Actual "Clean" Coal
GreyFlcn
Join Date: 2006-12-19 Member: 59134Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2006-12-19 Member: 59134Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">Less Global Warming than Nuclear</div>Which is to say, Nuclear isn't that carbon nuetral to begin with.
About comprable to a natural gas plant when using conventional feedstocks.
And generally "Clean Coal" denotes the lame attempt of
"Hey we wash the coal with water and create toxic slurry locally <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />"
Natural Gas is nice, the there's so much market volatility since Katrina.
US doesn't really have any surplus of Natural Gas.
So I was actually rather suprised to find this:
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"Air Blown Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle" Coal fired power plants.
Air-Blown denotes that unlike conventional IGCC, it doesn't need to use pure oxygen to achieve it's results.
This reduces cost, saftey risk, and logistics.
Benefits of AB-IGCC?
Reduces CO2 emmisions to be comprable to natural gas and nuclear power plants
Drastically reduces Nitrogen, (99%) Sulfur, (90%) Mercury, Smoke pollution levels down below any existing air quality standards.
Can process low rank coals and coals with high moisture or high ash content (half the proven reserves in U.S.)
Can use cellulosic biomass feedstocks, and convert nearly all of it's energy content
15% more energy output than normal coal plants
50% less ash
70% smaller plant size
70% less water requirement
Lastly, it can do this at a relatively low investment and operations cost.
Oh yeah, and even though I think carbon sequestration is all bogus.
It's also the coal tech which could most effectively do it.
Since it's flue gases are much colder (50°C) than the standard 1600°C
Since these plants tend to last for about 50 years.
I'd say it's nice to leave that option open.
US Dept. of Energy is setting up a <a href="http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/coalpower/cctc/ccpi/pubs/Benefits%20of%20Southern%20Company.pdf" target="_blank">285MW Test Plant </a> in Orlando, Florida.
Japan has a <a href="http://www.gasification.org/Docs/2006_Papers/55KANE.pdf" target="_blank">250MW test plant </a> which should be up and running inside 8 months from now.
About comprable to a natural gas plant when using conventional feedstocks.
And generally "Clean Coal" denotes the lame attempt of
"Hey we wash the coal with water and create toxic slurry locally <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />"
Natural Gas is nice, the there's so much market volatility since Katrina.
US doesn't really have any surplus of Natural Gas.
So I was actually rather suprised to find this:
_
"Air Blown Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle" Coal fired power plants.
Air-Blown denotes that unlike conventional IGCC, it doesn't need to use pure oxygen to achieve it's results.
This reduces cost, saftey risk, and logistics.
Benefits of AB-IGCC?
Reduces CO2 emmisions to be comprable to natural gas and nuclear power plants
Drastically reduces Nitrogen, (99%) Sulfur, (90%) Mercury, Smoke pollution levels down below any existing air quality standards.
Can process low rank coals and coals with high moisture or high ash content (half the proven reserves in U.S.)
Can use cellulosic biomass feedstocks, and convert nearly all of it's energy content
15% more energy output than normal coal plants
50% less ash
70% smaller plant size
70% less water requirement
Lastly, it can do this at a relatively low investment and operations cost.
Oh yeah, and even though I think carbon sequestration is all bogus.
It's also the coal tech which could most effectively do it.
Since it's flue gases are much colder (50°C) than the standard 1600°C
Since these plants tend to last for about 50 years.
I'd say it's nice to leave that option open.
US Dept. of Energy is setting up a <a href="http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/coalpower/cctc/ccpi/pubs/Benefits%20of%20Southern%20Company.pdf" target="_blank">285MW Test Plant </a> in Orlando, Florida.
Japan has a <a href="http://www.gasification.org/Docs/2006_Papers/55KANE.pdf" target="_blank">250MW test plant </a> which should be up and running inside 8 months from now.
Comments
I know it probably isn't right, but a part of me supports Nuclear Power.
<a href="http://www.nirs.org/climate/background/climatetalk_mary_un_050306.htm" target="_blank">Nuclear isn't all the hype makes it out to be.</a>
Even if you take the safety issue out of the mix.
