Click to enlarge and for notes Also note that this is for all US generation taken together, some are more efficient, some are less.
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 ...
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
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.
Bump for later.
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...
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.
Great points. From a health perspective homosexuality is deadlier than smoking, yet it’s seen as an alternative and even positive lifestyle choice.
Does Fan have any contact info? Ignorance can be cured.
Great insights. Thackney posted a chart on electrical energy generation and its related costs. IIRC we lose in conversion about triple what we produce.
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.
“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!
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
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.
Billions have been spent getting it this low.
Coal, Gas, Nuclear, etc are all thermal engines and subject to the Rankine Cycle of Thermodynamics.
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!!!
To me that smacks of furthering ideology, not engineering prowess.
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.
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.
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