Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Geoff Sherrington – Coal is being rehabilitated as an essential component of the clean energy future.
World-first coal to hydrogen plant trial launched in Victoria
ABC Gippsland By Kellie Lazzaro
Updated Thu at 2:03pm
A world-first trial to use brown coal to make hydrogen has been launched in Victoria’s east as a pilot ‘clean energy’ project that is expected to create 400 jobs — but critics and coal industry experts alike said new measures will be needed to tackle the carbon emissions generated.
A demonstration plant will be built in the Latrobe Valley as part of the $496 million project to develop technology to produce hydrogen from the region’s vast reserves of coal.
The hydrogen would be shipped from the Port of Hastings to Japan under the deal with Kawasaki Heavy Industries, J-Power, Iwatani Corporation, Marubeni and the Japanese Government.
The Federal and Victorian Governments are providing $100 million towards the cost of the trial.
Speaking from the launch at Loy Yang mine, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said hydrogen was a fuel of the future.
“It is critically important that we invest in energy sources of the future and that we affect the transition from older forms of [energy] generation to new forms of generation and we do so seamlessly.”
“This is about new technology, partnering with the Japanese to come up with not only carbon capture and storage, but a way of converting this into hydrogen and making it a fuel of the future,” Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison said.
…
Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-12/coal-to-hydrogen-trial-for-latrobe-valley/9643570
Coal to hydrogen is not a new idea, the Water-gas shift reaction was discovered in 1780 by Italian Chemist Felice Fontana.
There are still some kinks to be worked out. The process to generate hydrogen from coal produces a monstrous amount of CO2 – far more CO2 per unit of useful energy than simply burning the coal would produce. But with hydrogen production, unlike hydrocarbon combustion, all the CO2 is produced in one place. This creates an opportunity for carbon sequestration, when technologies to sequester carbon on such an impressive scale are developed.
Creating a clean hydrogen economy will provide the assurance of an ongoing market demand for this potentially zero carbon product, which may spur the development of supply chain solutions like sequestration of the vast clouds of CO2 emitted when the hydrogen is produced.
I’m sure we all look forward to joining hands with and celebrating with our new green friends that coal is no longer the enemy; coal is now an essential component of our zero carbon future.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Hydogen is carbon’s closest partner in Earth-Crime!
Hydro … carbons … duh!
Tunbull just wants to keep releasing the evil and make the ocean even more acid than it already is. Maybe the acid will eat all the plastic bags that getting sucked into dolphin blowholes? Plastic bags are also made of hydrocarbon you know. Dolphins think they’re just jellyfish so they suck them into their blowhole … as you do. Probably not the best habit, but that’s the natural world for you.
We should just go back to brown pqper bags, like on the Mary Tyler Moore show. Those things were awesome.
Yes yes all that:
http://earthresources.vic.gov.au/earth-resources/victorias-earth-resources/coal/alternate-uses
http://earthresources.vic.gov.au/earth-resources/victorias-earth-resources/coal
Our moronic politicians keep throwing good money after bad.
Brown coal combustion had given Victoria some of the cheapest electricity in the World.
Victorians now pay the second-highest electricity prices (ex tax) in the World!
This is nothing short of criminal and all our main political parties are to blame.
Tony Abbott (not my favourite politician for several reasons) was the only poly with the correct energy policy. The green cartel made certain he was deposed when they couldn’t control him (like they do Malcolm & co).
If brown coal to hydrogen is so viable, why do they need 100-million of our money?
Taxpayers ripped again for a pathetic political donation.
“Joining hands with and celebrating with our new green friends” is always a mistake as anything that pleases this bunch of Green mental defectives will lead to cost, misery and disaster.
The lunacy of OZGreens no longer boggles my mind. OZ should be using and marketing what they have, and can without subsidizing it. They should export what won’t be paid for with culture-enrichers they will pay with what needful citizens find out of reach. And few places on Earth have more need for what an increase of atmospheric CO2 produces through forage and forest growth.
That is the female end of the extension cord, that lump of coal is consuming electricity.
Any process that proposed CO2 capture is genocidal in nature. Such perpetrators should be charged with crimes against humanity.
As a test case, apply the theorem of limits to the idea, take it to the limits, and see how many people die from famine as all CO2 is eliminated from the atmosphere. Their defense is that CO2 causes catastrophic global warming (or whatever the current name for the meme), which is a bold face, nefarious LIE!
The CO2 capture component is only included in this project to get funding for an otherwise obvious boondoggle!
Reblogged this on The GOLDEN RULE and commented:
Would be interesting to see the detailed financials. Reading the already many comments, many important factors need to be assessed.
Regarding the costs, Japan receives the energy output but at what costs and benefits to whom?
CO2 generation, apparently the only ‘by-product’, is of course some sort of dilemma, but only if you believe the pseudo science of the alarmists. It might even be welcome if, as some believe, we are entering a little ice age period. and then, only if atmospheric CO2 actually does make a difference!
Hopefully, this energy production will have less of the subsidization required for solar and wind energies.