Coal: The New Wave Fuel

What is the energy cost of energy generation (rhetorical question)? Economics will dictate whether this technology becomes commonplace.

because it is in the cracker

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Did you delete your question regarding the cream in cream crackers?

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You can find in the web some articles regarding energy cost versus alternatives. It's all about money. It's still cheaper the old way. I personally would like to see large hydrogen driven power plants, with the hydrogen being generated from eolic, solar or sea energy. But while conventional power is profitable, there's too much people earning money to change it.

bhrescobar:

You said:

"It's all about money. It's still cheaper the old way."

I agree.

"I personally would like to see large hydrogen driven power plants, with the hydrogen being generated from eolic, solar or sea energy."

But why in the world large H2 power plants from H2 produced with renewable energy? It's so inefficient. How do you propose transporting the H2 from the production sites to the large H2 driven plants? It is so much easier and efficient to produce the electricity directly from the renewables.

"But while conventional power is profitable, there's too much people earning money to change it."

Are you implying that no one will earn money with "non conventional" power when it becomes cost effective?

Look at it this way, we have energy available in multitude of forms, wind, solar, mech.(animal),..etc, and then we have type chemical, i.e.: gasoline, diesel, wood and engineered coal. Resource input for the production of gasoline/diesel fuel - x-dollars,say, most of us have pretty much accepted this without much analyses, I suspect that this is probably due to the systems available to transform these energy sources quite well(with prevailing economics/technology), i.e.: diesel/gas motors are near perfect(in its currently accepted form) - pump gas/start motor/move! Detailed analyses- such as responses as provided by other members above, appears when available energy transformers aren't readily available in forms that we may be comfortable with (imagine pumping coal and driving, for example). I reckon the critical issue here would be critical mass consumer base for same. Once there are enough people who buy into this idea, I guess we're on!

Also, engineered coal would be very environmentally friendly, perhaps even better than diesel motors. It's carbon and nothing else. The original impurities in coal from mine as at the processing plant could be better treated in a controlled manner/environment.

I dare say, engineered coal could even contribute beautifully towards distributed energy management (coupled with micro steam or gas turbine gen-sets, i.e.: sub 10 kw units), applicable to such as places where main stream/big corp. distributuion network aren't available-this could be anywhere in the world though, not necessarily Indian villages or Timbuktu.

there is a cost to make oxygen, no matter what way you use. Synthesis gas is a form of disproportionation where the water is reduced into hydrogen and some of the carbon turns into CO. Since both CO and H2 will burn they call it synthesis gas.

lots here

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=%22synthesis+gas%22+%2Btypes

Coal is one of the highest carbon fuels. We need to limit atmospheric CO2 to less than 350 PPM (a figure to serve as the limit in less than 50 years to avoid catastrphic effects of global warming). In addition to other comments made about "it all being about money", there are additional costs involved in pumping CO2 underground at high pressure.

In the final analysis, however, the USA has about the most coal reserves on a worldwide basis. Until we realize that pebble bed fission reactors are safe (as the French and Japanese have done), the shorter term answer for us may need to be coal.

Ultimately, fusion and hydrogen as a portable fuel from electrolysis of water will be the large scale answer, but the time horizon is very long. Solar will play a role, but it will be limited in scope.

Bernie Katz

Coal deposits in British Columbia, Canada were sold in the early 1990's.

Rumor was that the coal was high grade and that it was being shipped to Japan. Recently the rumor is that the coal is being converted to a fuel that when burned produces no polutants. I have wondered if it is possible to convert coal to a non poluting burnable substance... Hydorgen for example.

What could be done with all the carbon produced as a waste product?

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I remember when filters were called charcoal filters . Now they are carbon filters.

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Granted energy required to transform coal into engineered coal, point is, conversion of all secondary fuel does require energy, distillation of crude oil into gasoline,say would certainly reduce the per barrel energy potential( energy consumed in distillation process), however, if this isn't done, the energy source(crude oil) is not of much use to anyone anyway(contextually speaking that is- you can't burn crude oil in your Lincoln, can you.) So too is the case with coal, idea is to transform it into something that is readily acceptable by the masses vis-a-vis environment, safety, ease of use, value for money, etc. Given the fact that coal price is low and let's assume processing this to the acceptable form takes some percent of this cost advantage, it may still be a viable business proposition.

Incidentally, I thought this concept would make for a cheaper and practicable alternative alternative for marine propulsion. As a matter of engineering curiosity, introducing such a fuel form and its transformation method described in earlier posts, the entire marine propulsion scene could change in a big way - it'll become immensely flexible!

