New Clean Coal Process Developed at OSU

• jmog

  http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/02/osu-cdcl-20130211.html
  
  Really they just use a catalyst to oxidize the carbon in coal so that it happens at a lower temperature than combustion.
  
  The reason to do this is so that the CO2 is easier to contain/capture (as described in the article).
  
  The downside? This will not be as efficient as burning coal, so will cost more per kWh.
  
  Why? When you burn fossil fuels for power, the combustion process is used to heat up water to make steam. The steam then drives a turbine to create the electricity (in simple terms).
  
  To heat up the water there are two means of heat transfer, convection and radiation. Convection won't change between conventional combustion of coal and this new process, basically it just takes all the heat out of the gases and transfers it to the water.
  
  Radiation is the most efficient form of heat transfer at high temperatures (it is how the sun heats the Earth). Radiation happens mostly due to the flame, it won't happen in this new process as there is no flame.
  
  I like the idea and it will help with coal polution as it makes the CO2 easier to capture, but it will make electricity costs from coal go up.
  
  FYI, I read somewhere that this is a CO2 free process which is entirely incorrect. It still makes CO2, that is the only way to get energy from fossil fuels and coal. However, it is much easier to contain.
  
  They (coal fired power plants) already sell their scrubbed/sequestered SO2 emissions as CaSO4 to gypsum/drywall manufactures (sometimes give it away for free).
  
  They would then have to find a taker/buyer for CO2 (different chemical industries use CO2 as a raw material, beverage industry for carbonation, etc).
  
  Interesting process, just curious about the added costs.
• sleeper

  

  Ohio State is going to be the leader in engineering solutions for the next century. Very proud of my university.
• jmog

  sleeper;1393638 wrote:Ohio State is going to be the leader in engineering solutions for the next century. Very proud of my university.

  OSU has a very good chem eng program, that is for sure.
• sleeper

  

  I have no doubt that IN MY LIFETIME people will refer to Harvard as the Ohio State of the East. No doubt. Book it, bank it. :thumbup:
• HitsRus

  

  What!!!??? Clean coal!!??? Guaranteed not to be clean enough for the huggers and their leftist allies.
• Mohican00

  

  jmog;1393637 wrote:I like the idea and it will help with coal polution as it makes the CO2 easier to capture, but it will make electricity costs from coal go up.

  Well, nice experiment anyway. Too bad electricity costs are expected to jump considerably in the next few decades due to decline in the amount of high carbon content coal. This method would only serve to compound those costs while capturing a pointless byproduct (CO2 - oooh). SO2 and NOx emissions are still the biggest concerns from coal burning electric plants but not too serious a threat to warrant redoing the electrical generating infrastructure.
• fan_from_texas

  Interesting. With gas prices as they are, the impetus for clean coal is waning. It's tough to be economic for anything but gas units right now.
• jmog

  Mohican00;1393719 wrote:Well, nice experiment anyway. Too bad electricity costs are expected to jump considerably in the next few decades due to decline in the amount of high carbon content coal. This method would only serve to compound those costs while capturing a pointless byproduct (CO2 - oooh). SO2 and NOx emissions are still the biggest concerns from coal burning electric plants but not too serious a threat to warrant redoing the electrical generating infrastructure.

  As a combustion engineer, I agree with you 100%.
• gut

  That's all well and good, but there's no such thing as clean coal in liberal vernacular. All coal is bad. This is sort of like making advances in the horse and buggy. Utterly and completely useless. I award 0 points.