From James Hansen’s, Bill McKibben’s and Joe Romm’s worst nightmare department, comes this uplifting science story from the Ohio State University. Basically they found a way to oxidize coal and extract energy without releasing any CO2.
When a team of Ohio State students worked around the clock for nine days straight recently, they weren’t pulling the typical college “all-nighters.”
Instead, they were reaching a milestone in clean coal technology.
For 203 continuous hours, they operated a scaled-down version of a power plant combustion system with a unique experimental design–one that chemically converts coal to heat while capturing 99 percent of the carbon dioxide produced in the reaction.
This new technology, called coal-direct chemical looping, was pioneered by Liang-Shih Fan, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and director of Ohio State’s Clean Coal Research Laboratory. (Fan is a Distinguished University Professor and a 2012 Innovator of the Year.)
Typical coal-fired power plants burn coal to heat water to make steam, which turns the turbines that produce electricity. In chemical looping, the coal isn’t burned with fire, but instead chemically combusted in a sealed chamber so that it doesn’t pollute the air. A second combustion unit in the lab does the same thing with coal-derived syngas, and both produce 25 thermal kilowatts of energy.
“In the simplest sense, combustion is a chemical reaction that consumes oxygen and produces heat,” Fan says. “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.”
Dawei Wang, a research associate and one of the group’s team leaders, says the technology’s potential benefits go beyond the environment: “The 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.”
The researchers are about to take the technology to the next level: a pilot plant is under construction at the U.S. Department of Energy‘s National Carbon Capture Center. Set to begin operations in late 2013, that plant will produce 250 thermal kilowatts using syngas. Tests there will set the stage for future commercial development.
“At Ohio State, with a team of creative minds, we can take a technological concept closer to real commercial use,” Wang says.
The technology looks promising: as doctoral student Elena Chung explained, the 203-hour experiment could have continued even longer.
“We voluntarily chose to stop the unit. Honestly, it was a mutual decision by Dr. Fan and the students. It was a long and tiring week where we all shared shifts,” she says.
Fan’s students were thrilled to be involved in this breakthrough, even if they did lose some sleep.
“Ohio State has been very supportive of our research efforts,” Fan says. The result of the university’s backing? A place, he says, where “brilliant invention and cutting-edge research can be successful and progressive.”
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From: New Coal Technology Harnesses Energy Without Burning, Nears Pilot-Scale Development
“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.
“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.” |
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 similar process called Syngas Chemical Looping (SCL). Both units are located in a building on Ohio State’s Columbus campus, and each is contained in a 25-foot-high insulated metal cylinder that resembles a very tall home water heater tank.
No other lab has continuously operated a coal-direct chemical looping unit as long as the Ohio State lab did last September. But as doctoral student Elena Chung explained, the experiment could have continued.
“We voluntarily chose to stop the unit. We actually could have run longer, but honestly, it was a mutual decision by Dr. Fan and the students. It was a long and tiring week where we all shared shifts,” she said.
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Joe Romm of course can’t yet bring himself to carry this story over at Climate Progress, but Fox News used an old quote from one of CP’s nuttiest professors, yes our old friend Donald Brown, who says:
“Claiming that coal is clean because it could be clean — if a new technically unproven and economically dubious technology might be adopted — is like someone claiming that belladonna is not poisonous because there is a new unproven safe pill under development,” wrote Donald Brown at liberal think tank Climate Progress.
Heh. Read more here: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/20/coal-cleanest-energy-source-there-is/
Rational people would of course embrace such news positively. But of course, we aren’t dealing with rational people at Climate Progress, or at 350.org, so I don’t expect them or James Hansen to be happy about this development.
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“Unfortunately, it also produces carbon dioxide, which is difficult to capture and bad for the environment.”
One worries about so called “scientists” who seem know so little about CO2 that they think it is bad for the environment. Let’s see how good the environment will be without any CO2. Hmmm … no life whatsoever … Yeah, real good environment that is.
There is nothing about CO2 that is bad for the environment.
A scientific breakthrough driven by a false narrative. Oh well.
Great, it captures the CO2…
Then what do they do with it?
I would think that there is a similar 200 hour session going on at the EPA trying to identify what new regulations can be used to stop this process ever being put into commercial use. They will find something probably using dust regulations against coal mining.