<a href="http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/nukesclimatefact606.pdf" target="_blank">Nuclear can't do anything meaningful to stop global warming</a>
Noted, a conventional Coal fired power plant is worse than both.
However thats the whole point of this post.
If a Coal plant could match a Nuke plant in CO2 balance, minus all the huge investment and risk of nuclear.
Thats big news.
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_information_and_resource_service" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_infor...esource_service</a>
Hey, look! It even says "agenda" in the wikipedia page! That's some nice and easy to understand word association.
Nuclear power isn't the 'solution' to global warming, but it's a smart supplement to energy needs for many reasons. There is no decisive 'solution' to global warming, and anybody suggesting there is, or arguing with that estimation in mind, is retarded. We just have to stop being so greedy, bigoted, selfish and ignorant, and make sure everybody has a 50 year, 100 year, and 200 year plan instead of just a 5 year and 50 year [for the more responsible politicians].
Honestly, what are you even talking about GreyFlcn?
As I was saying.
<a href="http://www.nirs.org/climate/background/climatetalk_mary_un_050306.htm" target="_blank">Nuclear isn't all the hype makes it out to be.</a>
Even if you take the safety issue out of the mix.
<a href="http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/nukesclimatefact606.pdf" target="_blank">Nuclear can't do anything meaningful to stop global warming</a>
Noted, a conventional Coal fired power plant is worse than both.
However thats the whole point of this post.
If a Coal plant could match a Nuke plant in CO2 balance, minus all the huge investment and risk of nuclear.
Thats big news.
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Last I checked we needed to mine coal and oil too - it doesn't just pop out of the ground. So we have to mine uranium...the purification process might be a little more intensive than simply extracting coal (or potentially making coke out of it or refining it in other ways), but still mining < mining + burning in my book.
Plus much of the waste problem could potentially be alleviated by recycling the fuel (I'm not sure I remember the cylce anymore, but I think its Uranium-(some waste)->Plutonium-(some waste)->Uranium, instead of Uranium->Waste. Although there's always the threat of someone procuring the plutonium to make some sort of bomb, but nuclear waste itself has the threat of being used as a dirty bomb (plus I don't think reactor-grade plutonium is suitable for weapons-grade uses, but I could be wrong there). Plus that second source's citation of a Chernobyl event every 5 years is obscene. That implies that all nuke-plants are operated like we're in Soviet Russia, and that we have to have a Chernobyl-like event in the next few years.
I'm all for wind turbines, every place I've visited so far has had wind. People say they're noisy, but I'm not really hearing that. Then again, I've never really stood under one, but I wouldn't build my house under one either.
I like solar power. Why? Because it makes stuff look futuristic. I mean, seriously. What would you prefer; a car with solar pannels on it, or a car with a wind turbine stuck to the top of it.
And you're not allowed to answer "a car with a nuclear reactor in it".
Last I checked we needed to mine coal and oil too - it doesn't just pop out of the ground. So we have to mine uranium...the purification process might be a little more intensive than simply extracting coal (or potentially making coke out of it or refining it in other ways), but still mining < mining + burning in my book.
Plus much of the waste problem could potentially be alleviated by recycling the fuel (I'm not sure I remember the cylce anymore, but I think its Uranium-(some waste)->Plutonium-(some waste)->Uranium, instead of Uranium->Waste. Although there's always the threat of someone procuring the plutonium to make some sort of bomb, but nuclear waste itself has the threat of being used as a dirty bomb (plus I don't think reactor-grade plutonium is suitable for weapons-grade uses, but I could be wrong there). Plus that second source's citation of a Chernobyl event every 5 years is obscene. That implies that all nuke-plants are operated like we're in Soviet Russia, and that we have to have a Chernobyl-like event in the next few years.
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The point being, if the CO2 emmisions are near equivalent to natural gas / AB-IGCC.
Why not just do that?
On top of which, another issue is that Nuclear puts out huge ammounts of Heat into the atmosphere.
Even if you did plutonium recycling, thats only a couple percent less waste.
They've been doing fast breeder reactors since the 50's.
And guess what, Fast Breeder Reactors only reduce the waste by the slightest of ammounts.
Since you're just reprocessing the 1-2% of the U235+U234
The rest ends up being radioactive waste that cannot be reprocessed.
