NewNergy

NewNergy discusses the latest inventions, innovations and breakthroughs in the energy & environmental sciences.

POSCO Aims to Halt CO2 via Hydrogen Steelmaking

South Korea's POSCO (005490.KS) plans to eventually halt carbon emissions by switching to a hydrogen-based steelmaking process from 2021, company officials said.

Currently, iron ore is melted in a furnace using super-heated air from burning coal. In addition to this fuel role, coal is also used as a critical component in steel production because the carbon from burning coal captures oxygen from the molten iron ore, emitting carbon dioxide in the process.

POSCO hopes to switch from carbon to hydrogen gas to capture oxygen, a step that results in water produced as a byproduct instead of planet-warming carbon dioxide.

POSCO officials said the steelmaker is considering supplying hydrogen gas from its "SMART" nuclear reactors. It is looking at participating in a consortium for developing small or medium-sized nuclear reactors.

The steelmaker, however, has not yet decided which energy resources they will use instead of coal as fuel to heat the furnace.

Under the mid-term plan through 2020, the steelmaker will introduce breakthrough new process technology for carbon dioxide reduction.

In addition to steelmaking process changes, POSCO is looking for new business opportunities in low-carbon green growth areas, for instance, stationary fuel cells and synthetic natural gas.

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High Efficient Industrial Carbon Capture Technology

Industrial Research Ltd (IRL) has made a breakthrough that enables the world’s most efficient carbon dioxide capture technology to become commercially viable. IRL Research Scientist Robert Holt is leading the multi-disciplinary team that is investigating the development of a cost-effective enhancement to an existing technique that uses limestone for the capture of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel power combustors. IRL has been awarded $350,000 over three years by the Foundation for Research Science and Technology to further develop its technology.

The process is designed to capture carbon dioxide from coal fired power stations and other industries that emit significant amounts of the greenhouse gas.

The lime cycling process uses limestone, a relatively abundant and inexpensive material. It is heated to around 900 degrees centigrade to become lime, which is a very effective material for absorbing carbon dioxide.

When post-combustion flue gas is passed through the lime in a fluidised bed, the CO2 is captured. The process is then reversed to transform the lime back into limestone, which is then used again to capture more CO2.

The 95 per cent pure CO2 that is produced can be compressed to about 3% of its original volume and can then be stored efficiently or used in another industrial process. This process has been known for many years but until now it has not been efficient enough to be considered commercially applicable.The IRL team confirmed that exposing the lime to steam reopens its pore structure and enables it to absorb CO2 efficiently again.

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90% of Coal Plant CO2 Captured in 12-Month Test

One year ago the French company Alstom began a year-long US test of capturing CO2 from the water+carbon-dioxide mix created using their chilled-ammonia technology, in the smokestack of the Pleasant Prairie Power Plant in Wisconsin.

Last week the year’s results were announced. The years average CO2 capture rate was 90%, according to a joint announcement from the EPRI, We Energies and Alstom to the Society of Environmental Journalists.

The 12-month test was just completed after running 24 hours a day on a small sectioned-off portion of the smokestack; working on just 5% of the plants total emissions.

But the test is scalable, and the Electric Power Research Institute, the R&D arm of the utility industry, is optimistic that chilled-ammonia technology will work on a larger scale. It is one of several carbon-capture technologies under consideration as we move to a carbon constrained world.

Next, Alstom will work with AEP in Columbus, Ohio to test a scaled-up version of the technology at the Mountaineer power plant in West Virginia. That test takes the next step as well; not just capturing the carbon dioxide but burying it 8,000 feet beneath the plant site.

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Manmade Biomass Coal Offers Storage And Fuel

A new machine dubbed the "Black Phantom" can turn biomass into manmade coal. Carbonscape, a New Zealand-based start-up, describes its invention as an industrial-sized microwave that can cook plant waste, wood waste, and "even sewage" into coal. Carbonscape also claims that the machine captures and stores more carbon than the amount of carbon generated by the electricity needed to power it for the process. The invention combines two popular environmental efforts: using biochar for carbon capture and storage (CCS), and developing alternative fuel sources from biomass.