“Unfortunately, it also produces carbon dioxide, which is difficult to capture and bad for the environment.”
The stupid, it burns!
Can Professor Fan give me the CO2 for my simple hydroponic herbs and vegetable production system?
Can Professor Fan give me the CO2 for my simple hydroponic herbs and vegetables production system?
I dont see the breakthrough. CO2 should be easily “captured” at the smokestack of a regular coal fired powerstation. Its what to do with that CO2 that is the real problem for CCS technologies.
Sounds good … but I have a question. The article notes that the CO2 is contained in the reaction chamber. But .. but but … at some point, don’t you have to add more fuel and empty that CO2?? What are they planning to do wtih the captured CO2 in the chamber?? … like .. maybe compress it into liquid CO2? … pump it into greenhouses?? Just curious.
But really, I think it is exciting news.
Clean coal combustion like this is very bad news for the climate hijackers.
Wait till Hansen finds out, he will have a canary. Fear propaganda has driven his entire career, white collar alarmist organizations like Climate Progress make their living from the sky is falling ransoms.
The key to the technology is the use of tiny metal beads to carry oxygen to the fuel to spur the chemical reaction. For CDCL, the fuel is coal that’s been ground into a powder, and the metal beads are made of iron oxide composites. The coal particles are about 100 micrometers across—about the diameter of a human hair—and the iron beads are larger, about 1.5-2 millimeters across. Chung likened the two different sizes to talcum powder and ice cream sprinkles, though the mix is not nearly so colorful.
The coal and iron oxide are heated to high temperatures, where the materials react with each other. Carbon from the coal binds with the oxygen from the iron oxide and creates carbon dioxide, which rises into a chamber where it is captured. Hot iron and coal ash are left behind. Because the iron beads are so much bigger than the coal ash, they are easily separated out of the ash, and delivered to a chamber where the heat energy would normally be harnessed for electricity. The coal ash is removed from the system.
The carbon dioxide is separated and can be recycled or sequestered for storage. The iron beads are exposed to air inside the reactor, so that they become re-oxidized be used again. The beads can be re-used almost indefinitely, or recycled.
Doesn’t sound that revolutionary to me. A similar process has been used for nearly 200 years to smelt iron ore. In fact, I’d say the not releasing CO2 claim is misleading, if not false. CO2 is released, the same amount as conventional burning. It’s just that the CO2 is captured, which is unrelated to the coal – iron oxide chemistry.
Two chemical looping gasification processes, the syngas chemical looping (SCL) process and the coal direct chemical looping (CDCL) process, are developed for hydrogen and electricity co-production from carbonaceous fuels. Both processes involve the reduction of a metal oxide with a fuel followed by regeneration of the reduced metal oxide with steam and air in a cyclic manner.
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This is the reverse of the process that occurs within the earth, where fossilized CO2 and water are converted by heat and iron into natural gas and more complex hydrocarbons.
The biggest nonsense in science is that natural gas is created from the decomposed bodies of animals, and thus must be “rare” and thus must be expensive.
Natural gas is created by plate tectonics and the reduction of limestone by iron and heat in the presence of water. All of which are abundant within the earth. Limestone is the accumulated CO2 captured by the oceans.
By burning natural gas, humans are simply completing the cycle that would be completed naturally in the absence of humans. Over time the natural gas leaks to the surface, where it is consumed by microbes and converted back to CO2, where it is captured by the oceans and eventually turned into limestone.
This limestone is subducted by plate tectonics along with ocean water and converted by iron and heat back into natural gas. It is an endless cycle so long as the earth’s core remains molten.
Codetech, Klaas, read the article: the process does not “burn” the coal so does not produce CO2. If it can become economically viable, it means that there are no grounds for coal to be considered “bad” by those who fear CO2 emissions.
What are the odds that two separate commenters would provide the exact same commentary. Sock puppet anyone?
A few things jump out:
1. Coal particles 100 micrometers across
2. iron beads about 1.5-2 millimeters across
3. The coal and iron oxide are heated to high temperatures
Cost of grinding, cost of heating not stated.
4. CO2 capture at less than $40 per metric ton
Whaaat …. LOL
It might work as a subsidy earner under the “CO2 is a pollutant” creed, beyond that, who knows.
