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…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).
Retrofitting them with the new process would be costly, but it would cut billions of tons of pollution….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.
I fail to see how CO2 isn’t produced without the coal ash still having long carbon chains in it, and therefore the majority of its chemical energy. Probably making this not very viable as we not only need clean energy, but at a reasonable price.
Still interesting article.
I’m always leery of things reported through a reporter’s brain. They usually don’t understand what they’re talking about.
You get energy from coal by oxidizing the carbon. Whether you call that “burning” or “coal-direct chemical looping” is immaterial, it’s the same chemical process.
I’m extremely skeptical about the costs involved. When engineers admit up front that something is expensive “But look at the benefits!!!!!!” without actually telling you the cost, you know it’s not going to be cost effective.
I’m skeptical, too. I’m sure the process works, but I wonder about the efficiency and the costs.
I do like the quote from the environmentalist liberal, though.
I guess he’s never heard of any of the several medicines that come from belladonna. Ignorance must be bliss.
Don’t you just love people who spout off about things they know absolutely nothing about?
Wait a minute. I thought environmentalist wackos LOVED technically unproven and economically dubious technologies. Like solar power, wind power…
Sigh! Guys, this is at an Experimental Stage, but they think they got it after 15 years of Research. Next step is to Scale up and see if they can make it Cost-Effective in terms of 2013 Dollars. THEN it’ll probably take another 10-15 years to get it going on a big enough Commercial basis to start feeding the Grid. And it may not work at all.
But it at least is being developed along Scientific Principles. Or should we throw a few Billion More Dollars at Solar, Wind and Electric Cars like the Obama Admin has done in just 4 years that has resulted in Zip Point Shit towards solving our Energy needs? But it sure made the Algores of the world happy.
And the Union Thugs, too. How’s that Chevy Volt working out? Thought there’d be a couple of million on the road by now….
Carbon dioxide is still produced at the same level in this process as in traditional combustion boilers. In a traditional boiler you have to blow a stream of air carrying oxygen into the combustion chamber and that stream then carries off all the combustion gasses. If you want to control the output of any of those gasses to a meaningfully small level, you then have to use complicated and costly filtering and scrubbing on the output air stream to remove them.
What this new process does is remove the necessity of the air stream. By using oxygen already bound up in a solid medium the reaction can take place in a sealed chamber and therefore all the combustion gasses are captured without the requirement to separate them from the airstream. This process is sound, but what the article’s author fails to discuss or even mention is what they plan on doing with the captured combustion gasses. That is the most important step if you want truly “clean” coal.