Clean Burning Coal ??

Steve Ebels_3

Crude hit $62/barrel Friday and I read an article that flatly stated $100 per barrel is not out of the realm of possibility within the next 2-3 years. In fact, the writer brought up the point that a coup in Saudi Arabia could send crude to $100+ overnight.

Just a couple comforting Sunday evening thoughts for you all to cogitate on.(G)

Let's see........... $62 for 42 gallons of crude = $1.48 a gallon. Now add transportation costs, refining costs, federal state and local taxes, operating and overhead expenses............... How in the heck do they sell gas for $2.19/gallon??????????

ScottMP

I happen

to catch a Politician talking about clean burning coal and the technologie necessary to make it work. He was talking about the investment we need to make for the future.

I trust that some of the brightest minds that frequent this site can inform those of us less knowledgable about "clean burning coal ".

Is this possible ? If the burning is ecologically acceptable what about the mining of coal. Is it really possible or is this a Politicians Dream Speach ??

Scott

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hr

Cleaner burning coal plants

should certainly be doable! Popular Science had a good article about this issues ago. http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/article/0,20967,233031,00.html

hot rod

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Ken_8

Scott,

If you put in the scrubbers and already existing technology, and don't go bankrupt with the costs to burn clean, the technology already exists.

Problem is, nobody can afford it! Not yet that is. When oil gets to 60+ dollars a barrel consistently, the costs to clean up coal emmissions becomes viable.

Time will tell. We already derive over half of all US electricty by burning coal.

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BillW@honeywell

The USA sits on top of...

more coal than Saudi Arabia and Iraq have oil. Back during the "energy crisis" of the 70's, there was much talk about coal gasification, improved technologies for burning coal etc. Ken's right, the technology exists, but the scrubbers and other environmental requirements are expensive. They do yield two salable by-products, fly ash, which can be used in concrete, and the sulfur can be reclaimed as sulfuric acid for use in the chemical industry.

The coal is crushed until it is particles about the size of talcum powder, blown into the firebox and ignited. There are some other viable combustion method alternatives as well, but coal plants need to be large. Electric generation, district heating, that kind of large for the economy of scale.

There were even plans seriously considered for a modern steam locomotive, fired by coal, that on paper at least would have equalled modern diesel locomotive pulling power and emissions. "King Coal" may be out of favor and politically incorrect right now, but he may get a wake up call VERY soon. Stay tuned...

Joe Brix

> more coal than Saudi Arabia and Iraq have oil.

> Back during the "energy crisis" of the 70's,

> there was much talk about coal gasification,

> improved technologies for burning coal etc.

> Ken's right, the technology exists, but the

> scrubbers and other environmental requirements

> are expensive. They do yield two salable

> by-products, fly ash, which can be used in

> concrete, and the sulfur can be reclaimed as

> sulfuric acid for use in the chemical

> industry.

>

> The coal is crushed until it is

> particles about the size of talcum powder, blown

> into the firebox and ignited. There are some

> other viable combustion method alternatives as

> well, but coal plants need to be large. Electric

> generation, district heating, that kind of large

> for the economy of scale.

>

> There were even

> plans seriously considered for a modern steam

> locomotive, fired by coal, that on paper at least

> would have equalled modern diesel locomotive

> pulling power and emissions. "King Coal" may be

> out of favor and politically incorrect right now,

> but he may get a wake up call VERY soon. Stay

> tuned...

Joe Brix

Environmental issues getting to the coal

I doubt strip mining would ever be allowed in the scale needed to meet our energy needs. I'd rather see our unused agricultural capabilities pushed to bio-diesel production before we look to scar most of this county's landscape.

Bob Harper

clean coal not an oxymoron

Bill W is correct, esp. about the gasification. They still do this while the liquid/solid residues go into everything from dandruff shampoo to highways and utility poles.

FYI, good quality hard anthracite coal suitable for stoves is again available from Eastern Pa. There is something of a coal revival going on. Tons of heat per $$ and newer stoves much easier to manage once you've figured out how to get it going, heh, heh. Still have to figure out what to do with all that ash in residential. Commercial/ industrial flyash is now sold as an additive pozzolan for concrete. Makes it more workable & pasty. Holds up well in high temp. applications, too.

While I've got you, there is a bill just approved by the House which would provide up to 25% rebate ($3K max.) on pellet stoves. Big push these days on energy alternatives. Please write in and tell your Senator to support this bill.

archibald tuttle

clean coal

clean coal is two things. a great technological possibility and a boondoogle of federal dollars. The U.S. investment (in the billions) has been principally in gasification and, after decades, all they have to show for it is a demo plant not on industrial scale (slightly more sophisticated than German research and us of the technology in seeking oil alternatives during World War II).

Ironically, it is these kind of investments, which principally subsidize research in particular states and congressional districts, which are characterized by environmenalists as how we subsidize fossil fuels more than renewables.

This research is pork through and through, but it is not money given to coal producers or generators to reduce the perceived cost to the public or promote more fossil fuel use or production (i.e, to redistribute ratepayer costs to the taxpayer which is why I won't be supporting and $3,000 tax credits for pellet stoves either).

If we actually wanted to subsidize clean coal (not necessary any more than are renewable subsided) we would do the same thing that state and federal governments do for renewables, offer a nickel per kwh or a penny per 1000 btus for those building clean coal technology. Then we would actually have subsidized clean coal. Now we have nothing except really expensive renewables. Wind Power already equates to $100 a barrel for oil (of course these spot market prices don't reflect long term contracts for supply and are more like the relation of short term and long term interest rates, usually trending in the same direction, so I mean to say that windpower costs including state and federal subsidies currently reflect on the order of twice the cost of fossil fuel generation. Thus even if you believe in 'priming the pump'investing in alternatives in a form of energy market timing, these subsidies should be sliding scale so they go down as the price of energy goes up. Otherwise 'windfall' will apply literally and figuratively.

