This is one of the things that bothers me about the world today. The debate is never about how to reduce our footprint, clean up our environment, or take a serious look at what we're doing to our world... Instead we're looking at ways to prop up a completely unsustainable living standard and use technology to make everything OK. Well in my opinion it's far from ok, and although I welcome new technology and clean(er) energy, I think we should be talking about how to change, NOT about how to maintain the status quo for the next few hundred years.
Interesting article all the same.. the only part that really bothers me is, compressed toxic liquids ready for underground storage. Sounds great at first glace, but the IMPROTANT questions become: How much toxic liquid are we talking about, let's say, over a ten year period? What technology will be used for storage? What is the half-life of these toxic materials? Is the storage technology dependent upon a technological society for longterm maintenance? What is the longterm lifespan (geological timeframe) of such technologies, industries, and societies? What will happen when new technology becomes available, or after some economic hiccup or collapse that leaves the project no longer economically viable? Who will be responsible then? Will our good intentions be leaving future generations with a largescale undergound environmental distaster to clean up? Just some questions we may want to ask, before we start standing up in support of "clean" coal.
In the end, underground storage of toxic liquids sounds far too much like sweeping our problems under the rug.
peace,
d
Canada should seize challenge of clean coal
Neil Reynolds
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
OTTAWA - In basic ways, Alex Fassbender's breakthrough in clean-coal
technology retains James Watt's methodology from the 18th century. You
pulverize coal into particles as fine as talcum powder, then burn it in a
furnace surrounded by pipes filled with water. You direct the steam into
turbines that spin to produce electricity. In other basic ways, though, it
is very different. For one thing, there's no smokestack.
Mr. Fassbender is the American engineer whose invention - as tested last
year in the federal government's energy labs in Ottawa - delivered clean
electricity at a lower cost than the inventor himself had expected.
Code-named TIPS (Thermo-energy Integrated Power System), the technology
strips coal of its pollutants and captures its carbon emissions in power
plants a 10th the size of conventional plants.
In his assessment of the technology, federal research scientist Bruce
Clements described it as potentially the most competitive source of
electricity - in cents per kilowatt-hour - in the world. A TIPS-based demo
plant, he calculated, could produce zero-pollution, carbon-captured
electricity for 8 cents a kilowatt-hour. In regular commercial operation,
the cost would fall significantly. (The 2006 retail cost of electricity in
Ontario ranged from a subsidized 5.8 cents per kilowatt-hour to 9.7 cents;
the 2006 national average retail cost in the United States was 9.8 cents
U.S.). By these calculations, the world's most abundant fossil fuel could
supply clean, green electricity at the world's most economical prices.
Mr. Fassbender says the downsizing of power plants would enable them to fit
comfortably into large cities, close to consumers - any place served by a
railway line for the delivery of coal. "A conventional 500-megawatt plant
has to be built in the hinterland," he says. "You lose 4 per cent of your
electricity from the transmission lines." With an urban coal-fired plant,
the captured greenhouse gases would be moved to storage sites either as a
compressed liquid or as a compressed gas.
Indeed, everything in the TIPS process is compressed. You begin with a
separate tank that fits alongside the furnace. You fill this tank with
atmospheric air and put it under pressure -- 1,250 pounds per square inch.
You separate the oxygen in the air from the nitrogen, and direct pure oxygen
to the furnace to drive the combustion. Then you burn the coal under
pressure -- again, 1,250 psi. You subject the steam itself to higher
pressures -- from 2,500 psi to 3,700 psi. At the end of the combustion
cycle, you have nothing left in the furnace except ash, used commercially in
the making of concrete.
You capture the pollutants (sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides, mercury,
particulate matter) from the hot exhaust fumes that exit the furnace. When
you pass these fumes through a condensing heat exchanger, you get very hot
water. At 400 degrees Fahrenheit, this water becomes a significant energy
source all on its own. "This is what the [high] pressure buys you," Mr.
Fassbender says. "It means that the pressure pays for itself."
When the exhaust fumes release the water, they release the pollutants, which
are easily separated and packaged for commercial use. You direct some of the
carbon dioxide back to the furnace to exploit the residual energy in it. You
cool the rest - still under high pressure -- to 87 degrees Fahrenheit, at
which point it turns into a compressed liquid, ready for underground
storage.
Clean-coal furnaces have existed in various forms for a decade or more, some
more effective than others. In primitive form, chemical "scrubbers" captured
pollutants as they vented from smokestacks. In advanced form, the furnace
converts the coal into a synthetic gas from which pollutants are extracted
before they reach the chimney. IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle)
plants, though, do not capture CO{-2} emissions. "They can be made to
capture CO{-2} emissions," Mr. Fassbender says, "only by turning them into
chemical factories." And they are expensive to build, costly to operate.
Canada and the United States have coal reserves that will last for hundreds
of years.
