Coal liquifaction & gasification roundup for Feb 1, 2009

Coal, it's this phrase that stuck in my head since nearly 20 years of living in Kentucky, it's Kentucky's Ace in the Hole. Coal is this very dirty fuel, it's rock that can be burned. It's plentiful however, and cheap, and it's one of the core causes of the greenhouse gas emissions which is leading us to an environmental disaster.

Air Force drops plan to make fuel from coal in Montana: Apparently the Air Firce has been planning to build a coal-to-liquid plant at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. They want to source liquid fuels other than fossil oil. There is an obvious geopolitical gamble going on in that the U.S. Military is dependent on liquid fuels to maintain U.S. hegemony over the world, and increasingly the source for those liquid fuels is in countries that ahem are not exactly friendly to the U.S. Hence how can the U.S. maintain hegemony over the world if we can no longer access liquid fuels used to drive our war machines?

In WWII the German Army also faced the same problem. They did not have access to liquid fuels and their scientists had fortuitously developed a coal liquifaction process, Fischer-Tropsch, and were able to convert their abundant coal into liquid fuel that ran their war machines and made them dangerous to the rest of the world.

The Air Force has a goal to certify that all aircraft could fly on a 50-50 blend of coal liquifaction fuel by 2011. It's been purchasing fuel made from coal from Sasol of South Africa, most recently 300,000 gallons, said Air Force spokesman Gary Strasburg.

Liquid fuel from coal produces more than twice the greenhouse gas emissions as conventional petroleum-based fuel.

Top 10 alternative fuel breakthroughs in 2008: Goes into various alternative energy sources being investigated by the military. Such as "ASTM International moved on 7 December to allow any qualified fuel company to sell synthetic jet fuel, with its industry standards-setting committee proposing to amend ASTM D1655 and allow Fischer-Tropsch-processed fuels to power aircraft in 2009." Likewise in the U.K. "The Aviation Fuels Committee and UK Ministry of Defence amended DEFSTAN 91-91" to approve use of coal-to-liquids fuel from Sasol.

US Air Force completes F-22 synthetic fuel trials: The US Air Force has concluded analysis of the effects of using a natural gas-based synthetic fuel with its Lockheed Martin F-22, as work to trial the technology accelerates through its trainer, transport and fighter fleets.

Fairbanks Considering a Coal-to-Liquids Plant: The Fairbanks Economic Development Council (FEDC) is encouraging local business leaders to consider the benefits of a coal-to-liquid plant. The Interior Issues Council, Cost of Energy Taskforce, spent several months identifying possible energy solutions that could help mitigate the crippling high energy cost. The goals of the task force were to identify solutions that reduce the cost of energy, create a sustainable fuel supply, reduce particulate (PM2.5), reduce CO2 and sulfur emissions, and address local solid waste disposal issues. Proponents tout benefits of coal-to-liquids facility: More discussion in Alaska to build a coal-to-liquids plant.

Ohio River Clean Fuels Receives Final Air Permit: The Ohio EPA awarded the final air permit for the Ohio River Clean Fuels project to Baard Energy. The Ohio River Clean Fuels LLC (ORCF) project is a 53,000 barrel alternative fuels coal-to-liquids project that will be located near Wellsville, Ohio. The estimated cost of the plant is $5 billion. ... The facility will have three Fischer-Tropsch trains and produce 50,000 barrels per day of ultra-clean diesel and jet fuel, 3,000 barrels per day of LPGs and 250 MW electricity. Baard’s presentation at the Coal Gasification Technology conference in 2005 referenced Rentech’s Fischer-Tropsch technology, but this has not been confirmed with a news release. The CO2 will be removed using the Linde Rectisol process. Once the CO2 is removed it will be used for injection into existing oilfields for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Baard has had discussions with Marathon Oil regarding an offtake agreement for the CO2. There are oil fields in production within 20 miles of the plant site that can utilize the CO2 for EOR.

