[LINK] Tony pulls it off!

[Chris Maltby]

On Thu, Dec 03, 2009 at 10:44:58AM +1100, Birch, Jim wrote:
> There was a piece on the Science Show in November talking about a new
> technology that converts brown coal into something like black coal
> halving the CO2 per energy unit.  Given the CO2 output of the Latrobe
> Valley this sounds like a major improvement.  
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2009/2742004.htm#transcript
> 
> I'm not think that elimination of fossil carbon power isn't the real
> objective, but this seems a substantial step in the right direction, it
> can be achieved quickly.
> 
> Does anyone know whether this process will work?  

Jim,

I presume that the process involves heating of the brown coal to drive
off the extra moisture and other non-combustibles. When you subtract the
energy input from boost in burning efficiency it's not so dramatic.

You can also get a big step in efficiency by going to a gas turbine
style of combustion instead of heating steam to drive the turbines...

But... if you were going to invest that sort of money, why wouldn't you
put the investment into renewables - say solar thermal. Oh - yes, we
would need a genuine carbon price as part of an ETS which would actually
reduce emissions in Australia - not the CPRS, either as originally put
forward or as "improved" to try to get Coalition support.

Chrs