I really doubt we're going to get a steady stream of "Yucca Mountains" coming our way to deal with the waste.
Also any improvements we could do to better Uranium mining (usually overseas), could be done equally as well, or better by grabbing coal locally. (US is the Saudi Arabia of Coal)
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I'm all for wind turbines, every place I've visited so far has had wind. People say they're noisy, but I'm not really hearing that. Then again, I've never really stood under one, but I wouldn't build my house under one either.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm no fan of urban wind power.
(Primarily because the city structures block most the wind, and because a big pillar could easily fall over and damage property.)
It does however go perfectly onto farms, since unlike solar, it takes only a small fraction of the land space/sun.
And if something falls over, big deal, you lost some cabbages,
It's also ideal for placing them offshore, where there's more reliable wind.
Anyways, kind of a silly analogy. Noone wants to live next to a nuclear power plant either ;D
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Now if we want to take into effect some truely renewable energy which offers all the benefits of nuclear power. And uses a turbine.
How about <a href="http://ocsenergy.anl.gov/documents/docs/OCS_EIS_WhitePaper_Current.pdf" target="_blank">Ocean Current Energy.</a>
"Water is about 835 times denser than wind, so for the same area of flow being intercepted, the energy contained in a 12-mph water flow is equivalent to that contained in an air mass moving at about 110 mph."
"It has been estimated that capturing just 1/1,000th of the available energy from the Gulf Stream, which has 21,000 times more energy than Niagara Falls"
Worldwide, thats <a href="http://www.oceanenergycouncil.com/faqcurrent.html" target="_blank">450 nuclear power plants </a> worth of accessable energy that operates 24/7.
Wasn't someone working on a new type of solar pannel that used some kind of mutli-layer system that boosted the output of the same area quite a lot? Like over 100% or something? I suck at researching things beyond psychology nowadays, and I'm not too good at that.
I like solar power. Why? Because it makes stuff look futuristic. I mean, seriously. What would you prefer; a car with solar pannels on it, or a car with a wind turbine stuck to the top of it.
And you're not allowed to answer "a car with a nuclear reactor in it".
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Yeah, but the multilayer panels are damned hell expensive. They're only doing that because the panel would be used on a satelite. Where a few extra thousand dollars isn't much to them.
<a href="http://www.sandia.gov/LabNews/LN02-25-00/gaas_story.html" target="_blank">http://www.sandia.gov/LabNews/LN02-25-00/gaas_story.html</a>
What you might be thinking about is the solar panels they are researching right now.
Rather than layering together multiple solar panels that are tuned to different light wavelengths.
You instead tune the light using nanocrystals.
End result, rather than being limited to 1 photon = 1 electron
You can get 1 photon = 2 electrons (or theoretically up to 7)
<a href="http://www.sciencenews.org/scripts/printthis.asp?clip=%2Farticles%2F20060603%2Fclip%5Fbob8%2Easp" target="_blank">http://www.sciencenews.org/scripts/printth...ip%5Fbob8%2Easp</a>
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Now thats all fine and good in the day time.
But what about the night time?
Storing electricity is expensive.
_
But that said, thats why I like these "clean coal" AB-IGCC power plants.
They can run off of any type of Cellulosic BioMass as well.
Now if we want to take into effect some truely renewable energy which offers all the benefits of nuclear power. And uses a turbine.
How about <a href="http://ocsenergy.anl.gov/documents/docs/OCS_EIS_WhitePaper_Current.pdf" target="_blank">Ocean Current Energy.</a>
"Water is about 835 times denser than wind, so for the same area of flow being intercepted, the energy contained in a 12-mph water flow is equivalent to that contained in an air mass moving at about 110 mph."
"It has been estimated that capturing just 1/1,000th of the available energy from the Gulf Stream, which has 21,000 times more energy than Niagara Falls"
Worldwide, thats <a href="http://www.oceanenergycouncil.com/faqcurrent.html" target="_blank">450 nuclear power plants </a> worth of accessable energy that operates 24/7.
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Wouldn't messing with ocean currents screw up weather even more than global warming? I thought one of the major parts of weather patterns was the movement of warm and cold water by things like the Gulf Stream.
