Montana Energy Symposium
Is Coal Clean?
By Brooke Hewes, 10-18-05
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The equation seems simple enough: (a) Montana’s undeveloped coal resources amount to 120 billion tons; (b) National energy needs exceed supply. So if coal equals energy and we have coal, then a + b equals a great reason to tap into our coal reserves.
Right?
Wrong, says Anne Hedges with the Montana Environmental Information Center.
Coal, she says, borrowing the phrase from the “liberal-rag the Economist,� is environmental enemy number one. It pollutes the air and contaminates aquatic ecosystems; additionally, she says, coal burning releases mercury, which causes public and environmental health hazards of epic proportions.
“Ninety-two percent of Montana’s airborne mercury is from coal-fired power plants,� she says. “Mercury pollution leads to serious health effects such as ADD, ADHD and autism.�
And perhaps most dangerous, says Hedges, coal causes global warming. So instead, she suggests to 60 or so panel attendees packed in a small room in MSU’s student center, Montana must pursue conservation.
"There is more that we can ring out of the system�—and renewable energy and steer clear of oil, gas and yes, that dirty, disease-causing coal.
Meanwhile, two blocks west in the MSU field house-turned-energy exposé are many men in suits bantering about what they consider the answer to the ensuing crisis. No, it’s not pig poop or wind turbines, it’s…why, coal of course.
They insist their coal does not cause birth defects, ADHD, and cardiac disease because their coal is clean. Their coal is synthetic, either in the form of gas (syngas) or liquid (synfuel). Their coal is versatile and flexible (it can replace liquid and gas fuel after all!).
And finally, their coal can reduce national dependence on foreign oil.
“We have the feedstock in this country,� said John Rich, president of WMPI Pty., LLC based in Pennsylvania. “Yet the money is going over seas.�
James Lepinski, managing director at Headwaters, Inc., agrees: “We could use liquid coal to replace a half a million barrels of imported oil a day.�
As coal is turned to gas and then liquid, pollutants such as sulfur, arsenic and mercury are removed. CO2—the primary greenhouse gas responsible for global warming—is also removed and recycled either in the ground or ocean in a process known as sequestration; CO2 emissions are sometimes retained for industrial use.
Still, Hedges and other conservationists aren’t convinced, and insist that coal is not, and cannot be clean. Less dirty, perhaps, maybe cleaner, but not clean. Others question the $35 a barrel optimism (which when compared to $60 for oil does seem dreamy); some go so far as to call synfuel a scam.
At this stage, however, the jury’s still out. Looking scarily certain, however, is the $60 price for a barrel for oil and $2.86 for a gallon of gas.
Editor's note: Brooke is live blogging from Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer's Energy Symposium in Bozeman. Click here to read all of her updates.
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Comments
http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/007/index.html--
dirty when you haul it --
http://www.ohvec.org/issues/overweight_coal_trucks/index.html --
dirty when you burn it--
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1213432--
dirty when you dipsose of the ash--
http://www.nj.com/news/expresstimes/nj/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1129021645282900.xml&coll=2--
and it sure dirties up politics--
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?Ind=E1210
and
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?Ind=E08--
I am all for cleaner energy and use of better alternatives. In the short-term coal will be part of the patch job. Synfuel coal can be significantly cleaner if you spend the money to make it happen, just as scrubbers helped significantly reduce the emissions from generating plants. Mass transit, turn down the thermostat, turn off lights, pass on the long drive to a far off campsite or stream. There are lots of small and big things that can be done. All have to do all of them. The issue will become more prominent. I expect we'll eventually figure it out at least passably, but slowly and with lots of costs of all kinds, including environmental. As it always has been. There isnt a cheap painless answer to the entire problem. There may be relatively cheap answers to the first 20-40% of the problem if everybody pulled their share of the thoughtfulness but that will still live a large tough problem. Not accusing anyone of ignoring that but I keep that in mind when the pluses and miunses of coal are debated.
A former employee of a environmental protection agency regulating the coal industry well aware of the abuses committed by many coal companies
But from a urban pollution standpoint your point that it might be suitable as an urban fuel is a worthwhile counterpoint to consider.
And cogeneration of hydrogen and power sounds interesting as described in your article, but I will have to read more. I did find these articles with a contrasting view that hydrogen is not a major part of the answer for the future
brief
http://www.tinaja.com/h2gas01.asp
detailed
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/081803_hydrogen_answers.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hype_about_Hydrogen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy
but all options have downsides. i will continue to look for a fair and balanced evaluation of all options and what share of the load they can provide short, intermediate and long-term.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/07/01/BU999hydrocars.DTL
I will focus only on your two remarks:
1) hydrogen is inefficient
"Inefficient" is absolute or comparative? If you do not need hydrogen and you want to pass thorugh hydrogen anyway, it is absolutely inefficient.
If you need a clean fuel and you do not have any alternative, what is the meaning of "inefficient"?
We can say also that hydrogen is very expensive. How will be expensive oil if we continue to consume it for 30 years? Much more than hydrogen. But we cannot wait 30 years to start to build the hydrogen system. It could be too late.
2) hydrogen production is polluting
It depends on the primary energy source. If you use a reneable energy source hydrogen is clean. If you use coal and you clean the syngas to produce hydrogen, you will get only hydrogen and carbon dioxide, that is not a pollutant. And you can also store carbon dioxide because its production is centralised. Try to completely clean exhaust gas from pollutants and to store carbon dioxide from billion of vehicles fed with gasoline.
