New Research Produces Energy From Coal Without Burning

Promising new research at Ohio State is using chemical reactions to produce energy from coal without burning it, capturing 99 percent of the carbon dioxide produced in the process. The system ran for 203 continuous hours in the recent test, and according to the researchers could have run longer. The reaction uses coal that has been ground into powder and mixed with iron oxide beads and heated. Details from the link:

The coal and iron oxide are heated to high temperatures, where the materials react with each other. Carbon from the coal binds with the oxygen from the iron oxide and creates carbon dioxide, which rises into a chamber where it is captured. Hot iron and coal ash are left behind. Because the iron beads are so much bigger than the coal ash, they are easily separated out of the ash, and delivered to a chamber where the heat energy would normally be harnessed for electricity. The coal ash is removed from the system.
The carbon dioxide is separated and can be recycled or sequestered for storage. The iron beads are exposed to air inside the reactor, so that they become re-oxidized be used again. The beads can be re-used almost indefinitely, or recycled.

The US Department of Energy is helping to fund this research and is building a pilot scale reactor set to go online later this year. While there are still environmental concerns with coal mining this technology could possibly remove the air quality issues involved with using coal for energy.

Coal Power

The Minnesota Legislature passed two bills that would lift the current regulation on carbon dioxide emissions at coal-fired plants. In Minnesota coal-fired plants are required to offset their carbon dioxide emissions. The plants must not contribute any additional carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The law regulating these emissions was passed four years ago as part of a package to increase alternative energy production in Minnesota. Some claim that the law is too restricting and that coal plant production cannot occur because the offset practices are too expensive. The House and Senate will vote on the bills in April.

The environmental impacts that occur from burning coal for energy are numerous, including more than emissions of carbon dioxide. We need to use alternative energy and clean up the current energy production. Coal is a fossil fuel, and there is only a limited amount of that coal in the earth. We are going to run out of these fossil fuels, and in the meantime, we are damaging the planet by burning them without the most effective clean burning methods. Americans use a great amount of energy and because we are unwilling to give up our current standard of living, we need to plan for the future and plan how to use our current resources in the most appropriate way.

If we are going to continue with burning coal, we need to use the best technology we have to produce the fewest emissions and cause the smallest environmental impact. We have only one planet and we are very dependent on that planet for survival.

Image from the Energy Bulletin.

EPA Finds Greenhouse Gases Are A Threat To Public Health

Big news on the climate change front courtesy of Joe Romm and his excellent blog Climate Progress.

The EPA has ruled that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare. This finding follows a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that ordered the EPA to review the science on greenhouse gases and determine if regulation is necessary under the Clean Air Act. This ruling should prod Congress into passing strict regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, because industry will realize that if Congress doesn't pass legislation then the EPA can regulate them by itself under the Clean Air Act.

Score one for those of us trying to maintain a habitable climate for future generations.

Year End Musings

2008 has come and gone, what will 2009 bring?

I am optimistic for a new President that believes in science and who appoints actual scientists to top positions, but the challenges he will face are daunting. Renewable energy should be a top priority, as well as bringing climate change to the top of the agenda. Unfortunately a couple of La Nina assisted cold winters in North America have given ammunition to those who want to continue business as ususal, but there is a difference between weather and climate, and delay could be catastrophic.

I want to read Mark Lynas' book Six Degrees - I recently saw the National Geographic show based on it and it was very good and very frightening. I like how it showed the differences in the climate and ecology one degree at a time. Think about it - six degrees doesn't sound like much, but if your body temperature was raised by that amount you would be dead.

But it's a new year, and time to be optimistic that our species has more sense than bacteria (which will use up all their resources in a closed environment until they die).

And since it is cold and windy today in Grand Portage with snow everywhere, Here is a photo I took at the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve in Costa Rica.

Climate Change - Some Good News, Some Bad News

I saw a couple of news items on climate change today.

First, the good news - scientists have found a type of rock that can soak up carbon dioxide.
From the link:

When carbon dioxide comes in contact with the rock, peridotite, the gas is converted into solid minerals such as calcite.

Geologist Peter Kelemen and geochemist Juerg Matter said the naturally occurring process can be supercharged 1 million times to grow underground minerals that can permanently store 2 billion or more of the 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted by human activity every year.

Their study will appear in the November 11 edition of the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences.

Peridotite is the most common rock found in the Earth's mantle, or the layer directly below the crust. It also appears on the surface, particularly in Oman, which is conveniently close to a region that produces substantial amounts of carbon dioxide in the production of fossil fuels.

Now for the bad news - the warming we are now experiencing is the sharpest increase in the last 5000 years , so we had better hope they can scale up that carbon sequestering rock in a hurry.

Oops! forgot to close the blockquote - the last part in bold is from me, not the link.