbon dioxide.
Re: (Score:2)
The CO2 can be fed to algae tanks to continue another energy production process. It would be easier than doing the same with traditional coal plant if the CO2 is clean and not mixed with ash etc.
Re: (Score:3)
The CO2 can be fed to algae tanks to continue another energy production process. It would be easier than doing the same with traditional coal plant if the CO2 is clean and not mixed with ash etc.
And when you burn the oil you got from the algae that formerly fossil CO2 is now in our atmosphere. So maybe you got more energy per ton of CO2 out of it than we normally would. You're still filling the atmosphere with fossil carbon.
'Clean coal' is marketing, pure and simple.
Re: (Score:3)
well, they could set up a bunch of PV panels to capture sunlight into electricity, and split the CO2 into carbon and oxygen using catalyzed electrolysis. Release the oxygen into the atmosphere, and just dump the carbon into the ground or something.
Or they could scrap the whole coal part of stuff and just use the PV to move those electrons around directly. Adding the PV to the coal system would be less efficient since you are basically using the PV system to reverse the coal system anyway. If the coal system produces X amount of electrical energy releasing Y tonnes of CO2, it is going to take a lot more than X amount of PV electrical energy (I would guess at least 5X being very conservative) in order to turn those Y tonnes of CO2 back into carbon and
Great! (Score:2)
I think I figured it out (Score:3)
Reading between the lines the difference is you aren't getting air into the reactor. So you don't have to heat and separate the Nitrogen. It says the iron pebbles are exposed to air in the reactor but I don't think that is entirely accurate. I think they are exposed after they give up their oxygen to the carbon and are still hot but outside of the actual reactor. This would provide an easy way to chemical way to separate the oxygen from the nitrogen. So the only gaseous byproduct is pure CO2 not CO2 mixed with Nitrogen which is harder to process.
I could be wrong.
I love the quote in the article (Score:2, Insightful)
“Unfortunately, it also produces carbon dioxide, which is difficult to capture and bad for the environment"
Without carbon dioxide, the carbon cycle wouldn't exist and all plants and animals would die.
Without "Burning" but it's "combusted" ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Last I checked, burning is combustion.
Nor do I understand what the hell is advantageous about it. They admit to oxidiation of the hydrocarbons (ie, burning), heating it to high temperature, and the release of CO2 gas. So exactly what is so great about it?
What happens to produced CO2 (Score:3)
Coal is an amazing source of power (Score:5, Interesting)
They still burn the coal (Score:4, Interesting)
This means they can burn the coal hotter without emitting dangerous amounts of NOx.
1. They let iron pellets rust. Or they buy rust in the first place.
2. They put the rust pellets into the chamber with coal dust.
3. They ignite the mixture (this requires a bit more heat than usual burning. At least 1566 ÂC or 2850.8 F)
4. The coal dust pulls the oxygen out of the rust and binds it with the carbon into quite pure CO2.
5. Heat (a lot of it)
6. Use the heat in a default thermoelectric power plant.
7. The pellets can rust again, to capture oxygen.
8.
9. Profit.
If they would combine it with an iron smelting plant then the energy required in step 4 to pull the oxygen out of the rust would not be wasted. Then the iron pellets are one of the end results. Of course, then you'd have to emit step 7.
To me this seems familiar. If I am correct this is the way Thermite works, just with aluminium powder instead of coal dust.
Re: Bullshit (Score:5, Funny)
I love reasons! Care to share?
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Coal isn't clean though. This would clean up the side of the equation where you're burning it. But, it would do absolutely nothing for the mining aspect of it. Which is a huge mess as it stands. If you want to burn things for energy, you're better off starting with something like trees which are mostly carbon neutral as it is.
Sure, it's technically clean if you ignore the incredible damage that it reeks on the landscape, but it's definitely not clean in a practical sense.
Re: (Score:3)
Maybe it will. I haven't read the article but there have already been trials where coal is burnt in-situ via using horizontal drilling and air injection. Apparently that works so long as you have full control of all the air getting in.