Wouldn't messing with ocean currents screw up weather even more than global warming? I thought one of the major parts of weather patterns was the movement of warm and cold water by things like the Gulf Stream.
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I don't think you understand what you're talking about. Wind turbines don't mess with the wind at all; the oceans are similar to wind, only even harder to shift.
I thought people blamed the millions of internal combustion engines on global warming, not power plants. I'm not seeing how cleaner power production will make a dent in what vehicles put out.
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Actually electricity, transportation, and agriculture each contribute roughly 15% percent each to the total issue. (Give or take 2% each, I don't feel like grabbing the exact numbers)
Although to answer your question, if we all drove around in electric cars, that'd solve both issues.
But frankly I see BioFuel as being much more practical for vehicle usage,
since the battery packs cost too much (atleast for now)
<!--quoteo(post=1605676:date=Feb 12 2007, 03:46 AM:name=A_Boojum_Snark)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(A_Boojum_Snark @ Feb 12 2007, 03:46 AM) [snapback]1605676[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
This is of course assume that all the scientists are even right in thinking anything we are doing is having an effect on the global temperature. We have climate records for a very tiny fraction of this planet's existence, who's to say the warming trend isn't solely part of some thousand year cycle.
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I think the last International Panel on Climate Change report wasn't loud and clear enough.
Got some of the world's brightest minds, and their say <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0205/p02s01-wogi.html" target="_blank">"we're 99-90% certain it's human caused".</a>
Even <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/news/positions/president-bushs-2007-SotU.html" target="_blank">President Bush</a> now agrees as per his last state of the union speech?
That good enough for you?
Even if you did plutonium recycling, thats only a couple percent less waste.
They've been doing fast breeder reactors since the 50's.
And guess what, Fast Breeder Reactors only reduce the waste by the slightest of ammounts.
Since you're just reprocessing the 1-2% of the U235+U234
The rest ends up being radioactive waste that cannot be reprocessed.
I really doubt we're going to get a steady stream of "Yucca Mountains" coming our way to deal with the waste.
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Not quite true:
The point of reprocessing isnt to reduce the amount of waste generated, its to <i>increase</i> the amount of <i>power</i> generated. The same amount of fuel is mined out of the ground, but it gets reacted two or three times, so you get more power out of it while not really changing the total amount of waste products or byproducts.
So even if the waste per unit Uranium is only 1% less, the waste per unit Energy is like 60% less.
I don't think you understand what you're talking about. Wind turbines don't mess with the wind at all; the oceans are similar to wind, only even harder to shift.
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Perhaps I don't, but I'm sure they have some affect. On a long enough timescale, pulling energy out of the ocean is going to do <i>something</i>. Maybe its too long a timescale for that to be relevant, but there is a big difference between no effect and a small effect.
Especially when using Coal to generate it.
Since that practically eliminates any CO2 benefit gained.
If we're going Alcohol, I'd go for the <a href="http://www.epa.gov/Region6/6pd/pd-u-sw/wte_ftworth/cafo/holtzapple.pdf" target="_blank">MixAlco process</a>. (<a href="http://engineering.tamu.edu/research/lectures/holtzapple_v3.html" target="_blank">Video</a>)
Best feedstock for it? Raw Sewage.
Not only that, but it contains more energy per gallon than ethanol, and has a better vapor pressure.
But Alchohol fuels have large draw backs since they can't be put into existing storage tanks or fuel pumps.
I'd just limit em to mixing in low quantities of gasoline.
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Frankly, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/13/Autos/diesel/index.htm" target="_blank">my money is on Diesel</a>
As of 2008 spring, you'll start seeing "<a href="http://world.honda.com/news/2006/c060925DieselEngine/" target="_blank">Clean Diesel</a>" cars will be cleaner, quieter, and less smelly than Gasoline cars.
Since they got one more tweak left till then, the only vehicles sporting "Clean Diesel" right now are in the Heavy Duty vehicle class.