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New Eco-Friendly Alternative To Charcoal

Thousands of grilling enthusiasts now have more free time following the invention of the FlameDisk, a revolutionary alternative to charcoal. This convenient grilling option, which employs solid ethanol as its fuel source, lights instantaneously with the touch of a match and is ready to cook on in less than one minute, eliminating the time needed to arrange and light coals. From ignition to cooking, the FlameDisk saves roughly a half hour of wait time while giving eco-conscious cooks a green grilling alternative.

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New Coal Additives for Energy Efficiency & Emission Reduction

The Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has recently announced the co-invention of two new coal additives which can improve coal efficiency by 7-12%, and also reduce emissions by nearly 30%.The two new coal additives, CHARNA C and CHARNA CO2, co-developed by the Shanghai Institute and Beijing Charna Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals, have been selected by the National Development and Reform Commission as key national promotion products for energy saving and emission reduction.

Twenty tons of such liquid additives have been used to conduct fuel-burning performance tests at more than ten factories and institutes such as Chongqing Titanium Industry and Beijing Research Institute of Coal Chemistry.Test results show that the new additives improve coal efficiency by 7-12%, reduce sulphur dioxide emissions by 24-33%, and nitrogen oxide emissions by 17%.

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Charred wood-'Green coal' to get a tryout

North Carolina is about to become the nation's test case for what marketers call "green coal" -- wood that has been baked into charcoal.But the option of locally grown fuel is not without challenges and environmental concerns. Still, advocates of the process believe the technology is on the verge of a breakthrough.

The process is not as simple as collecting dead branches from the forest floor. The wood has to be treated in an industrial oven until it turns to charcoal. It remains to be seen if the experimental ovens can mass-produce charred wood of a uniform quality that won't clog power plants sensitively calibrated to burn coal.When burned, wood releases significantly less sulphur and almost no mercury. And wood doesn't add to the atmospheric greenhouse gases that are believed to cause global warming.

Charred wood, a type of biomass, would be a major breakthrough because it can be pulverized into a fine powder for burning in existing power plants, potentially displacing a third of the coal in some plants, advocates say. By blending wood with coal, Progress wouldn't have to build a separate power plant for incinerating wood chips, thus eliminating a multimillion-dollar expense from the green energy equation.

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HTC Purenergy Announces CO2 Capture Cost Reduction Breakthrough

HTC Purenergy announced a new CO2 Capture cost reduction breakthrough - the Thermal Kinetics Optimization process. TKO will be added to the existing base Purenergy CCS CO2 Capture System and will substantially reduce the energy requirements of capturing CO2 from post-combustion coal and natural gas power plants.

The TKO process improves the CO2 Capture System through heat recovery, thermal balancing and optimized process flow. The primary advantage of this newly patented system is that it directly reduces the largest single cost of CO2 capture - the use of power plant steam - to a ratio of below 1 unit steam required to 1 unit CO2 captured.

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Nanosolar Breakthrough Makes Solar Electricity Cheaper Than Coal

A new combination of nano and solar technology has made it possible for solar electric generation to be cheaper than burning coal. Nanosolar, Inc. has developed a way to produce a type of ink that absorbs solar radiation and converts into electric current. Photovoltaic (PV) sheets are produced by a machine similar to a printing press, which rolls out the PV ink onto sheets approximately the width of aluminum foil. These PV sheets can be produced at a rate of hundreds of feet per minute.

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Future of Coal-generated Energy in Arizona Uncertain

Uncertainty about the future of coal power plants could prevent Arizonans from tapping the inexpensive and abundant resource to meet their growing electricity demands, and likely will mean higher energy bills.

