Future Energy Sources 3.1.4 Hydrogen from Coal

You forgot to mention another very, very, very toxic gas produced from coal gas (syn-gas), and that is hydrogen sulfide. The idea of producing syn-gas from petroleum or from coal, still produces CO2 that is not derived from the biomass cycle and thus does contribute to the greenhouse gas, while the CO₂ from biomass syn-gas is derived from the plant cycle and thus is greenhouse gas neutral. Also, the chemistry of biomass syn-gas contains very little sulfur but does contain N2 and NH4. The NH4 can be converted into a very nitrogen rich fertilizer.

I think the use of resources to produce energy is so wasteful
as to be criminal. (although understandable.)

Natural energy is a renewable source, oil, coal, minerals etc are not.

To waste these essential resources for the production of energy
is, in a child like way, and the human race will come to regret it.
(in my opinion.)

Wars are a prime example. The criminal waste of resources to
prevail over others beggers belief. (yes, we have to oppose tyrany)
Think of the millions of tons, wasted and / or lost in the last 2 wars.

It's about time the human race grew up over this and developed
the renewable resources while we still have time.
(many are working on this, including me, with a few ideas.)

Please urge engineers and politicians to give this a priority it deserves.
(and forget non-renewables while we still can.)

jt.

http://www.fastfreeads.com

The Fischer-Tropsch process is a related technology that may be of general interest.

The Fischer-Tropsch process is an old process deve4loped in Germany in 1928 and used by Germany during WWII to produce a portion of the fuel they used to fight in WWII. The syn-gas process is very closely related but is more useful for the reduction of biomass to syn-gas. This process uses steam at 800 to 850 C to pass through the biomass, most typically, in a fluidized bed of sand. The steam reacts with the hydrocarbons to supply the hydrogen and oxygen to produce an end product of hydrogen, nitogen, methane, ammonia, carbon dioxide, and depending on the amount of oxygen supplied, carbon monoxide. Since biomass usually contains very little sulfur, very little sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide not likely to be produced. This process will leave almost no carbon residue bbut will leave ash, mostly composed of inorganic compounds such as sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide and, perhaps, some phosphates and nitrates.

Thanks chtank. The whole thing is one of those strange stories of technological development. As you say it began with pre (?) Nazi Germany* and was refined (so to speak) in apartheid South Africa (oil embargo giving cause ) by SASOL. It's amazing how much stuff gets developed due to war and conflict. Global Warming may lead to some interesting things in relation to fuel technology ( If it becomes seriously seen as a threat).

* My point being, at a time when Germany was heavily sanctioned after WW1 and resentment was growing. Bit too political, so nuff said maybe.

Kris

It looks like this article (series) and my work are very closely related. I am attempting to put together my best effort to design, or rather, to point out designs which can lead to the independence of of tghe individual from the use(s) of oil and coal as a primary energy source. The outline of my incomplete work is posted on my personal website and has been posted, too, in the 'general' section of this CR4 forum. I have made some additional progress since I did post this, but am trying to find some commercial input to develop skidded turnkey modules to be available to the individual home builder and/or home owner. Here is the link to this effort, you are welcome to contribute if you like. In teh future, I will develop a process flow sheet and, if I am lucky, will proceed on and develop a mechanical flow sheet(s) as well. I will approach this part exactly the same as I did appoach each project I was involved with when I was working. I am a retiree from the Petrochemical and Power division (SIP) of Parsons Engineering Corporation. My title was Principle Mechanical Designer. I do believe that title qualifies me to design "My Earthbound Space Station".

I'll cruise by it and have a look later this week when I have some more time. It looks like a great read at a first glance.