One of the mistakes of this government subsidized clean coal program has been to focus almost exclusively on gasification. There are many other existing technologies, as an earlier poster pointed out, that constitute cleaner and more efficient coal burning technologies. The regulatory risk of installing coal is so high right now for fear that the global warming fear mongers would win back political control and put an enormous tax on coal generation which would cripple those investments.

I actually stood in the firebox of a 150 megawatt fluidized-bed coal burning plant under construction in Australia. It uses injection technology manufactured by a Conneticut company in tandem with boilers designed by an Australian company to force the dirtiest coal slurry (stuff they used to put back in the mine because no one could use it) into a bed of sand which is heated to about 1200 degrees and floats on 4000 hp blower system which raises the meter thick sand bed at rest to about 2 m thick during operation.

The coal combusts in this environment and preheater pipes run through the bed carry away the heat so that combustion temperature remains in the 1200 degree range. This prevents NOx formation which is associated with temperatures about 500 degrees hotter. Lime is mixed with the sand bed and precipitates sulfer. Cyclonic flues followed by traditional baghouse technology is used for particulates.

I suspect the power cost contract for this facility may represent a modest subsidy, i.e. cost for power higher than alternative installations, and I don't claim complete familiarity with these provisions, I only know the technology is ready to go. This clean coal technology is up and running at industrial scale and I think the main impediment is regulatory and NIMBY.

With today's sophisticated steam turbine and heat recovery, these plants can make high 40s or essentially very close to the same efficiency of gas turbine electricity. As you know, natural gas can do home heating in the 80s and 90s. What a great idea it was to encourage natural gas generating at 50 per cent efficiency so that people are putting in 'clean coal' stoves to save money on their heat. Our government at work. They should quit all this subsidy crap, renewables included, and let the market figure it out.

Brian

B. Tice

Anthracite

Yeah, what Bob Harper said................Anyway, be aware of the difference between Pennsylvania anthracite and the cheaper bitumious coal found in Ohio, West Va., Western Pa., etc.Anthracite is some nice stuff. They say there is enough Anthracite alone to run the USA for at least 100 years in exsisting mines.See www.ultracleanfuels.com

Noel Kelly

Clean coal scam

Thank you Brian - very insightful.

Some time ago, Marriott Hotels got into the clean coal business when they bought a couple of these so-called clean coal plants. Because of the tax incentives, they were able to reduce their overall corporate tax bill by tens of millions. The sad part is that 'clean coal" is a broad term and in many cases does not justify the effort.

Noel Kelly

Tony Conner

You've Gotta Watch...

... how "efficiency" gets calculated, and just what kind of efficiency is being discussed. Residential appliance efficiencies are NOT calculated the same way as industrial boilers, or any kind of true "boiler eff" for that matter.

When big traditional thermal generating plants talk about "30% eff", they're talking about the fuel input to the boilers measured against the actual electrical power generated going out the door. They don't mean "boiler eff", or "combustion eff", or "AFUE eff". Central generation station boilers (just the boilers) will run in the 85% eff range. (Not combustion eff, not AFUE eff - BOILER eff). The big losses in these plants are in the condensers, under the turbines. There's a HUGE amount of low grade heat that gets dumped in the condenser cooling water. There's the "problem". If the condenser cooling water temps are allowed to drift up to the point where you've actually got some high temp water to send somewhere else, the steam turbine output falls off measureably. There is no free lunch.

There is nothing wrong with coal as a fuel when fired properly. It should be restricted to large industrial & utility plants with up to date equipment, and trained crews. Natural gas and #2 oil can be cleanly burned in cars and residential appliances, and that's where those fuels should be targeted. To burn huge amounts of these clean fuels in giant generating plants is just plain nuts. To get some scale to the fuel consumption, the plant I worked in had 5 main storage tanks for bunker oil. 835,000 barrels EACH. Not gallons - BARRELS. 42 US gallons per barrel. That was enough oil for 40 days running all four main boilers flat out. That was a 2,000 megawatt station. A big station, but not a huge part of the North American electrical generating capacity. Think of the fuel that roared through those lines PER HOUR. Figure out how many houses could be heated with the equivalent BTU of natural gas. (It's a LOT...) And that's just ONE plant.

If things deteriorate to the extent where the lights and heat are going off, and/or no fuel for cars, I strongly suspect that those throwing rocks at "dirty old coal" will be pushing their way to the front of the lines to get a shot at electricity generated from literally ANY source.

jerry scharf_3

fluidized bed combustion

Fluidized bed technology has been around since the 60s. In countries that care a whole lot more about the environment, this is becoming popular. You grind the coal very fnie, then feed it into a mix of sand and limestone. Air is blown in through the bottom and causes the coal/sand/limestone mix to act as a fluid. Because there is limestone in the mix, nitrogen and sulphur oxides are managed (no acid rain) and scrubbing is much easier.

The common theme is that this is too expensive. The numbers often quoted are >50% more, while in other countries it's more like 10%. As compared to coal gasification which is really expensive and unproven at scale and over decades. It seems to be better to talk about something new than implement someting that exists.

"It's too expensive" is a perfect self fulfilling prophecy. They would rather spend their money buying politicians and fighting endless legal battles. It's the same bull headed idiocy I see so often when people get an idea in their brain. Reason no longer works.

jerry

Noel Kelly_3

Intersting dilemma

Here is a great article about LNG, past and present in this country.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0623/p13s01-sten.html