While the techlology might be impressive, the last thing we need these days is to use a high-carbon dirty fuel for energy. Nature spent millions of years burying all this carbon and now we are digging it up and throwing it back into the air as fast as we can. Additionally we suffer from all the mining deaths, destruction if mountains, pollution of streams, decades long underground fires and mammoth sink holes.

Let us instead focus our talent resources on long-lasting, low polluting energy sources like Fast-Neutron Nuclear Reactors. They work on low grade uranium ore and even have the potential to burn up most all out Nuclear waste. They can produce unlimited amounts of electricity in little space, and also produce voluminous amounts of hydrogen by high-temperature disassociation of water. All this and they don't take up vast areas of prescious land as do windmills, or crops grown for fuel. This is the single best solution to the world's energy crises. Given the long lead times, we should be putting every available effort into this project.

Caveman days are old world. Let's finally crawl out of the caves and leave the coal in the ground. Our "New Wave" should be a wave goodbye.

The mechanism to make coke from coal is much the same as the mechanism to make charcoal out of scrap wood. Also, scrap water hyacinth, scrap kelp, scrap corn stalks, and sawdust. The trick is to use carbon which is NOT a fossil fuel. If you do this, you don't need to worry about global warming...because the carbon cycle will be atmospherically neutral. Is this not obvious?

stag@cyberus.ca

I assume here you are opting to keep the Coal the ground and harvest current growth instead.

If you try to gather enough "scrap water hyacinth, scrap kelp, scrap corn stalks, and sawdust" etc... then the humongous quantities needed to meet our energy demands would leave our landscape nearly barren. Don't forget to process extra fuel for all the farming and harvesting equipment needed. Also, try to figure out just how we could continue to grow this silage on land that is loosing its humus because we stopped letting this stuff return to the soil (as is part of the Natural Cycle). Speaking of the "cycle" what happens to the population of bacteria, worms and bugs once we start raiding their food stocks? What does the new "Food Chain" look like?

This scheme might have merit if we kept our global population below 1 billion.

Quite.

Use of synthesis gas (produced from coal) coupled with the Fischer Tropsch process has been used on a production scale since WWII. It was developed by the 3rd Reich for use as airplane fuel. Later Sasol of South Africa began operation of a plant for motor fuels. (I believe that all motor fuel in SA was produced that way for years). Since then, at least 2 additional plants have been built there. Each plant consumed the equivalent output of 3 mines at least as large as the largest US coal mine. I studied this technology as a fuel technologist 25 years ago and I recall that the major issue with doing it in the US (beyond pollution questions) was the labor cost; oil pipelines and refineries run with skeleton crews compared to coal mines and this type of technology. Also, I was surprized even then at the price we pay /gallon of fuel in taxes. If the tax base were adjusted to put this technology on an even footing with fuels from petroleum, it could work. Of course, that was before the "energy companies" started buying up coal companies and mining rights with windfall profits and thereby securing their ultimate control.

Aqua Doc is quite right about syngas from coal as well as production of gasoline from coal (also done during the 3rd Reich). There was also the Lurghi (spelling) using partial oxidation (I worked for Lummus for 20 years beginning in 1965). Of course there is still the carbon problem to deal with.

One of the major frustrations to me was the way in which the Nazis raised fuel octane ratings (130 octane for aircraft engines): They used tetraethyllead sold to them by guess who: Our very own Dupont de Neours and company.

Bernie Katz

If engineered coal could satisfy just one market demand - winter heating, I think we may just be able to remove a major jinx from the winter heating bills! With a small roots or similar type blower, oxygen could be separated from air (practical/actual cost needs to be worked out though). One could either heat air directly( via an air to air heater-of course), or (my favorite) run small steam turbine(yeap the hobby kind!) attached to a permanent magnet dynamo.

First of all, because this setup uses pure oxygen, furnace assembly can be made very compact, next we're probably looking at sub 10 kw genset. It's gonna be real tiny. due to its size and load, and given engineering material available today, a completely sealed type turbo-genset could be easily made. with appropriate approval/certification these could be sold as kits. Throw in a self contained vauum arrangement and you would be emulating plants as used in the general industry. As most of us know, steam plants are amazingly reliable and long lasting. Furnace, boiler(real tiny ones, here) and impulse type turbine(simple and easy to make) have been around even before gas turbines. Now we need someone to make us some engineered coal!