Biosyncrude Gasification Process Could Produce Motor Fuel at Cost of Around $3/gallon The Bioliq biosyncrude gasification process (earlier post) used in a large plant with a capacity of > 1 Mt/a can produce biosynfuel for about €1.04 per kg or €0.8 per liter (US$3.08/gallon US), according to an analysis by researchers at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Germany, which is co-developing the process with Lurgi....

Idaho National Lab Developing Highly Carbon-Efficient Biomass-to-Liquids Process Combining High Temperature Steam Electrolysis and Biomass Gasification: Researchers at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) are developing a process—Bio-Syntrolysis—that combines high temperature steam electrolysis (HTSE) and biomass gasification to produce syngas for subsequent conversion into synthetic fuels and chemicals. The process results in the highly efficient conversion of biomass carbon to syngas (>90%). Given the efficiencies of a typical Fischer-Tropsch process, Bio-Syntrolysis would thus convert about 90% of the carbon in biomass to liquid synthetic fuel, INL says. By comparison, INL notes, conventional biomass or coal gasification to liquid fuels converts only ~35% of the carbon to liquid fuel. Likewise, conventional biological routes for ethanol production convert only ~35% of biomass carbon to liquid fuel....

External Media

MuseLetter: Coal in China

China is the world's foremost coal producer and consumer, surpassing the United States by a factor of two on both scores and accounting for 40 percent of total world production. Coal in China has a long history dating back over two millennia. Production achieved one million tons per year in 1903 and the present annual output is roughly 2.5 billion metric tons (tonnes). China currently has roughly 25,000 coalmines, with 3.4 million registered employees. Some of these coalmines are illegally operated. The productivity of China's coal mining is low: in 1999, 289 tons of coal were produced per miner averaged across all the nation's mines, versus almost 12,000 tons per miner in the US. Thin overburden allows surface mining in some areas, but only four to seven percent of China's reserves are suitable for surface mining, and of these most consist of lignite.

The pace of China's headlong dash toward increased coal consumption is legendary: in recent years an average of one new coal-fed power plant has fired up every week. The resulting annual capacity addition is comparable to the size of Britain's entire power grid. This is no doubt the outsourcing of industry at work. As the world moves more and more industrial production to China, this requires China to build more electrical production plants, and their available fuel is..coal. Coal isn't just used to generate electricity, it also feeds into metals production and fertilizer production.

There is use of Coal-to-Liquids technology. The article doesn't name this but the technique was developed in Germany shortly before WWII and was used by Nazi Germany to provide liquid fuel to drive the German war machine. Anyway CTL is an energy intensive method for liquifying coal, it does produce a usable fuel as the Germans proved in WWII, but it is very expensive. A driving force for this is the cost to transport coal from mines to power plants, usually coal is transported by train, but a large portion of mines are not on the rail network and must be transported by trucks. This requires diesel fuel..

According to China's Coal Research Institute, each barrel of synthetic oil produced from coal will consume at least 360 gallons of fresh water. (For comparison: 360 gallons equals roughly 8.5 barrels; thus at this ratio of CTL to water, 286,000 barrels per day of CTL would require approximately 2.5 million bpd of water.) And most areas of China are already experiencing water scarcity.

The article summarizes several reports looking into when or if the peak in China's coal production will occur. The estimates range from 2006 through 2050. Clearly the 2006 estimate is wrong as we're in 2008 and the production has only increased, but they wave their hands about faulty data. In any case since Coal is a limited resource just like Oil, there will be a peak in China's Coal production and it's likely going to be within the coming 50-100 years.

China's furious pace of economic growth, which is often touted as a sign of success, may turn out to be a fatal liability. Simply put, the nation appears to have no Plan B. No fossil fuel other than coal will be able to provide sufficient energy to sustain current economic growth rates in the years ahead, and non-fossil sources will require unprecedented and perhaps unachievable levels of investment just to make up for declines in coal production—never mind providing enough to fuel continued annual energy growth of seven to ten percent per year.

