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Monday, January 01, 2007

China's Coal Future

To prevent massive pollution and slow its growing contribution to global warming, China will need to make advanced coal technology work on an unprecedented scale.

By Peter Fairley

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Credit: Natalie Behring/Reuters
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•  How Gasification Works

A visitor arriving in Shanghai immediately notices China's technological conundrum. Through the windows of the magnetically levitated train that covers the 30 kilometers from Pudong International Airport to Shanghai at up to 430 kilometers per hour, both the progress the country is making and the price it is paying for it are apparent. Most days, a yellow haze hangs over Shanghai's construction frenzy. Pollution is the leading cause of death in China, killing more than a million people a year. And the primary cause of pollution is also the source of the energy propelling the ultramodern train: coal.

To keep pace with the country's economic growth, ­China's local governments, utilities, and entrepreneurs are building, on average, one coal-fired power plant per week. The power plants emit a steady stream of soot, sulfur dioxide, and other toxic pollutants into the air; they also spew out millions of tons of carbon dioxide. In November, the International Energy Agency projected that China will become the world's largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in 2009, overtaking the United States nearly a decade earlier than previously anticipated. Coal is expected to be responsible for three-quarters of that carbon dioxide.

And the problem will get worse. Between now and 2020, China's energy consumption will more than double, according to expert estimates. Ratcheting up energy efficiency, tapping renewable resources with hydro dams and wind turbines, and building nuclear plants can help, but--at least in the coming two decades--only marginally. Since China has very little in the way of oil and gas reserves, its future depends on coal. With 13 percent of the world's proven reserves, China has enough coal to sustain its economic growth for a century or more. The good news is that ­China's leaders saw the coal rush coming in the 1990s and began exploring a range of advanced technologies. Chief among them is coal gasification. "It's the key for clean coal in China," says chemical engineer Li ­Wenhua, who directed advanced coal development for Beijing's national high-tech R&D program (better known in China as the "863" program) from 2001 through 2005.

Gasification transforms coal's complex mix of hydrocarbons into a hydrogen-rich gas known as synthesis gas, or "syngas." Power plants can burn syngas as cleanly as they can natural gas. In addition, with the right catalysts and under the right conditions, the basic chemical building blocks in syngas combine to form the hydrocarbon ingredients of gasoline and diesel fuel. As a result, coal gasification has the potential both to squelch power plants' emission of soot and smog and to decrease China's growing dependence on imported oil. It could even help control emissions of carbon dioxide, which is more easily captured from syngas plants than from conventional coal-fired plants.

Despite China's early anticipation of the need for coal gasification, however, its implementation of the technology in power plants has lagged. The country's electricity producers lack the economic and political incentives to break from their traditional practices.

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January/February 2007

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Comments

  • Has anyone considered a band-aid?
    Krakhan on 01/16/2007 at 3:25 PM
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    1
    I read just about every day about the problem of too much C-O-2 and such coming from coal-fired power plants, even the gasified ones. Unfortunately, coal is the cheapest and most abundant source of fuel for powerplants, except for hydroelectric, and that depends on rivers that are not always conveniently located.
    Has anyone thought to begin by creating c-o-2 "band-aids" on these plants?
    By this I mean a "dry-ice" or CO2 extracter-plant next to the powerplant. The dryice can be buried in old mines or shipped to other factories for other uses.
    On a similar basis, we have the technology to add particulate removal systems to the various other Chinese industries to remove the smoke and smog polluntants from the Atmosphere before they fully leave the smoke stacks.

    Just a thought. Something along the idea of doing applying intermediate fixes while the final big fix is developed.
    Rate this comment: 12345
  • Maglev is German
    jack_ryan on 01/19/2007 at 7:17 PM
    Posts:
    1
    Hello,

    maybe somewhat off-topic, but just for clarification: the magnetically levitated train is the Transrapid, built by Thyssen-Krupp and Siemens.
    While the basic technology was patented in 1933 by Herrmann Kemper, a small-scale version of the train had its maiden trip in 1971, at a time when Chinese were still waving Mao's red bible.
    By continuous, cooperative research at Thyssen and Univ. Braunschweig it got todays looks and capabilities.

    Have a look here:

    http://www.transrapid.de
    http://www.thyssenkrupp-transrapid.de/
    http://www.juergen-koerner.de/tr_gesch.htm
    http://www.iabg.de/transrapid/technik/index_de.php

    or Goooooooogle for it.

    The Chinese can be hailed for building the first commercially
    used 30 km tracks from Pudong airport to downtown Shanghai, while a test track stands here in Lathen, Germany for some 25 years now.

    Regards
    Rate this comment: 12345
  • Gasification is not cleaner than pulverized coal plants
    tb5036t on 01/21/2007 at 2:49 AM
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    If IGCC was cleaner, 50-60% efficient, CO2 capture ready and only 15-25% more expensive then no one, including TXU, would attempt to build PC plants.
    The reality is that today's modern PC plants with BACT are as clean as IGCC, their efficiency is 40-45% in line with IGCC (yes, IGCC is a lot less efficient than 50-60%) and they are a lot more CO2 capture ready than IGCC. Post combustion CO2 capture in a PC plant is a tail end process requiring no major modifications to the plant while pre combustion CO2 capture IGCC is a costly proposition requiring major changes to the plant including adding shift reactor and switching to hydrogen turbine that does not even exist. The reality is also that IGCC costs a lot more than 15-25% more than PC and, bringing it to par with PC in terms of reliability and availability, costs a lot more.

    The simple but painful solution to global warming is a high tax on CO2 emissions from all sources. Higher cost will drive all of us to use energy more efficiently, to use less CO2 intensive energy sources and to develop and apply better CO2 capture technologies including to PC boilers.
    Rate this comment: 12345
  • climate change is NOT one of the causes of the low water levels in the Yellow River
    suBWKEURRWE on 02/03/2007 at 2:07 PM
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    It is just plain WRONG to say that climate change has anything to do with the low water levels in the Yellow River.  The consesus view on climate warming is that the temperature has risen world wide approximately .5 to 1 degree C in the last 100 years.  The impact of climate changes on the water levels in the Yellow River are so small as to be unmeasureable. 
    Rate this comment: 12345
    • Re: climate change is NOT one of the causes of the low water levels in the Yellow River
      RayPhoenix on 03/14/2007 at 2:07 AM
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      1
      That's a pretty sweeping claim. Could you please list your sources? Also, remember that .5-1 degree change is an average, and climate change has already produced very large effects on some ecosystems, not to mention glaciers, early springs, late falls, and other phenomena. Without pointers to sources, I would suggest: "climate change may NOT be ..." Finally, since it's climate change we're discussing, not global warming, see the following article, which sheds light on the process by which decreased rainfall can be related to air pollution: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-03/thuo-psc030707.php
      Rate this comment: 12345
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