In reply to both #3,4 and 5, the process for producing a liquid fuel for motorized vehicles was actually developed in the lab duriing the early 1900s in Germany, wherein the British blockage of WW I deprived the Germans of nitrates, rubber, oil, etc. Romania was an ally of Germany early in WW I, but then changed sides. Germany was forced to attack Romania, and specifically the oil fields, to recover their oil supplies. But when the Germans got there, the Allies had destroyed the oil well's producing capacity and the refineries. Thus, Germany was forced to fall back on industrializing a crude liquid hydrocarbon fuel from coal. This was more or less prior to and during the time of the development of industrialization of synthetic ammonia from the nitrogen in the air, and then followed by industrialization of the oxidation of ammonia to nitrates. My point is that, with today's hydrocracking, alkylation and cat-cracking ability in the petroleum industry, this "crude" liquid fuel process might well be adaptable to modern high octane fuels, diesel, home and industrial heating fuel and jet fuels. Certainly something to think about! And then there is the shale-oil delimma.

There's a lot of interesting things within your post Cardio07. This all requires a lot of thought , but for now one question comes to mind : Coal and shale etc are finite. We could produce fuels and other expendables from these. Should we conserve them, on the basis that materials for use in future technology may require them as a raw material ? This is all beyond my level of understanding, but hopefully you see my point - come year 2070 ( or whatever ) are engineers going to be weeping because we no longer have the raw fossil fuel to produce physical components ? To put it extremely -" OMG we burned all the commodity that could have formed the shell on our new starship enterprise". OK, that's extreme and perhaps chemical/physical nonsense, but is there such a conundrum ? It's also killing me not being able to recall the name of the shale deposits in Alaska (arabathsca or something like that ? ).I saw an amazing road building/tunnel project to facilitate extraction of the vast deposits in Alaska. Any links you know would be appreciated.

Kris

It is interesting that this subject even comes up in this thread, but since it has, let's look at it. As for 'using up' our carbon, let's say, rather, that we are burning it up. That is to say we are converting hydrocarbons to carbon dioxide and a few few toxic carbon compound. It is not the loss of carbon that matters. Even carbon dioxide can be recovered and converted back into other carbon compounds, that trick is known but very energy expensive. However, plants do it continuously.

The uses for carbon are endless. In fact, without carbon there would not be any scientist or engineers to study the issue. I was just reading in my science digest that it is not likely that diamonds are formed in the carbon rich gas layers of Uranus. Too bad, we could get rich fast if we could mine that bonanza. All kidding aside, it seems carbon and carbon compounds, even those that support life, are uniformly spread throughout the universe. Carbon has many uses and is essential to life. It is carbon and water that astronomers look for in the off-earth search for life. Carbon does not go away, it simply changes form. Do you not remember, there is a whole branch of science devoted to just this one element, it is called organic chemistry. Now, a new branch is developing, this one is called Nanotechnology. And some of the limbs on this branch are leading to a revolution in the energy areas, including solar cells, computer chips, and LED's. And at the extreme end of this limb is the computer-brain interface.

As for shale oil, and oil sands for that mater, there is some 9 trillion or so barrels of oil in the shale oil deposits in the Utah, Wyoming, Colorado shale oil deposits. This is more oil than is known elsewhere in the world. The trick it to recover this oil safely without destroying the earth's ability to support life in the process. Canada is where the largest deposits of oil sands are located and the Canadians are already mining these deposits. Additionally, The USA has more than 1/3 of all the earth's known coal deposits, mostly dirty soft coal but coal none the less. No, we are not running out of carbon, but the current uses of carbon are, to put it simply, destroying earth's balance that can, in the near term, reach a point of no return. Warmer temperatures mean the ice caps melt, the glaciers recede, the sea levels rise, and the storms become ever more violent. Warmer oceans and atmosphere means more water vapor. Water vapor and carbon dioxide plus sunlight does, in the very long run, produce soluble hydrocarbons, the stuff God used to create life on earth.

It is our job, the engineers job, to use the discoveries of our scientists to make the earth more livable. If we do not do this, then just as happened in the mass extinctions of the past, God will start over again. God, or nature if you wish to call Him that, has His way in the long run.