But coal releases more carbon dioxide than other energy sources, and with growing agreement that those emissions must be capped, cut or taxed to address global warming, utility companies see coal as a low-hanging yet forbidden fruit. advertisement

Companies such as Arizona Public Service Co. and Salt River Project are wary of committing to new coal projects that might seem inexpensive now. New global-warming laws could make those plants much more expensive to operate down the road.

They predict they either will have to pay more for the emissions or pay more for yet-to-be-invented equipment to catch those emissions. Or they could rely on more expensive sources of electricity.

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DOE Releases Feasability Study for Illinois Coal to Liquid Plant

DOE releases feasability study for Illinois Coal to Liquid Plant

Via: Auto Blog Green

May 22nd 2007

The Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory has completed a feasibility study for a proposed Coal to Liquid fuel production facility in Illinois. The proposal would include a plant that would convert coal into fuel along with electrical power that would go back into the grid. The input would be high-sulfur bituminous coal which would be gasified and the gas converted to liquids by the Fischer-Tropsch method. The output would include diesel. This diesel will need to additional additives before it could be used. The other output products will be be naptha, which can be used as a chemical feedstock.

The study projected the $3.65 billion plant would have a 20% annual return on investment...

[Source: NETL]

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Turning Black Coal Green - Zero Emissions Coal Plants

Turning Black Coal Green - Zero Emissions Coal Plants

February 02, 2007

Sooty coal hardly seem like the future of energy, but that’s exactly what the U.S. Department of Energy predicts. Coal’s growing dominance need not spell doom for the environment, according to an executive at American Electric Power (AEP), a large American utility company which is building the first near-zero-emission coal plant by 2012. The 275-megawatt facility will serve as the model for a new generation of high-tech coal facilities, it is hoped

Source of article: AltEng post

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Coal’s Future in Doubt - Could Peak in 15 Years?

Coal’s Future in Doubt - Could Peak in 15 Years?

May 2007

A recent newsletter article by GPM consisted of a summary of the conclusions of a recent study by the Energy Watch Group (EWG) on future global coal supplies. That study found that global coal production could peak in as few as 15 years. This rather surprising conclusion was based on a careful analysis of recent reserves revisions for several nations.

The EWG report has enormous implications for climate change, global energy, and particularly for future electricity supply and steel production in the US and China. Until now, virtually everyone in the fields of energy policy and energy analysis had assumed that the world’s coal endowment was so enormous that no limits would be encountered anytime this century. The EWG’s conclusions turn this assumption on its head.

Read more from this post by Richard Heinberg @ Global Public Media

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Cleaning Up Coal & The Future of Coal

Interesting discussion at this Biodiesel America page on Cleaning Up Coal & The Future of Coal

"
Hi JohnO,
I plan to look back at coal ten years from now the way I look at my old IBM 286 – dead technology. After we transform America to green energy making trillions of dollars of new industries in the process, we will reverse climate change – probably by making some kind of carbon dense briquettes (similar to coal) and putting them back in the ground. Right where they belong. JT

JohnO Writes:
Joshua: my parents forwarded this to me. I especially like his statement
"we've run out of backyards".

This brings to mind the question - what is the most concentrated form of
carbon that we might be able to sequester? Too bad glycerol doesn't
contain any significant carbon - we could sequester it, solving the
disposal problem. I could see raw veg oil as a potential carbon trap,
squeezing it out of beans and seed (and palm nuts) only to be pumped
into the ground to make room in the atmosphere for coal smoke. I'm
afraid to run the figures to see if that makes economic sense. Yikes!
Luckily I don't have the figures readily available, so I'll keep my head
in the sand a little longer. Sigh.
Cheers,
JohnO
"

Read the full discussion and the rest of the opinions here @ Biodiesel America

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  In the beginning, there were algae,
but there was no oil Then, from algae came oil.
Now, the algae are still there, but oil is fast depleting
In future, there will be no oil, but there will still be algae  
So, doesn't it make sense to explore if we can again get oil from algae?
This is what we try to do at Oilgae.com - explore the potential of getting oil from algae