Also, (as I keep telling the fanboys here of 1970's nuclear who don't have the merest clue about developments since), there is not really such a thing as a "clean" industrial process - that's just stupid PR. Al
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Hence PR bullshit and a barrier to communication instead of normal language. Just treat such statements as a red flag to indicate that you cannot take the speaker at their word and need a second opinion - the word "clean" is only ever in there to mislead, if it wasn't you'd see "less pollution than X" instead of misleading bullshit.
Of course things can be improved but whenever you see "clean" the objective is to improve the perception instead of the reality. One of the place
Re: (Score:3)
It only cleans up the burning side if we have something to do with all that CO2 that this process produces.
Re: (Score:3)
The problem is that the system has changed since the carbon was taken out of the system. Reintroducing it in such massive quantities over such a short period of time changes things too rapidly for species to adapt to.
Methane emissions are a very serious problem as well, but that has fuck all to do with power generation. You can use methane to produce power, but that's got nothing to do with being carbon neutral.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've always been confused by "Carbon Neutral" propaganda. For example, we have always had the same amount of carbon in the environment. Just over the years it's been sequestered into oil/coal/etc. However, now if it's been out of commission for thousands of years and it's somehow out of the equation. So burning oil/coal/etc is just normalizing the balance.
No, no, no! You missed the biggest sink for carbon. The one that is orders of magnitude greater than all the others put together: limestone (60 million gigatons vs the 720 gigatons in the atmosphere and the 38,000 gigatons in the oceans). If you think that normalizing the balance with all of the carbon that has been taken out of the environment is a good thing, then you must be from Venus.
Re:Um, WHY? (Score:5, Informative)
There is no burning. Apparently that is the key innovation. The chemical reaction between the coal dust and the rust pellets releases the CO2 in a very controlled manner with the CO2 being separated cleanly rather than mixed up with smoke aka carbon molecules. That must make the CO2 capture much much easier.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Coal is oxidized to produce CO2 and heat. That's "burning", regardless of whether you use air or iron oxides as the oxidizer.
Re:Um, WHY? (Score:5, Informative)
Coal is oxidized to produce CO2 and heat. That's "burning", regardless of whether you use air or iron oxides as the oxidizer.
Ummm, sorry, I'm gonna have to go with the Ph.D. in Chemistry [ohio-state.edu] on this one buddy, and he says it's NOT burning. I would not call your comment, Informative. Uninformed, but not informative. Ooo, that's a t-shirt right there...
Re:Um, WHY? (Score:5, Informative)
Why not just burn coal and air in an oven and capture the CO2
Because only part of the air gets converted to CO2. Most of the air is nitrogen, and only ~21% is oxygen. Even if you have complete conversion of the oxygen to CO2 (not going to happen), you'd end up with exhaust gas that's mostly nitrogen with some carbon dioxide mixed in. This nitrogen/carbon dioxide mix is difficult to deal with. To do anything with the CO2 you'd have to separate it from the nitrogen and residual oxygen, which gets complicated and expensive.
The hard part is surely the CO2 capture, not the burning.
Exactly. This new method attempts solve that by separating the CO2 generation stage from the air-using stage. If you could effectively separate them, you'll get a pure CO2 stream in one half of the reactor (which if you can keep closed you can pump off into storage tanks) and you'll keep the nitrogen/depleted-oxygen mix in the other half of the reactor, away from your pure CO2.
The way it works is to use iron oxide as an oxygen shuttle. The iron oxide pellets grab oxygen from the air half of the reactor, and are then transferred as a relatively gas-free solid to the coal half of the reactor, where they give up their oxygen to produce a relatively pure stream of CO2. The pellets are then separated from the coal ash and transferred as a relatively gas-free solid back to the air half of the reactor, where they are recharged with oxygen. If you engineer it right, you could conceivably make it a continuous feed operation, where you shuttle the iron oxide beads back and forth through airlocks, keeping most of the CO2 in the sealed reactor where it can be pumped off as a comparatively pure gas.
Re: (Score:3)
I think it is because when you burn in air (Mostly Nitrogen) you create NOx compounds. When you burn your exhaust gas contains lots of nitrogen which you have to remove the CO2 from to process. It seems they are using rust as a way to take the oxygen out of the air first so when it reactions with the carbon you get pure CO2 which can easily be compressed without having to deal with Nitrogen and it's oxides.
