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Working to Make Black Coal Green

July 22nd, 2010 Posted in Green Living & News

When you think of coal, especially with the Obama administration’s newly proposed Clean Air Transport Rule, what words come to mind?

Environment destroyer, green house polluter and black?

…Well, what about green?

Like any argument, getting informed on how the supposed “bad guys” are striving to make their way “greener” is a smart idea.

FutureGen: Making Black Coal Green

It’s hard to believe that a new coal-fueled power plant can produce near-to-zero emissions.

That is unless you’ve read about FutureGen.

By using cutting-edge technologies, FutureGen is a public-private partnership that plans to generate electricity while capturing and permanently storing carbon dioxide deep beneath the earth.

The plant will also produce hydrogen and byproducts for possible use by other industries.

Researchers and industry have already made great progress advancing technologies for:

• Coal gasification
• Electricity generation
• Emissions control
• Carbon dioxide capture and storage
• Hydrogen production

You see, coal contains anywhere from 25 – 90 percent carbon, which combines with oxygen when burned to release energy. This is the process that emits a host of toxic chemicals, such as carbon dioxide, sulfur, nitrogen oxide and mercury.

Yet carbon in coal can also be used to strip oxygen from water, producing clean-burning hydrogen gas— a process called gasification.

By heating finely ground coal in a high-pressure, pure-oxygen environment, FutureGen plans to liberate hydrogen to produce electricity.

But what about the emissions?

The plant plans to pump the CO2 underground, while the other pollutants are converted to an inert solid and then buried.

The plan of trapping carbon is not a long-term solution, and can cause serious problems if not monitored with extreme care.

The dilemma resides in those who are weary of the equipment leaking, which may cause alternative problems.

However, others see carbon sequestration as a stopgap that can work for 50 -100 years, giving bright thinkers adequate time to come up with other ways to make coal green.

This way, the process in which coal is being burned now will be altered.

In order to dent CO2 emissions, technologies like those used with FutureGen must become a blueprint for all coal-fired power plants, not only nationwide, but worldwide.

Besides FutureGen, other strides have been made to make coal green.

Recycled coal and coal byproducts are used:

• In pavement for roads and airport runways
• For construction materials, road base and cement production
• To make bricks for construction from fly ash
• For soil enhancement

Although nothing is perfect yet, a lot of people are stepping up to make old ways of making electricity “greener.”

What are your thoughts on making coal green?