For instance, the <a href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2006/09/29/new-dodge-cummins-diesel-bigger-but-pollutes-less/" target="_blank">Dodge Ram 2007</a>
Sports more horsepower
Better low end Torque
30% better mileage
And 20% less CO2 emmisions
Mix in pure Soy BioDiesel, and that Dodge Ram <a href="http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_vehicle_compare.html" target="_blank">could be more environmentally friendly than a Prius </a> <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
As is, Soy BioDiesel <a href="http://www.naftc.wvu.edu/NAFTC%2520eNews/June%252006/cleartheair.html" target="_blank">is price competative </a> with normal Diesel (Sometimes cheaper)
And I fully expect that it will go down in price soon as <a href="http://www.uta.edu/publications/researchmagazine/2006/index.php?id=46" target="_blank">better production methods </a> and <a href="http://www.oakhavenpc.org/cultivating_algae.htm" target="_blank">better feedstocks come online</a>.
Algae for instance, offers the potential of up to 500x faster biofuel feedstock production.
Nuclear power isn't the 'solution' to global warming, but it's a smart supplement to energy needs for many reasons.
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Very much so currently for the northern hemisphere, however I would just like to state (because it hasn't been mentioned yet) that <b>as far as I know</b> nuclear reactors require a lot of water for cooling purposes and thus for Australia not such a hot idea nor a sound future investment, as droughts are quite apparently going to get worse.
As such if my information is accurate we should be selling much uranium to Europe.
In my opinion solar power and/or wind power is the way to go for us. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
I like solar power. Why? Because it makes stuff look futuristic. I mean, seriously. What would you prefer; a car with solar pannels on it, or a car with a wind turbine stuck to the top of it.
And you're not allowed to answer "a car with a nuclear reactor in it".
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I want a car that hovars, but without flapping.
Btw, Think I read somewhere that The Water cooling Systems in Nuclear plants makes the climate better for those spices living in the water near it in somewhere in Australia.
Btw, Think I read somewhere that The Water cooling Systems in Nuclear plants makes the climate better for those spices living in the water near it in somewhere in Australia.
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Just because we have constant droughts and battle kangaroos doesn't make Australia Arrakis, okay?
Small steps.
4th Generation Plants are designed with human error in mind, they have a system inplace now that can hault a atomic reaction that basically dumps cobalt ball bearings into the reaction chamber.
The fact is America hasn't gone about nuclear power since the 3 Mile Island incident, even though the 3 Mile Island incident proved that we could fix human error should something happen.
The only people who hate nuke is hippies and oil companies.
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Just because we have constant droughts and battle kangaroos doesn't make Australia Arrakis, okay?
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<img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/dvd/dvd-dune-sting.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
We could use more renewable forms of energy such as wind power, solar etc. but they don't give us enough. We could just not go nuclear and let all non-renewable energy run out and then have a race for energy in 50 years or so. Or we could research nuclear as our main form of new power, refine it, create less waste, work on ways to recycle the waste, maybe blast some waste in to space and remember, we don't have to worry about it. Although our kids and their kids will but by then we will be dead, so who cares.
Since heat <i>generation</i> is the primary goal of most methods of power generation, I don't quite understand that comment.
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Well for instance, AB-IGCC releases it's exhaust at 50°C
Normal Coal plants release the exhaust at 1600°C
Nuke plants, I don't know how hot they emit their steam, but I'd imagine it's even higher than that.
Whats also ironic is that nuclear is very sensitive to heat.
Nuke plants need to shut down during heatwaves.
Global warming ready eh?
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maybe blast some waste in to space and remember, we don't have to worry about it.
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Actually that will never happen.
First off, firing Nuclear missiles on a routine basis? Yeah, that will go over just great.......
Second off, even normal spaceships explode every while or so. You can't honestly say we should intentionally risk an airborne explosion of nuclear material. Doing that would only magnify the damage of the dirty bomb.
Just because we have constant droughts and battle kangaroos doesn't make Australia Arrakis, okay?
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You get a full laugh out of me for that one awesome. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
Saying that though, if next year they discovered Shai'Hulud under the Great Sandy, would you be surprised? I know I wouldn't.
- Shockwave
Since heat <i>generation</i> is the primary goal of most methods of power generation, I don't quite understand that comment.
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have you ever seen a nuclear power plant? perhaps on the Simpsons. they have these giant cooling towers. Those are to let all the excess heat pollution escape into the atmosphere.