If and when China ceases to have enough new energy to support continued economic growth, there are likely to be unpleasant consequences for the nation's stability. If such consequences are to be averted, the country's leadership must find ways to rein in economic growth while reducing internal social and political tensions, meanwhile investing enormous sums in non-fossil energy sources. A serious attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would entail an identical prescription. It is a tall order by any standard, but serious contemplation of the alternative—which, in the worst instance, could amount to social, economic, and environmental collapse—should be bracing enough to motivate heroic efforts.

Article Reference: 

MuseLetter: Coal in China

extvideo: 

Diversified Energy Corporation

URL: 

Diversified Energy Corporation

Description: 

Company specializing in the advancement of alternative and renewable energy technologies and projects. The company is maturing a series of promising new technologies such as advanced coal gasification techniques, biomass to transportation fuel approaches, advanced solar concentrator platforms, terrestrial carbon dioxide sequestration methods, and in-situ shale oil recovery processes to name just a few. In parallel, the company is working on projects (and providing services to others) to bring commercially available technologies to market now.

U.S., Chinese researchers collaborate on clean coal

"With demand for energy - both electricity and transportation fuels - increasing, despite efficiency gains, coal usage is going to increase in both countries," said Mike Davis, associate laboratory director for Energy Science and Technology at PNNL.

..."This is a unique opportunity to design and test new processes - such as carbon dioxide capture - that will reduce significantly the environmental impacts of coal usage," said Doug Ray, associate laboratory director for Fundamental Science at PNNL.

...Initially, the consortium expects to collaborate on air separation, coal gasification, cleanup and separation, and water gas shift reactions in the gas stream, hydrocarbon synthesis and carbon dioxide capture and utilization.

Article Reference: 

U.S., Chinese researchers collaborate on clean coal

Coal Latte, a boon? Or a mistake?

Oil at $15 a barrel? concerns a process developed by Silverado Green Fuel to turn marginal coal into a liquid fuel. The liquid fuel can function just like gasoline and they claim it can be sold for $15 per barrel, so in this age where we are staring $100 per barrel oil in the face some obviously would see this as an advantage. Plus they've managed to paint this thing as a green fuel.

The claim their products are free of nitrogen, sulfur, particulate matter, and heavy metals and I suppose this is the rationale for calling this a "green" fuel. However it still contains carbon, fossilized carbon, so burning this fuel adds carbon to the ecosphere.

There are a couple keys to this .. first, this sort of coal is under a low demand hence the raw material has a low cost. Second, there is a lot of it and this sort of coal is spread pretty widely around the world. In the U.S. alone, the existing coal reserves hold enough coal to produce liquid fuel that would be the equivalent of 800 billion barrels of oil.

In the cost equation there are high capital costs due to building plants and transportation of the coal to the plants. According to the CNET article this fuel will be attractive only if fossil oil remains above $45 per barrel.

Silverado Green Fuel

URL: 

Silverado Green Fuel

Description: 

Silverado Green Fuel Inc., is working on the development of an environmentally friendly oil substitute produced from low-rank coal (LRC). Silverado’s Low-Rank Coal-Water Fuel (LRCWF) or Green Fuel is not a new fuel, but a new fuel form. Green Fuel is a stable liquid fuel which provides a non-hazardous, low cost alternative to petroleum derived fuels that can use existing oil infrastructure for handling, storage and transportation.

The process creates derivative fuels from subbituminous, lignitic, and brown coals, which are characterized by high moisture levels and a low carbon to hydrogen ratio. The derivative fuel is liquid allowing it to be handled by the existing infrastructure used for liquid fuels derived from fossil oil, and it can be converted by any one of a number of commercial Fischer Tropsch processes to yield a myriad of clean fuels and petrochemicals.

They are a subsidiary of the Silvarado gold mining empire, http://www.silverado.com/