Fischer-Tropsch is a stop-gap. Please consider the Low temperature carbonization processes defined by Lewis Kerrick in the early 1920s. If this process is used with biomas (trash), and the resultant carbon (charcoal) and gardeners lime are reacted in a low-level plasma stream to make calcium acetylite, this byproduct can then be further reacted with the condensate water from the reaction to augment the output gas with low grade acetylene. the temperature range would need to be between 450 and 750 degrees F, and the process heated by external heat source, rather than steam as Kerrick originally proposed. I am suggesting the exhaust catalytic converter as a source for that heat.

I would appreciate any reasons this might not work.

the Handiman

This entire discussio thread has inspired me to add a fourth item to my blog, http://chtank.blogspot.com/2007/07/hybreds-for-green-energy-no-4.html, "Hybreds (in deference to Lobreds) for Green Energy"

It is my experience in reviewing the nanotechnology, nanomaterials, solar cells, fuel cells Google Alerts, and this blog and others in this field is full of talk but little action. I believe it is time to start putting our money where our mouth is and start engineering some usable alternatives to fossil fuels that are cost effective. This thread, "Future Energy Sources", directly leads to the technologies that can allow us to do our engineering. The one thing missing is to actually put these technologies to work on a commercial scale. But is that not what Engineering is all about in the first place?

Hi chtank,

• This thread, "Future Energy Sources", directly leads to the technologies that can allow us to do our engineering. The one thing missing is to actually put these technologies to work on a commercial scale. But is that not what Engineering is all about in the first place?

In short the answer is YES!. That is what engineering is all about but there is a major problem that I believe needs to be overcome before the engineers can do their work. I am of course speaking of the attitude of management and the current train of thinking on their behalf.

Unless you can prove that something is going to be profitable in the short term you have no hope of getting it even to the drawing table let alone off it and into mass production. It's a problem I have been aware for and it is unfortunately a world wide problem that unless overcome may be what ultimately dooms us to carrying on in our wasteful destructive ways.

It is also true that this thread is short on actual putting the technology into practice but that was not its intent. It was started to show people that there are indeed answers out there and that we can begin implementing the tomorrow.

Personally I would love to be involved in the development and introduction of many of the technologies that have been discussed on this thread, but unfortunately, I am not able to for several reasons not the least of them being my health. As a result I would more than likely be a hindrance rather than a help. I can however do something like this thread, that in a small way is making people aware of the problems and the technologies that could if implemented as a solution.

On a completely different track. Due to circumstances beyond my control I have not had time to prepare the new thread that is duo in the newsletter on Sunday 22^nd July 2007, so I apologize in advance. The new thread, which will be on generating hydrogen from bacteria and the like, will however, be ready for the following Sunday and the blog will continue as normal after that.

"Personally I would love to be involved in the development and introduction of many of the technologies that have been discussed on this thread, but unfortunately, I am not able to for several reasons not the least of them being my health. As a result I would more than likely be a hindrance rather than a help. I can however do something like this thread, that in a small way is making people aware of the problems and the technologies that could if implemented as a solution."

masu, please forgive me, I am also in declining health health with high blood pressure and found I could no longer be productive in the field. That is why I retired in 1998. My wife is 80 years old, has, has had her left knee replaced and is due to have her right replaced and her right foot surgically repaired. I spend most of my remaining energy in giving aid to her. I use what it left to contribute to green energy, alternate energy, etc., much as you are doing. I have very much enjoyed your newsletters and look forward to each new issue. It seems we are working toward the same goal.

It is my hope that those engineering types among us who are young, energetic, and courageous enough can pick up on our work to help solve some of the problems we have discussed here. You and I both know that we cannot do it alone. We simply do not have the resources. It does take the cooperation of many scientists and engineers working toward the common solution. We can, however, and we are contribute from our past experiences to show a way toward the solution. Thanks to you, we have the series, "Future Energy Sources". I feel flatered and honored to be a part of your thread. A job well done.