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Squeezing Coal To Reduce Emissions
sbszine writes "Australian newspaper The Age has an interesting story on squeezing coal before burning it in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The process, discovered by Victorian scientists, is expected to make brown coal (lignite) burn 30% cleaner. Good news, as Australia is the world's number one exporter of coal."
Paul Lenhart writes words!
I know Slashdot posts the occasional late story, but this is over 100 years old... that must be a record.
Squeezing can only hold back your emissions for so long.
Anthracite, the cleanest-burning coal, is also called hard coal because it's the densest variety and it contains the least moisture. Lignite, the type they squeezed, is the crappiest kind of coal. It is almost half water and is quite light. How many brilliant people did it take to think "maybe if we make lignite denser and take the water out, it'll burn more cleanly!"???
ResidntGeek
Who, exactly is touting this as good? If you believe in man made climate change, 30% less damaging than coal just isn't good enough. We need to be moving away from fossil fuels, not finding marginally less damaging ways to burn them.
And if you don't believe in mad made climate change, why bother? It's going to be less efficient, and therefore will create even more nasty emissions other than CO2, which isn't the only pollutant released by coal burning.
(No, I haven't RTFA, as it requires registration.)
...is how much energy does it take to squeeze the coal? Because if they end up having to burn 30% more coal to generate the additional energy needed to squeeze the coal, then it's not much of a gain.
For logins to various websites that require registration. In this case, fugbuzzly/fugbuzzly.
Let's stop trying to find Band-Aids for energy resources which are inherently finite and time-limited. Short of global population-control (NBL--Not Bloody Likely), eventually we'll have no choice but to go with unlimited sources (e.g., solar, hydrogen, nuclear). And the only choice which is ready *today* is nuclear -- which today is much more advanced, safety-wise, than most people realize.
This isn't an argument for "nuclear forever". But if we go full-speed immediately to develop enough nuclear capacity to COMPLETELY eliminate our dependence on petro sources which are actually or potentially volatile or unreliable -- e.g., the Middle East -- think of how fast we could in advance in alternate-source technology, using all the funds and human resources we'd save by COMPLETELY removing ourselves from trouble-spots around the world.
Not to mention the funds, etc., we'd save by not needing such a high level of anti-terrorism preparedness:
despite the pap which the Gang Of Bush tries to feed us -- "They hate us because they hate liberty and democracy" -- the fact is, the fanatical Islamics wouldn't care enough to leave their region to bother us, if we were COMPLETELY disengaged from their part of the world -- which we COULD be, if not for our petro-addiction.
Isn't that basket of benefits worth the cost of tolerating a few years of nuclear?
Clean coal? Squeeze it, say scientists4 76492485.html 5 57913536.html
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/03/1091
Burning coal into the future
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/04/1091
Words to men, as air to birds.
This doesn't reduce the carbon emissions per unit of carbon, but it does increase the recoverable energy per unit of carbon. Greater efficiency means less fuel has to be burned for a given amount of output. This reduces net CO2 emissions.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Looking at energy density is somewhat misleading, because the conversion efficiency of these fuels into work is typically less than 40%, often less than 20% (I've read that personal vehicles average a lousy 17%). If an alternate energy source has a higher conversion efficiency, it could store more useful energy in a given space than the fossil-derived fuel. Watch my blog for this, it's an important topic and I'm doing an analysis of it.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
I recall seeing statements by ObL stating that the United States was a target dating back to 1988. He doesn't like "infidels", period.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
?Long after multiple others thought it was worth responding?
check your time-stamps before modding, jerk.
Why you don't want to heat the coal: The goal of the exercise is to not waste the energy required to evaporate the moisture. If pressing removes water with less energy expenditure than heating, that's a more efficient way to do it. (If the coal can be dried with the heat from nearly-spent steam, maybe that's better - but it would take lab work to tell which method is superior, and plenty of engineering to make a machine which can uniformly heat a fine powder and then transfer it to the boiler.)
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Get your head out of the sand. Islam is dangerous.
Separation of church and state is against Islam. Under Islam, Sharia (Islamic law) is the only law. The US system of "common law" and the French system of "civil law" are both intolerable. Monarchy, democracy, and communism all go against Islam. Islam requires that government be according to the rules supplied by Allah via the prophet Muhammed.
Islam also requires that other civilizations be subdued. Christians and Jews can be tolerated if they pay a tax and raise their children to be Islamic. All others (Hindu, Wicca, animists, Buddist...) must convert or die. Anybody who leaves Islam must also die.
Note that the Osama and friends are trying to destabilize the government of Saudia Arabia. The reason is simple: a Monarchy is no more acceptable than a democracy. Islam itself is the only form of government that can be accepted.
Yecchh. I've just been framing these thoughts since 9/11, and here's someone publishing in 1992. Oh well, at least I missed 12 years of feeling bad about it.
Makes me wish we really had space travel. There's been the obvious 'eggs out of just one environmental basket' in science fiction, but there have also been a fair amount of 'eggs out of Earth's political basket' stories, too. Really a good solution, assuming the right level of difficulty for the technology. Jihad develops no technology, but rather piggybacks on the civilization it's tearing down, and McWorld is after power only as a means to money, so as long as off-world isn't terribly lucrative, they'll leave it alone. Unfortunately the current level of technological difficulty is just plain too high, period.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Energy content data for coal is here.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
"Not only is it unnecessary to begin a new subject with every post you make, it's considered hubris and bad form."
