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Capturing carbon: The Vattenfall coal-fired power plant uses oxygen and a series of steps to recycle the carbon dioxide. The result is a highly concentrated carbon-dioxide waste stream that makes it easier to capture the emissions.
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The opening of the plant divided environmental groups in Europe. Some regard CCS technology as a potentially valuable weapon in the battle against climate change, while others see it as an expensive distraction from the pursuit of cleaner renewable-energy technologies.
But the plant was greeted warmly by CCS specialists. For Stuart Haszeldine, a geologist from the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland, it was "a very welcome, and tangible, statement that CCS can be made to work." The European Union wants a further 10 to 15 CCS plants in operation by 2015, he points out.
"Only by actually building plants like this can poorly known costs and risks be better understood and enable the routine deployment of CCS, which so many politicians and energy analysts perceive to be essential for climate cleanup," says Haszeldine. "This is the first; the world now needs lots more."
Oxyfuel is one of three possible CCS technologies. Another uses a scrubbing process to try to capture carbon dioxide in the flue gases emitted after coal has been burned in a conventional power plant. The third involves gasifying the coal, creating hydrogen for generating electricity and carbon monoxide, from which carbon dioxide can be formed and separated.
According to Howard Herzog, a chemical engineer at MIT Laboratory for Energy and the Environment and manager of MIT's carbon-sequestration
initiative, it's too soon to say which of the clean-coal technologies will be the best. The opening of the oxyfuel plant--which he attended in Germany--was "exciting" because it represented "a significant step forward in developing CCS technology," he says. "Vattenfall's pilot plant will not only develop oxyfuel combustion technology; it will also provide critical information on the potential of oxyfuel combustion as a CO2-capture technology."
The DOE's decision to abandon FutureGen could accelerate clean-coal technology.
A new MIT study says that no single technology is the solution to economically cutting carbon-dioxide emissions from coal.
CO2 used for algae/biofuel feedstock?
Wouldn't a more practical application of the waste CO2 be for use as feedstock to algae used in biofuel generation? BOTH electricity generation w/ CO2 capture, AND biofuel production would benefit from this 'clean' process. I haven't even attempted the math of CO2 available from clean-coal vs algae for bio-fuel demand...so I may be a little off-base. Either way, I'm just hoping to stir up discussion w/ expert opinion's on this matter.
Re: CO2 used for algae/biofuel feedstock?
Recycling the carbon this way in effect uses solar engery. The amount of energy should be comparible to the energy released by burning the coal. I doubt that algae is extremely effecient at this so why not just use the solar power directly?
Re: CO2 used for algae/biofuel feedstock?
You state that you doubt that algae is extremely efficient at energy conversion. What information are your doubts based on? As far as not just using the solar power directly, the ability to store the solar energy is the same battery technology issue we have with plug in hybrids. The beautiful thing about fuel creation is its ability to be transported and stored for later use.
Jhalter bet me to the punch, just think how fast algae would grow in 98% CO2. A full-scale clean coal plant could feed a very large bioreactor. I wonder if that has been their long-term plan from the start. Once all the technical problems are sorted out, you could make a killing selling all the oil.
Although I am a little late posting to Fridays articles, (I have been a just a little busy in summation), I wonder why so many people are against giving coal, which has such abundant natural reserves and the potential to provide much needed electrical energy, a second look. If, as our other posters say, there is even more potential in CO2 capture to initiate such beneficial chemical reactions, the public should be made aware of the possiblities. The ensuing debate would certainly be interesting.
There are visible losses in the system where
excess heat is removed to cool the steam down.
The heat, that is left over from steam turbines, should be used with maybe Stirling heat engines. This way the low-grade heat is also converted to mechanical energy - just a thought ...
¢/KWH - solar going to be cheaper?
¢/KWH
Germany and Great Britain are among the most un-economic places, on the earth, for solar.
http://www.oksolar.com/abctech/images/world_solar_radiation_large.gif
Even so, is solar going to turn out to be cheaper?
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6 Comments
Interested
While I am not convinced that this solution is one that will be safe in the long-term due to the unknowns surrounding subsurface injection of liquid CO2, I am nonetheless interested because the technology could turn out to be beneficial.
I look forward to this plant working over the years with all of the agencies and groups overseeing its progress. If it fails, at least it'll be a relatively isolated failure in that there aren't many of these operations moving forward.
I'll remain cautiously optimistic about this form of energy production until the world is able to see and verify data independently.
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