Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

New Coal Technology Harnesses Energy Without Burning, Nears Pilot-Scale Development
ScienceDaily ^ | Feb. 6, 2013 | NA

Posted on 02/06/2013 6:25:52 PM PST by neverdem

COLUMBUS, Ohio—A new form of clean coal technology reached an important milestone recently, with the successful operation of a research-scale combustion system at Ohio State University. The technology is now ready for testing at a larger scale.

For 203 continuous hours, the Ohio State combustion unit produced heat from coal while capturing 99 percent of the carbon dioxide produced in the reaction.

Liang-Shih Fan, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and director of Ohio State’s Clean Coal Research Laboratory, pioneered the technology called Coal-Direct Chemical Looping (CDCL), which chemically harnesses coal’s energy and efficiently contains the carbon dioxide produced before it can be released into the atmosphere.

“In the simplest sense, combustion is a chemical reaction that consumes oxygen and produces heat,” Fan said. “Unfortunately, it also produces carbon dioxide, which is difficult to capture and bad for the environment. So we found a way to release the heat without burning. We carefully control the chemical reaction so that the coal never burns—it is consumed chemically, and the carbon dioxide is entirely contained inside the reactor.”

Dawei Wang, a research associate and one of the group's team leaders, described the technology’s potential benefits. "The commercial-scale CDCL 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.

Though other laboratories around the world are trying to develop similar technology to directly convert coal to electricity, Fan’s lab is unique in the way it processes fossil fuels. The Ohio State group typically studies coal in the two forms that are already commonly available to the power industry: crushed coal “feedstock,” and coal-derived syngas.

The latter fuel has been successfully studied in a second sub-pilot research-scale unit, through a...

(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Extended News; Technical; US: District of Columbia; US: Ohio
KEYWORDS: 11yearcycle; 11yearsuncycle; 22yearcycke; 22yearsuncycle; agw; carbon; carbondioxide; ccs; cdcl; coal; energy; faithbased; recapture; suncycle; waroncarbon
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-44 next last
To: neverdem

We need to use all of our resources including coal of course, omitting wind and solar. Use our resources while developing new technologies. Cut back drastically the power of the EPA


21 posted on 02/06/2013 9:46:47 PM PST by Rannug ("God has given it to me, let him who touches it beware.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Forget coal! It’s cold fusion that will give us all cheap energy......if only those machines can be tweaked just a tiny bit more. Some day.


22 posted on 02/06/2013 11:10:38 PM PST by count-your-change (you don't have to be brilliant, not being stupid is enough)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: theBuckwheat

You’ll like this: http://ctdonath.blogspot.com/2012/02/global-climate-change-in-context.html


23 posted on 02/06/2013 11:22:27 PM PST by ctdonath2 (End of debate. Your move.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Bump for later.


24 posted on 02/06/2013 11:24:52 PM PST by Lurkina.n.Learnin (Superciliousness is the essence of Obama)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: hinckley buzzard

OTOH, the article also neglects that pulverizing coal is not energy-neutral, either...

And it says nothing about the thermal energy conversion efficiency of the process...


25 posted on 02/07/2013 12:37:45 AM PST by TXnMA ("Allah": Satan's current alias... "Barack": Allah's current ally...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: ExTxMarine
Then, when plant life begins to DIE,

We're at 390ppm of CO2 and rising, starting out from about 280. Plant life drops off rapidly below 200. We are in no danger of that.

26 posted on 02/07/2013 3:49:00 AM PST by palmer (Obama = Carter + affirmative action)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Great points. From a health perspective homosexuality is deadlier than smoking, yet it’s seen as an alternative and even positive lifestyle choice.


27 posted on 02/07/2013 3:58:40 AM PST by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: FreedomOfExpression

Does Fan have any contact info? Ignorance can be cured.


28 posted on 02/07/2013 4:01:57 AM PST by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: TXnMA; thackney

Great insights. Thackney posted a chart on electrical energy generation and its related costs. IIRC we lose in conversion about triple what we produce.


29 posted on 02/07/2013 4:07:28 AM PST by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: palmer
Plant life drops off rapidly below 200. We are in no danger of that.

I am not talking about an overnight change, I am talking frog in the pot slow boiling. TODAY we are not in danger, but like the social systems which were developed over 60 years ago, in time they begin to take their toll. The LIBS will demand more and more CO2 to be captured - to combat AGW. Their end goal is probably to reach the 200ppm or less to PROVE that AGW is real!