Re: Oh Rly? (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
What Virginia mountains? I don't know what you are talking about, I don't see any....
If you're in Virginia, you've probably been to Walmart. Seen the customers?
Re:Like healthy citarettes (Score:5, Insightful)
We already burn a crap load of coal for our electricity. Wouldn't it be great if we worked to make it clean-er ( at least in terms of soot and mercury released into the air)? There isn't much on the horizon that could replace coal over night. We should try to find something will all due haste, but it wouldn't hurt to get the low hanging fruit. Its pretty much what Obama is doing now and its a sensible approach.
Re: (Score:2)
We already burn a crap load of coal for our electricity. Wouldn't it be great if we worked to make it clean-er ( at least in terms of soot and mercury released into the air)?
I'm no expert on coal power plants but I'm pretty sure we already do that with scrubbers.
There isn't much on the horizon that could replace coal over night. We should try to find something will all due haste, but it wouldn't hurt to get the low hanging fruit.
Maybe not on the horizon but there is certainly something that has been around for 50+ years that could replace coal overnight. It's called nuclear power.
Its pretty much what Obama is doing now and its a sensible approach.
Is he? I feel like its more about politics than actually solving anything. Instead of pumping money into "green" start-up companies that inevitably spread the wealth among their executives and then disappear in a puff of smoke, the federal government could subsidize th
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
You realize that a decade ago, europe had access to cheap CNG too. And now it doesn't. And many places in Europe also have restrictions on wood burning as well, and it's now gotten to the point where local governments are no longer enforcing laws on it because the options are 'let people freeze to death' or 'let them illegally cut wood.' Just keep those ideas right going along, never mind that there's a million people in Germany that can't afford electricity because of green energy projects either. Or t
Re: (Score:3)
Normal coal burning plants could collect all their exhaust as well. It would cost part of their energy output, but not all
The problem is the other gasses after passing through the combustion chamber, which you may not want to pay for compressing and sequestring. The 78% nitrogen in the atmospheric air will still be there after burning and will contribute to the increased cost.
I wonder if the extra cost of pulverizing the carbon to 0.1mm particle size is a proper offset for the CO2 separation cost from air based combustion.
Also, since the oxygen is delivered bound to iron, the total energy generated but this process will be s
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder how you would go separating oxygen from nitrogen before combustion, then burning the coal on pure oxygen, though I suppose that is the process described in the article.
Re: (Score:3)
Not only does the system cost a lot of money, it also produces less power per unit of coal.\
There's also the cost of dealing with the captured CO2 as well. If you don't want to spend even more money storing it somewhere you'll have to let it go. There's also more CO2 to get rid of, because it's a less efficient system.
Re: (Score:3)
The iron is not a consumable. It is just used to carry oxygen and is re-used.
The problem I see is its much more expensive and reduces the amount of usable energy in the coal. More coal is consumed. You've captured all the CO2 but you still also need to spend more money to deal with it long term.
Re:Efficiency is the key flaw (Score:5, Informative)
It's 2.5% less efficient than a normal coat power station.
Normal plant: 36.43%
This thing: 33.93%
It actually produces 10% more power from the turbine, but the supporting pumps, fans and compressors need to be powered.
Actually capturing is the key (Score:5, Informative)
Actually capturing is the key. A carbon capturing plant is always going to be less efficient than a non-capturing plant. Try looking at it this way:
36.43% Non-capturing plant
29.14% Post-combustion capturing plant (36.43/1.25)
33.93% This thing
Re: (Score:3)
Old process (burning):
Inputs: coal, air
Outputs: heat, CO2, N2, N2O
FTFY.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for the link. That is exactly what I thought was going on but the journalist didn't understand. It is basically putting the oxygen plant at the power plant.
I'm not a chemist but will the combuster portion where they burn the iron to make iron oxide create NOx?
Re:Pure oxygen.. (Score:5, Informative)
I emailed the authors after I wrote that and they emailed me back quickly. They said the only NOx comes from the Nitrogen in the Coal. None is produced in the combustion of Iron.
This would significantly lower the scrubbing requirements and cost.