The New York Times gave an overview of the hurdles facing the development of carbon capture technology for coal plants, which basically involves separating carbon dioxide and pumping it into the ground.
At present, this “clean coal†technology remains years away at best — and at worst, it will never be effective or affordable. The federal government recently pulled its support for the nation’s showcase project for carbon capture after developers reported technical difficulties and went way overbudget. And utilities in five states have canceled projects designed to further carbon capture.
We need research on clean coal, but the obstacles can’t be ignored.
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The key sentence in Randy Scholfield’s opening comentary above is: AT PRESENT THIS “CLEAN COAL” TECHNOLOGY REMAINS YEARS AWAY AT BEST — AND AT WORST IT WILL NEVER BE EFFECTIVE OR AFFORDABLE.
Good reason quashing the two coal-fired electric power plants out near Holcomb/Garden City made sense for Kansas. Kansans would like to continue to breathe clean air and drink relatively pure underground aquifer water for as long as possible.
“At present, this “clean coal” technology remains years away at best”
The interesting part of that is that I remember saying it a quarter-century ago. A lot of interesting technology got shelved when Gulf Oil went under and was gobbled up by Chevron.
BTH: Was it Gulf Oil that had the research facility in Merriam, Kansas in the 1970’s? Did you work there?
Don’t know much about Merriam. Our Research Center was in Harmerville, PA right outside of Pittsburgh.
Clean coal technology exists right now . . . it’s another way of saying “don’t mine the stuff and use wind power.”
Separate from the carbon issue coal - especially bituminous and sub-bituminous - has some very interesting chemistry. It is not simply carbon but also has a lot of hydrogen and heter-atoms. It is these that make coal processing interesting.
The theory behind SRC was to essentially fractionate coal into two products - one almost pure carbon (solid fuel) and one with a higher ration of hydrogen (liquid). The latter fraction could then be a feedstock to an oil refinery.
Removal of the hetero-atoms is critical. With oil we have sulfur and nitrogen; HDS and HDN technologies (HydroDeSulfurization etc) are fairly well known. Deeper versions of ‘HDX’ (for example, arsenic) were in their infancy back in the early 80s. This is important for two reasons - the toxicity of the pollutants coming out of our tailpipes and fouling of cracking catalysts in a refinery.
It is this research that was scrapped in the early 80s.
A bit odd the WE board is suddenly worried about the costs…
How about the coming costs of the “cap and tax” system the Dems want along with GE who thought it up. Since GE will make out about like Exxon with this cap tax system. Why do you think the big businesses like GE are pushing it.
And some of this other nonsense “green” stuff has worn off a bit even in California. Their big idea Hydrogen fuel cell mass transit busses are a fiasco. Diesel busses cost 1.50 per mile for maintenance. The Hydrogen busses costs 52 dollars PER MILE for maintenance. Costs will NEVER be recouped. Nor will they ever be paid for at 2.5 MILLION per bus. Going to have to haul a lot of homeless wino’s to cover that gap.
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[...] carbon dioxide and pumping it into the ground. At present, this ???clean coal??? technology …http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2008/06/clean-coal-faces-daunting-obstacles/Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive of Shell, answers back Times OnlineTop industrialist Jeroen van [...]