Coal as ‘Clean’ as Natural Gas?
9th June 2017
A Japanese company claims to have developed a new coal-burning technology that boosts coal’s energy efficiency by 30 percent while reducing its carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 40 percent. Unlike conventional plants, which burn coal at around 700 degrees Celsius, the Osaka Coolgen plant roasts coal at more than 1,300 degrees Celsius while simultaneously blowing oxygen over it to convert the solid fuel into a gas. The plant also uses exhaust heat to generate power, and it extracts hydrogen from the gas to use in fuel cells to create electricity.
Using conventional technologies, burning enough bituminous coal to produce 1 million British Thermal Units (BTUs) emits 205 pounds of carbon dioxide. If the new technology reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent, that would cut emissions to roughly 123 pounds. Getting the same energy yield from natural gas emits 117 pounds of carbon dioxide.
Once again, technology comes through to demonstrate that the drastic cuts promoted by the ec0-Nazis are not the only way forward.
In general, history has consistently shown that negative externalities (such as pollution) are only a transitory phase until technology catches up — for which the externality-creating activities are a necessary step.
June 9th, 2017 at 18:15
The concept that we’re all quite doomed just never seems to pan out that way. My personal favorite example is Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb. Negative Nancy’s seem to perpetually discount or completely fail to comprehend that no system is completely closed. Other factors can, and gosh darn, just do, change as well.
June 12th, 2017 at 08:52
This article makes my head want to explode. If you burn x amount of coal, you’ll get y amount of carbon dioxide. That doesn’t change no matter what temperature you use. Now, IF they are measuring the amount of CO2 per Btu of recovered energy, THAT would make sense. (Essentially, you’ve just invented a more efficient process.) But that’s not the way the article is written, leading me to assume that the author is an idiot who knew nothing about the subject.
Efficiency is the only practical energy goal. A conventional coal-fired electric generating plant has something like 35% thermal efficiency, while a decent cogeneration plant (where the steam exhaust from the generator’s turbine is used for process heat in say a chemical plant) can easily reach 70% or more. If you burn less fuel, you make less pollution and lower cost (after capital cost is recovered). Using LED lighting and other modern consumer equipment lowers demand. Finally, managing the power load to cut down peak demands reduces the amount of generating equipment required to meet public needs. None of these things are accomplished through government edict. They are market driven.
Trying to meet the crazy and completely artificial “Greenhouse” goals is driven by edict and is moving the energy industry into expensive and useless projects that only inhibit the natural, market-driven efficiency path. Even more crazy is that these policies oppose the process that would actually accomplish what they seem to demand. “Seem” is the key word: Greenhouse is not about the environment; it’s about control. It’s about who profits, not about who benefits.