Again hydrogen could be inefficient and expensive, but there is no alternatives.
The alternatives are in the primary energy sources not in the secondary energy carriers: they will be power and hydrogen. And we need a bridge from oil to renewable: in my opinion it could be clean coal, where clean means hydrogen from coal.
Let's start with hydrogen economy in order to make hydrogen comparatively efficient and inexpensive as soon as possible.
The articles agree with you that hydrogen from renewable sources is better from an effiency since than hydrogen from non-renewable. But coal is plentiful not really renewable in the classic sense of that word.
And the articles say that the amount of hydrogen yielded from cogeneration is fairly small relative to the amount of power produced. Is that also correct with your model / technology? And after the hydrogen is yielded they say that the hyrogen takes large amounts of energy expediture / loss to transport, store and condense for use. The methanol article argues that is a better technology.
What I read suggest that this energy "solution" is not simple and has work to do and that is mainly what I wanted to point out to provide a little more balance for others that are new to the subject. But good luck with your work.
In these days I have a lot of work to do and if I waited to have time, maybe I would reply another day or maybe I would forget to reply. I preferred to reply reading only some sentences just to understand the main critical items.
Hydrogen from renewable is not efficient, but is absolutely clean. Hydrogen from coal must be cleaned, but is quite efficient and coal is available and inexpensive for the next decades, while oil and gas will become rapidly too expensive.
Therefore coal-hydrogen could be the bridge towards renewable-hydrogen.
Cogeneration of hydrogen and power is, maybe, the most efficient way to get them from coal. I do not know which kind of cogeneration has been considered to give a small amount of hydrogen. Coal is chemical energy and hydrogen is chemical energy again, while power is electrical energy. When you cogenerate with the highest efficiency the result is close to 100% hydrogen and 0% power, but using some hydrogen you can change the cogeneration ration and adjust it to the real needs. The point is how to convert this hydrogen with the best efficiency.
It is true that there is still work to do. This is the reason to start immediately. Otherwise in twenty years the work to do will be the same. But the oil and gas will have reached the peak and its cost will be no more sustainable.
In this same vein of skewed statistics I could state that, "99% of all Montanans drink water every day. Water is the main cause of drowning for dozens of Montanans each year."
and. . . "And perhaps most dangerous, says Hedges, coal causes global warming."
Global warming is also caused by increased solar storm activity and natural periodic climactic thermal shifts. The full extent of the causes of global warming is a subject of continued debate within the scientific community.
If you want to use statistics to prove a point, use specific, quantitative data that follows logic. I realize this often stops liberal arguments in their tracks, but you never know, maybe there are some viable stats that would actually prove your point. If so, I'd actually consider your arguments. Until then, your statements are just a few feathers short of a wing; and nothing is flying.
http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2005/10/16/news/02coal.txt
was very good and I would encourage others to follow it. I may have overlooked it earlier, so there is room for everyone to read more.
Adding environmental protection costs raises the total cost but there is hope for addressing that in innovative ways.
I remain wary of large government subsidies potentially skewing the investment decision in this technology (like oil shale before it) but if private industry can make a strong case to government regulators that they can make it work fully accounting for and paying for all the costs I am willing to listen.
And detailed reviews of the experiences with the first plants that come on line will be key to share with the public, so I look forward to more reporting on the subject.
Barriers to Commercialization
Although the potential benefits of hydrogen and fuel cells are significant, many challenges, technical and otherwise, must be overcome before hydrogen and fuel cells will offer a competitive alternative for consumers.
Hydrogen Production and Delivery
Cost is the biggest impediment to using hydrogen more widely as a fuel. Hydrogen is currently more expensive to produce than conventional fuels, such as gasoline, and many of the more cost-effective production methods generate greenhouse gases. In addition, the current system for delivering conventional fuels to consumers cannot be used for hydrogen. Many expensive changes must be made in our nation's energy infrastructure to accommodate hydrogen.
Hydrogen Storage
Hydrogen has a low energy density in terms of volume, making it difficult to store amounts adequate for most applications in a reasonable-sized space. This is a particular problem for hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles, which must store hydrogen in compact tanks. High-pressure storage tanks are currently being developed, and research is being conducted into the use of other storage technologies such as metal hydrides and carbon nanostructures (materials that can absorb and retain high concentrations of hydrogen).
Fuel Cell Cost and Durability
Cost is the greatest challenge to fuel cell development and adaptation, and it is a factor in almost all other fuel cell challenges as well. For example, some fuel cell designs require expensive, precious-metal catalysts, and others require costly materials that are resistant to extremely high temperatures. Another key technical challenge facing fuel cells is the need to increase durability and dependability. High-temperature fuel cells, in particular, are prone to material breakdown and shortened operating lifetimes. PEM fuel cells must have effective water management systems to operate dependably and efficiently. Finally, all fuel cells are prone, in varying degrees, to catalyst poisoning, which decreases fuel cell performance and longevity. Research into these areas is ongoing, and DOE is sponsoring and participating in demonstration programs to test the durability of new components and designs.
Safety, Codes and Standards
Hydrogen, like gasoline or any other fuel, has safety risks and must be handled with due caution. While we are quite familiar with gasoline, handling hydrogen will be new to most of us. Therefore, developers must optimize new fuel storage and delivery systems for safe everyday use, and consumers must become familiar with hydrogen's properties and risks. Codes and standards are needed to ensure safety, as well as to commercialize hydrogen as a fuel.