"Hubris"?
I do not think it means what you think it means.
I'm not sure to whom you're referring.
Regardless, I personally find it useful, whether done by myself or others.
"a low level radiation source and a thermocoupler to generate electricity from the heat coming off the radiation source. I've heard that they're legal for civilian use in the Northern Territories of Canada- and it's easy to put in enough lead shielding"
YIKES! That's what I call getting up-close-and-personal with nuclear.
Personally, I'd NEVER feel safe about all that radioactive stuff being carried around in cars.
And there isn't enough lead on the planet to get the public to accept it.
I much prefer my nuclear, even "passive" designs, to be centralized at a remote uninhabited site, thank you very much.
Well, I hate to tell you, but you've already got the equivalent in a nuclear detector right inside your house. Look on the ceilings and walls for a white lump of plastic shaped like an overgrown hockey puck. It's called a smoke detector- and while there are a few that use different technologies, most use an Americium radiation source and a radiation detector with a gap in between to let smoke particles in- when the radiation detector stops detecting radiation in the proper ammount, the alarm goes off.
There's no need to worry about low-level radiation sources as long as they are properly shielded. And the shielding can be made entirely crash-proof; lead is a nice soft metal for absorbing dents as long as it is thick enough.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"you've already got the equivalent in a nuclear detector right inside your house. It's called a smoke detector"
Yes, but my house doesn't go rolling around the highways and exposing itself to collisions.
And don't the nuc batts carry a lot more of the stuff?
Yes, but my house doesn't go rolling around the highways and exposing itself to collisions.
However it's the same principle- you simply engineer the shielding to the situation. Like I said- lead is a great collision force absorbtion material.
And don't the nuc batts carry a lot more of the stuff?
Depends on the engineering, how much power you want, etc. But we're talking FAR less than critical mass- and not even enough to cause radiation burns with limited exposure. You could easily work with the elements involved bare skin, as long as you limit total exposure- and you probably get way more exposure from an X-ray in your dentist's office, and they carry those in ambulances. This stuff is WAY safer than you'd think- just because something is radioactive internal to it's shielding doesn't mean that externally it is harmfull.
There was a large outcry when NASA starte launching rockets with the stuff, but it was quickly pointed out that even in the worst case (rocket blows up, splits the canister in two, leaving the radiation source in a single lump someplace) that much larger lumps of radioactive material exist naturally all over the planet- and don't do very much harm to the environment.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
On one hand, prices have gone up, on the other, technology has improved. On the gripping hand, if Michael Laine has his way, that cost will plummet in the next decade or two.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
After a little time to sleep on it...
McWorld is well-phrased. I hadn't put my arguments into those words, though I had been thinking that currently the US isn't doing too good a job of being the Champion of Civilizaton. For that matter, the rest of Western Civilization is acting rather badly with regards to excessive economic control, too.
The irony of it all... The folks that wave the flag, trumpet freedom, and thump their Bibles, by their words and actions, appear to stand for restriction of personal rights, except for gun ownership and the ability to make money. The pinpoint focus of the highest irony is that such emphasis on the ability to make money seems to me to be a lot like Worship of Mammon. Not that I'm against Greed, a proper amount of it is good motivation. But too much of *anything* is bad, and Greed is no exception. IMHO as a nation we're *far* out of balance, in this respect.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
"reread the article"
.05% of your tax money which... o NM. Just have fun chances are good that anger you feel is going to do little more than get you killed. So if you want to deal with the problem fine hell if you just want some of that money fine but go live your life and don't wast your time being pissed off over the 250,000,000+ eople that are fighting over how to spend 1/2 your money.
Umm, first off are you talking about an article other than Squeezing Coal To Reduce Emissions? cuz unless i missed something it's not talking about nukes at all.
And 2nd I am sorry but I know money changes hands all the time honestly everybody's hand is in the government pot. It's realy the basic inificency of representive government. But, for those who wish to trade there "vote" for money fine with me I have other isues I want addressed. So I will vote for your powerplant if you will vote for my school... Graft is a basic function of the system we have. Now I know the rich keep geting richer but there are many things that keep them in balance aka fixed pot of gold and many many hands. But, anyway Nukes provide the US with about as much power as they can "you can't tourn them on and off very quickly" which limits how much we can rely on them right now. So like most utility's there a good investment if you care more about not losing your money than makeing a killing but that's about it. (limited grouth potential)
I don't know some things like insider trading bother me. But, as long as your open about the fact you want a hand out (farmers) fine with me. It's a dog eat dog world and when you notice the game everyone else is playing you can start to deal with the world and not bemone how you wish it would operate. Shure I would pay less in taxes and have more money then again I could also tip less and have more money. I look at social security as money stolen from me but it's all part of the same system so I can deal with that. Yes the government takes about 1/2 the money I make fine it sucks but I still have more moeny than I know what to do with so I realy don't give a damm.
Well fine if you think the fact that around 0.1% of your tax money is being given to nuke power people fine feel free to do somthing about it. I don't realy stress over it that much. Afterall the government is going to take 1/2 of it back anyway so we are realy talking about
PS: Feel free to coment if you have gotten this far I do wander what you thingk about this.