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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."
...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.
Because we're not going to replace our power infrastructure overnight. Unfortunately we're doing very little to move off of fossil fuels at all. But even when we get off the mark, it's going to be a lengthy process, not an overnight conversion. Cleaning up legacy powerplants is a good thing, even if it isn't the final goal.
I wonder how much it would cost to migrate off of fossil fuels. Last year we spend $8.5e9 on the Iraq war, during a relatively slack economy with a huge deficit, and barely batted an eyelash. (and the job/cost isn't done, yet.) I doubt that amount of money would do the job, but it would sure make a dent in it, or at least in moving off of mideast oil and cleaning things up.
This needs to be a National Priority. If not for the cleanup, at least moving enough off of mideast oil to reduce/eliminate our dependence. The other night, NPR/Marketplace had an article on the stability of regional players. Our addiction to fossil fuels (gasoline in particular) has blinded us to the risks of our dependence on mideast sources.
(I saw a link that let my bypass registration, though it informed me that, "I need to register soon.")
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
First, you don't need to believe in man made climate change to consider less pollution "good". Also, I agree that we should be moving to non-polluting (or as nearly as possible) energy sources, but that isn't going to happen until clean energy sources are reasonably cost competitive on a scale that allows similar capacity. So realistically the two options are: keep burning coal the old way until alternatives are adopted; or burn significantly cleaner until alternatives are adopted.
My favorite quote of all time comes from the economist, "the entire western economy is a call option on the house of Saud." If that isn't a scary thought I don't know what is. There was an excellent article on Slate the other day that put this same idea in quite a few more words (summary that Osama wants the oil under Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and the regime we have been supporting for the better part of 50 years is currently tottering).
Unfortunately I know of nothing with the energy density of fossil fuels. Find something that approaches the production cost and energy density of fossil fuels and you will be richer than Bill Gates.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Also, I agree that we should be moving to non-polluting (or as nearly as possible) energy sources, but that isn't going to happen until clean energy sources are reasonably cost competitive on a scale that allows similar capacity.
And clean energy sources aren't going to be cost competitive until dirty energy sources include all the costs of their product into the price of the product. As it is now, they export those costs onto the public at large making them seem cheaper than they actually are. Atmospheric composition changes, acid rain, mercury, mountaintop removal, one thousand miles of streams buried in Appalachia; these are all costs that are exported onto the people rather than included in the price of coal. So who is not being real here?
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
The entire process as a whole needs to be taken into account to determine whether a energy source is clean and or effecient. How much energy does it require to obtain it, refine it, ship it can be just as important as how clean it is when you burn it. Damn straight hydrogen is clean when you burn it. But how much crap did you dump into the atmosphere when you processed it?
brrrrrrrrrppp 'Ey Homer...Why don't girls like me?
Speak for yourself. Lots of us have known this for years.
Of course, the jihadists probably wouldn't be jihading if we weren't so dependent on fossil fuels. We wouldn't be impinging on their turf, and they wouldn't have the cash to buy weapons.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