The fools involved in this mess don't care what they have to do to control us - even killing us - so long as they get to be proven right.
30 posted on 02/07/2013 5:35:20 AM PST by ExTxMarine (PRAYER: It's the only HOPE for real CHANGE in America!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: ExTxMarine
Not easy. The ocean will release CO2 at about 300 ppm or higher now because of recent uptake. So the new natural equilibrium for CO2 is safely high. It would be very difficult to get below that.

Your points are valid: there is a group called 350.org that thinks along those lines (reducing CO2 is good). There is also plant death and ice age spiral below a certain amount. But getting to that point now with our added CO2 is basically impossible.

31 posted on 02/07/2013 6:07:06 AM PST by palmer (Obama = Carter + affirmative action)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: TxGrandMom; neverdem

“Out of curiosity—how is carbon dioxide recycled? Fed to plants?”

My thoughts too...if they capture the CO2, what then are they doing with it, or proposing to do with it? Maybe a huge greenhouse, creating a rainforest etc? Oh, wait...we already have that...it is our Earth’s ecosystem!

Just do what we have always done...release the CO2 to the Earth’s atmosphere...

Or another thought...a facility, a ‘living’ quarters, for these AGW leftist, zombiefied goonies to capture the CO2 they are breating out, enhancing their CO2 environment until they are overcome by the sheer joy of being deprived of O2 and saving all the rest of us from Global Warming doom!


32 posted on 02/07/2013 6:26:40 AM PST by GGpaX4DumpedTea (I am a Tea Party descendant...steeped in the Constitutional Republic given to us by the Founders.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: 1010RD
US ELECTRICITY FLOW, 2011

Click to enlarge and for notes Also note that this is for all US generation taken together, some are more efficient, some are less.
33 posted on 02/07/2013 6:48:13 AM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: ctdonath2

Excellent graphs. Thanks for the link. Here is another of interest, from Vostok Station via wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok_420ky_4curves_insolation.jpg


34 posted on 02/07/2013 6:49:20 AM PST by theBuckwheat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: thackney

I am just stunned that conversion losses are 170% of gross generation. Conversion seems like a gold mine of opportunity if just 10% of those losses can be captured back you’ve just increaesd gross generation by over 15%.

Thanks for your great insights. It’s hard to sort through all the muck and get to the truth.


35 posted on 02/07/2013 7:03:01 AM PST by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: 1010RD

Billions have been spent getting it this low.

Coal, Gas, Nuclear, etc are all thermal engines and subject to the Rankine Cycle of Thermodynamics.


36 posted on 02/07/2013 7:09:35 AM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: TurboZamboni
"...has nothing to do with our weather here and cutting CO2 needs to continue."

Our (the relatively few who are informed and aware) ability to shout over these Media-aided-and-abetted Josef Goebbels acolytes, or to re-educate the already dismally, abysmally uninformed and misinformed public, simply doesn't exist.

What is left are the two options of:

1) Lie down and take it up the Brown Snake hole...
...or...
2) Just start tracking these vicious predators wherever they live and eat, and start filling our meat lockers with their nutirent-dense organs. Hearts and livers are a must-have, and the hypothalamus, pituitary glands and adrenal glands would make a lip-smacking fun desert on some rainy afternoon!

Perhaps I'll write a cookbook to be used "After The Big One" (you knew it was coming once O'Bunghole stole the last election!) which shows people how to make tasty, filling dishes using parts harvested from wayward liberals and "Climate Change" liars.

LMAO!!!

37 posted on 02/07/2013 7:16:05 AM PST by Gargantua ("Barbie O'Bunga ~ America's First Fly-Strewn, Maggot-Gagging Fag President")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: hinckley buzzard
I see that they carefully avoid the subject of comparing the amount of electricity per ton of coal that can be obtained using this process to current technology. They also avoid the topic of what they are going to do with that CO2 so they can save Gaia from the terrible effects.

To me that smacks of furthering ideology, not engineering prowess.

38 posted on 02/07/2013 9:32:24 AM PST by AFPhys ((Praying for our troops, our citizens, that the Bible and Freedom become basis of the US law again))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: beethovenfan

Of course it won’t be “good enough”,
because their goals aren’t even what they are stating (reducing CO2 output).

Their goals are zero energy use [by the peasants] and people shivering in the dark.


39 posted on 02/07/2013 9:35:12 AM PST by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

While I understand your point, CO2 is a valuable gas that has many possible uses. So there are other reasons for seperating and capturing the gas. One possible use would be to bubble through Algae tanks to produce bio-diesel or feedstocks for butanol production.


40 posted on 02/07/2013 12:10:00 PM PST by taxcontrol
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-44 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson