Chu: We Need Clean Coal, Carbon Capture 14 comments
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By Michael Kanellos
Steve Chu, the likely next Secretary of Energy for the U.S., told a Senate committee that the country needed to invest in clean coal as well as carbon capture.
Chu has always been an outspoken opponent of coal. However, he’s also tempered that with the fact that it is the world’s most abundant form of fossil fuel, that it is cheap, and that some of the world’s largest deposits are in China and India.
He said he is “hopeful and optimistic” that clean coal can be developed, according to a post in the Wall Street Journal’s Environmental Capital blog.
“If confirmed, I will work very hard to extensively develop” clean-coal technology, he said, according to the blog. “Even if we turn off coal, China and India will not.”
Is it a reversal to accommodate the incoming President, who hails from a coal state? While some are trying to claim it is, it seems to be consistent with previous statements from Chu. He’s a relevant portion from an 2006 interview I did with Chu. He’s not wild about coal, but says carbon capture and clean coal may have to be pursued until the solar industry becomes widespread.
How about nuclear? We’ve had it for a long time, but is it politically just too much of a lightning rod?
Chu: I hope that coal becomes more of the lightning rod. It should be. If you think about coal, it’s really scary because it’s our most abundant natural energy resource. And the countries that have the most are the most energy-consuming countries, namely us, China and then Russia in that order. It has sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide and mercury pollution problems. In China, it’s killing their people, its killing their infrastructure. And people die from mining it, so it’s not a good energy source. We don’t yet have proven technology to turn it into a clean burning fuel and capture the carbon dioxide and sequester it. We need to do a lot of research on that to make it economically feasible to do all that.
Is there much hope there? I’ve seen a few venture capital firms invest in clean-coal ideas, and a couple of companies, like BP, have sequestration projects going on.
Chu: Boy, it might have to be at least in the interim until we can get photovoltaic cells down by an order of magnitude or until we get the biomass up and running. We are going to have to have to do something in the next 50 years. The world will increasingly turn to coal and possibly nuclear. Even if you can sequester only for a few hundred years, it will buy time.
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Other countries without people like Chu, are already viewing the results from a demo plant.
But the US is not ready for Clean or Otherwise Coal until they are in crisis...IMHO
Well at least he understands that China and India will not throw their economies under the bus to pursue this fantasy of clean coal. Everybody is for clean coal until they have to pay for it. The utility will build it if it is mandated however the PUC will allow the cost to be paid by the ratepayer. We will see how green everybody is when electricty costs double or triple. I suspect not very green if anything can be gleaned from the public's outrage over $147 a barrel crude. Even the Dems were talking about expanded drilling. Politicians are all about their pet projects until their relection is threatened. Clean Coal=1970's shale oil development, a big bust.
I am happy to share this quote taken from the first news letter from the inventor of one process for destroying carbon dioxide.
"4 ways to destroy CO2 and 1 way to destroy nuisance hydrocarbons with different starting materials, all of which stem from hydrocarbon production and are abundant very low value co-products but give different products. (Basically Waste + Waste = Product + Product process).
The process that Ray and Jim invented reacts inexpensive and abundantly available chemicals with carbon dioxide to produce carbon (generally of closely packed structures) and an industrial gas used in thousands of chemicals. This gas is currently made by oxidizing the raw material with oxygen. INSTEAD of oxygen, carbon dioxide can be used with only minor changes to existing plants, both to create carbon credits AND valuable structured carbon. A power plant equipped to use our process could burn hydrocarbons without significant release of CO2 to the environment (for 'carbon neutrality') and the carbon and industrial gas produced would likely result in a cost-below-zero for the electricity. About 27% of CO2 is carbon, worth much more than the carbon credit fee and a clear incentive not to release CO2 into the atmosphere!”
The process has been independently confirmed by a renown University.
I know many of you are getting tired of my Proclamations about Clean Coal / Hydrocarbon Technology. I will leave it to those of you who want to know more to review my Blog entries.
YeeeeeHaaaaaa!
"fast neutron Santa Fe, NM
From actual experience, wind farms produce 1.2 watts per square meter. Solar Thermal and Photovoltaic methods capture 5 to 6 watts per square meter. There is no economy of size in either technology. Dividing the watts you need by those values gives the land area in square meters needed to produce the juice. The numbers are astronomical"
then electric production from coal is a must.
We haven't received a response from AMP-Ohio Bechtel on heat rate of their clean coal generation facility yet.
www.prosefights.org/co...
funding for this program was made available by reprograming leftover $ from the Synthetic Fuels Corporation which was scuttled by the u.s.congress in 1985.
i worked on these projects from 1989 to 1994. although many projects were proposed by industry in response to invitations by the government, there was a;ways a shortage of projects that had both technical and economic viability. in other words, the promoters were usually overpromoting/
a process that lacks technical maturity will in general not be carried thru to a successful demonstration.
the overall objective of this program was to demonstrate things that people could come & look at, and replication at other sites would ensue. a process that offers no economic advantage over already existing processes will probably not enter the marketplace except under a government directive, an example being CO2 capture/sequestration.
probably the best example of a success was the power plant repowering at Public Serice Indiana, Terre Haute using Destec's (formerly Dow) 2-stage entrainment gasifier/
> jack
Exxon developed carbon sequestration in the early 80's. The government has yet to allow them to use it.
please clarify and provide references. thank you.
On Jan 13 03:48 PM paultaut wrote:
> Clean Coal has been developed. After the first commercial plant has
> been built, it may even be licensed for use in the United States.
>
>
> Other countries without people like Chu, are already viewing the
> results from a demo plant.
>
> But the US is not ready for Clean or Otherwise Coal until they are
> in crisis...IMHO
On Jan 13 03:48 PM paultaut wrote:
> Clean Coal has been developed. After the first commercial plant has
> been built, it may even be licensed for use in the United States.
>
>
> Other countries without people like Chu, are already viewing the
> results from a demo plant.
>
> But the US is not ready for Clean or Otherwise Coal until they are
> in crisis...IMHO
On Jan 14 01:18 PM fran wrote:
> "clean coal has been developed"
>
> please clarify and provide references. thank you.
the powerspan flowsheet shows a wet ESP feeding cool wet flue gas to a stack. the missing element in this scheme is a reheater, gas will not exit the stack with a plume rise unless buoyancy is provided. bechtel is an astute enough constructor to remedy this oversight.
it is stated that they have operated a 50 MW unit @ first energy's R E Burger plant. if you have any information on this unit and the results of this operation, i would like to see it/them. in general the stretch from 50 to 1000 MW is a bit of a stretch.
your interest in heat rate is well taken, there is no information on the power requirements to drive the process, in particular the power needs of the plasma reactor.
> jack
Its avg. 50 day trading volume is 800 shares and I'm still accumulating shares. I have bids in place.
I can tell you that it is not american, it is environmentally friendly. After the pilot program was completed, it took them less than 2 weeks to get their first commercial plant funded. It is under construction.
It has gone down with oil and I have been averaging down with it. I hope it drops to its 12 month lows, when oil drops below $30.
Simply put, publishing its name is not in my best interest.
It is not a penny stock, currently above $10.
A low priced, sub-$2, stock which has been mentioned in Barron's and which I already own has proprietary patented membrane system for cleaning used oil. Additionally, it is building water desalinization and purification plants in China. Hyflux... HYFXF.