[LINK] Coal power without burning

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

New coal technology harnesses energy without burning, nears pilot-scale 
development

February 6, 2013 by Pam Frost Gorder 
<http://phys.org/news/2013-02-coal-technology-harnesses-energy-nears.html>


At a research-scale combustion unit at Ohio State University, engineers 
are testing a clean coal technology that harnesses the energy of coal 
chemically, without burning it. 

The new form of clean coal technology reached an important milestone 
recently with the successful operation of a research-scale combustion 
system at Ohio State University. The technology is now ready for testing 
at a larger scale. 

For 203 continuous hours, the Ohio State combustion unit produced heat 
from coal while capturing 99 percent of the carbon dioxide produced in 
the reaction.

Liang-Shih Fan, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and 
director of Ohio State's Clean Coal Research Laboratory, pioneered the 
technology called Coal-Direct Chemical Looping (CDCL), which chemically 
harnesses coal's energy and also efficiently contains the carbon dioxide 
produced before it can be released into the atmosphere.

"In the simplest sense, combustion is a chemical reaction that consumes 
oxygen and produces heat," Fan said. "Unfortunately, it also produces 
carbon dioxide, which is difficult to capture and bad for the 
environment. So we found a way to release the heat without burning. We 
carefully control the chemical reaction so that the coal never burns — it 
is consumed chemically, and the carbon dioxide is entirely contained 
inside the reactor."

Since the process captures nearly all of the carbon dioxide, it exceeds 
the goals that DOE has set for developing clean energy .. (that is) new 
technologies that use fossil fuels should not raise the cost of 
electricity more than 35 percent, while still capturing more than 90 
percent of the resulting carbon dioxide. Based on the current tests with 
the research-scale plants, Fan and his team believe that they can meet 
and exceed that requirement.
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Cheers,
Stephen