Coal is thus an inherently sustainable, relatively inexpensive source of
primary energy. The TIPS technology remains theoretical. It needs a
real-life test. As a research partner, Canada is well placed to fund the
demo TIPS plant - and help to rescue for future generations the most
democratic of the fossil fuels.
nreynolds@xplornet.com
© The Globe and Mail
Interesting article all the same.. the only part that really bothers me is, compressed toxic liquids ready for underground storage. Sounds great at first glace, but the IMPROTANT questions become: How much toxic liquid are we talking about, let's say, over a ten year period? What technology will be used for storage? What is the half-life of these toxic materials? Is the storage technology dependent upon a technological society for longterm maintenance? What is the longterm lifespan (geological timeframe) of such technologies, industries, and societies? What will happen when new technology becomes available, or after some economic hiccup or collapse that leaves the project no longer economically viable? Who will be responsible then? Will our good intentions be leaving future generations with a largescale undergound environmental distaster to clean up? Just some questions we may want to ask, before we start standing up in support of "clean" coal.
In the end, underground storage of toxic liquids sounds far too much like sweeping our problems under the rug.
peace,
d
Canada should seize challenge of clean coal
Neil Reynolds
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
OTTAWA - In basic ways, Alex Fassbender's breakthrough in clean-coal
technology retains James Watt's methodology from the 18th century. You
pulverize coal into particles as fine as talcum powder, then burn it in a
furnace surrounded by pipes filled with water. You direct the steam into
turbines that spin to produce electricity. In other basic ways, though, it
is very different. For one thing, there's no smokestack.
Mr. Fassbender is the American engineer whose invention - as tested last
year in the federal government's energy labs in Ottawa - delivered clean
electricity at a lower cost than the inventor himself had expected.
Code-named TIPS (Thermo-energy Integrated Power System), the technology
strips coal of its pollutants and captures its carbon emissions in power
plants a 10th the size of conventional plants.
In his assessment of the technology, federal research scientist Bruce
Clements described it as potentially the most competitive source of
electricity - in cents per kilowatt-hour - in the world. A TIPS-based demo
plant, he calculated, could produce zero-pollution, carbon-captured
electricity for 8 cents a kilowatt-hour. In regular commercial operation,
the cost would fall significantly. (The 2006 retail cost of electricity in
Ontario ranged from a subsidized 5.8 cents per kilowatt-hour to 9.7 cents;
the 2006 national average retail cost in the United States was 9.8 cents
U.S.). By these calculations, the world's most abundant fossil fuel could
supply clean, green electricity at the world's most economical prices.
Mr. Fassbender says the downsizing of power plants would enable them to fit
comfortably into large cities, close to consumers - any place served by a
railway line for the delivery of coal. "A conventional 500-megawatt plant
has to be built in the hinterland," he says. "You lose 4 per cent of your
electricity from the transmission lines." With an urban coal-fired plant,
the captured greenhouse gases would be moved to storage sites either as a
compressed liquid or as a compressed gas.
Indeed, everything in the TIPS process is compressed. You begin with a
separate tank that fits alongside the furnace. You fill this tank with
atmospheric air and put it under pressure -- 1,250 pounds per square inch.
You separate the oxygen in the air from the nitrogen, and direct pure oxygen
to the furnace to drive the combustion. Then you burn the coal under
pressure -- again, 1,250 psi. You subject the steam itself to higher
pressures -- from 2,500 psi to 3,700 psi. At the end of the combustion
cycle, you have nothing left in the furnace except ash, used commercially in
the making of concrete.
You capture the pollutants (sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides, mercury,
particulate matter) from the hot exhaust fumes that exit the furnace. When
you pass these fumes through a condensing heat exchanger, you get very hot
water. At 400 degrees Fahrenheit, this water becomes a significant energy
source all on its own. "This is what the [high] pressure buys you," Mr.
Fassbender says. "It means that the pressure pays for itself."
When the exhaust fumes release the water, they release the pollutants, which
are easily separated and packaged for commercial use. You direct some of the
carbon dioxide back to the furnace to exploit the residual energy in it. You
cool the rest - still under high pressure -- to 87 degrees Fahrenheit, at
which point it turns into a compressed liquid, ready for underground
storage.
Clean-coal furnaces have existed in various forms for a decade or more, some
more effective than others. In primitive form, chemical "scrubbers" captured
pollutants as they vented from smokestacks. In advanced form, the furnace
converts the coal into a synthetic gas from which pollutants are extracted
before they reach the chimney. IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle)
plants, though, do not capture CO{-2} emissions. "They can be made to
capture CO{-2} emissions," Mr. Fassbender says, "only by turning them into
chemical factories." And they are expensive to build, costly to operate.
Canada and the United States have coal reserves that will last for hundreds
of years.
Coal is thus an inherently sustainable, relatively inexpensive source of
primary energy. The TIPS technology remains theoretical. It needs a
real-life test. As a research partner, Canada is well placed to fund the
demo TIPS plant - and help to rescue for future generations the most
democratic of the fossil fuels.
nreynolds@xplornet.com
© The Globe and Mail
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