Clean Coal is SCANDOLOUS!

This week my group presented the Scientific American article titled "Clean" Coal Power Plant Canceled--Hydrogen Economy, Too. This was about the fifth time this semester I've heard or read about the topic. Interested on the subject, I decided to be ignorant no more...


We all know coal is the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. When coal burns (as to make steam that turn turbines in order to generate electricity) it releases carbon dioxide and other emissions in flue gas. The "clean" technology in clean coal means that the degree of flue gas contamination is decreased. There are various technologies available like Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) systems, which avoid burning coal altogether. IGCC systems burn carbon and hydrogen in a gas turbine to make electricity and heat energy with powers a steam turbine. Yet, the most “clean” and therefore promising technology is carbon capture and storage, which catches and isolates carbon dioxide emissions from like power plants.

Three carbon capture technologies include: flue-gas separation which removes CO2 with steam; oxy-fuel combustion burns the fuel in pure or enriched oxygen to create a flue gas composed primarily of CO2 and water; and pre-combustion capture is a gasification process that removes CO2 before it's burned.

After capture, secure containers sequester the CO2 to avoid or stall its reentry into the atmosphere. The containers face two storage options: geologic which injects CO2 deep inside the Earth’s crust in exhausted gas and oil fields and oceanic (new technology that could slightly decrease pH and harm marine habitats) which injects liquid CO2 into waters 500 to 3,000 meters deep, where it dissolves under pressure.

Realistically speaking, as long as coal is cheap and readily available, it will be really difficult to wane ourselves off of coal. That is why it it so important to take advantage of these “clean” technologies as long as we’re still using this dirty fossil fuel. Although some power plants have invested in adopting these technologies, these practices yet to be widely used. The construction of the FutureGen Power Plant, which not only proposed to generate electricity using carbon-capture and storage technology and also produce hydrogen, was canceled earlier this year. The clean coal adoption process is looking a bit grim…as environmental activists advocate that the use of coal is never 'clean' and the lender banks and the government deem it too expensive to get it rolling.


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SOURCES:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/clean-coal1.htm

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=clean-coal-power-plant-canceled-hydrogen-economy-too