Could be a breakthrough, could be another Climate Craziness of the Week.
Truthseeker noted (6:10 PM):
“Let’s see how good the environment will be without any CO2 . . . no life whatsoever.” These death-cult Malthusians won’t be happy until they develop some method to make photosynthesis produce CO (without the 2).
Sorry, I’d not seen Philip Bradley’s post, I got a different impression from mis-reading the WUWT post.
Thus by burning natural gas, humans are simply completing a natural cycle. We have likely sped the cycle up somewhat, but at this point in time no one really knows how much natural gas the biosphere processes naturally each year. There is a huge amount of natural gas tied up in methane clathrate in the oceans awaiting extraction. We have only scratched the surface of the total amount of natural gas available as an energy source.
More on the Chemical Looping Gasification Processes
http://etd.ohiolink.edu/view.cgi?acc_num=osu1236704412
[snip. Persona non grata. — mod.]
I think it’ll be quite interesting to see exactly who reacts how to this. I’d think reactions to this should clarify what certain agendas out there are really all about out.
For my part, I think this is great. CO2 may well be beneficial, but as Steven Mosher has pointed out before, geoengineering the environment isn’t what this is all about in my book. Maybe once the smoke clears (pardon the pun) some real science can get done and we can conclusively establish what cutting back on CO2 will or will not do to our food supply.
But, as always, technology prevails. And as usually winds up being the case, not in the manner politicians would predict. Go figure.
is like someone claiming that belladonna is not poisonous because there is a new unproven safe pill under development,” wrote Donald Brown at liberal think tank Climate Progress.
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water is poisonous if you drink enough due to electrolyte imbalance. there was a woman reportedly killed recently as a result of drinking too much water on a fad diet.
The name “belladonna” means “beautiful lady. The belladonna berry juice was used historically in Italy to enlarge the pupils of women, giving them a striking appearance.
Though widely regarded as unsafe, belladonna is used as a sedative, to stop bronchial spasms in asthma and whooping cough, and as a cold and hay fever remedy. It is also used for Parkinson’s disease, colic, motion sickness, and as a painkiller.
Belladonna is used in ointments that are applied to the skin for joint pain (rheumatism), leg pain caused by a disc in the backbone pushing on the sciatic nerve (sciatica), and nerve pain (neuralgia). Belladonna is also used in plasters (medicine-filled gauze applied to the skin) for treating psychiatric disorders, a behavior disorder called hyperkinesis, excessive sweating (hyperhidrosis), and bronchial asthma.
Some claim that in large enough quantities, Belladonna can even cure the horrific malady of climate science.
Faustino aka Genghis Cunn says:
February 20, 2013 at 6:36 pm
Codetech, Klaas, read the article: the process does not “burn” the coal so does not produce CO2.
It does produce CO2. The same amount as burning.
I read about this earlier at Bloomberg, which didn’t describe the chemistry, and my reaction was, ‘they have got some fancy chemistry there’.
The press release is written to deliberately deceive people who don;t know basic chemistry, which apparently includes you.
“If it can become economically viable, it means that there are no grounds for coal to be considered “bad” by those who fear CO2 emissions.”
That will be a heartbreaking travesty for the the worrisome warmers.
I almost feel sorry for them. Doesn’t that sound strange?
What next? Cars that run on waste water with zero emissions? Oh the horror.
The car haters would have nothing to fear but freedom itself.
TimTheToolMan says:
February 20, 2013 at 6:25 pm
I’m not very familiar with the proposed chemical engineering, but assuming complete combustion, flue gas would be some 79% nitrogen and 20% CO2. How do you separate that? You could pump it to high pressure where the CO2 liquifies or use cold to freeze out the CO2. I read somewhere that CO2 sequestration costs about 50% more coal, with all that extra energy used to separate out the CO2 and stuff it underground in an old natural gas well.
The nice thing about this cycle is that output of the first stage is pretty much all CO2.
There goes the efficiency out the window, so we will then use MORE resources for a unit of energy. And what do you envision is the end product of such a production loop, the O2 has to come from something or if using other oxidizers, even worse. I agree with Truthseeker, there is nothing bad about CO2, only good at any level we are speaking of, doubled or even tripled, it would then be one green Earth.