Apr

5

Ready to Make Natural Gas

April 5, 2013 | 4 Comments

Methanogenic bacteria have been found in coal beds here in the U.S. and companies are working to start natural gas production.  For now the natural gas prices are forcing adverse market conditions on the firms, but the chance that some liquefied natural gas for export may be allowed could well spark more action. San Diego [...]

Feb

7

Energy From Coal Without the Burning

February 7, 2013 | 6 Comments

Ohio State University engineers are testing a clean coal technology that harnesses the energy of coal producing heat while capturing 99% of the carbon dioxide produced in the reaction.  The test combustion unit reaction ran 203 continuous hours. The new form of clean coal technology reached an important milestone with the successful operation of a [...]

May

31

Catching CO2 More Cheaply

May 31, 2012 | 1 Comment

Scientists at Rice University, the University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) have completed a detailed analysis of more than 4 million zeolite absorbent minerals. The team determined that new materials could help electricity producers slash as much as 30 percent of the “parasitic energy” costs [...]

Dec

21

SRI International Develops a New Coal To Liquid Fuel Process

December 21, 2011 | 7 Comments

Make no mistake here; SRI International has the brainpower and skill set to come up with workable and commercial ideas that have scale in mind from the start.  Robert Wilson, Ph.D., director, Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory, SRI International said in the press release, “The implications of this research are expansive, including enhancing US energy [...]

Jun

15

Will CO2 Capture Become Cheap?

June 15, 2011 | 1 Comment

The European Union and led by SINTEF in Norway with ten other European partners has completed lab tests and is set to demonstrate a cost-effective CO2 capture technology. Called the DemoCLOCK project, with a budget of €8.2 million, it is based on a special version of a technology called Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC). This a [...]

May

26

A System to “Pre-Clean” Coal and Get a Little Oil & Gas

May 26, 2009 | 7 Comments

Phoenix-based CoalSack Energy, Inc. is a fledgling company launched four months ago with the express goal of taking their groundbreaking technology to market. It’s based on the technology developed by Harold L. Bennett, a 78-year-old civil engineer from Albuquerque. It seems that CoalSack is in the pretreatment of coal business, until now a non-existing business, [...]

Nov

20

Ideological Purity vs. Intelligence About Coal

November 20, 2008 | 6 Comments

With all the believers in the face of the best facts still pushing for global warming doomsdays, coal is having a difficult time as a fuel for the exploding need for electrical power generation. Now I fully agree that burning coal and sending clouds of effluents rich in nasty metals, sulfur compounds and an array [...]

Nov

13

Ultra Supercritical Steam Generation

November 13, 2008 | 14 Comments

We might want to know what this is, its going to affect your electricity rates. Ultra supercritical (USC) steam generation is a derivation on the definitions of the temperature and pressure at which water vapor and liquid water are indistinguishable, aka the “Critical Point.” At that critical point of water some 705 degrees F/3208 psi, [...]

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