The Climate Change Parrot Sketch: Is Coal Dead, or Merely Resting? Can Carbon Capture Save the Day?

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ... Generally, Digest readers around the world fall into a third category, because they are NEMBEEists. That is, Never Employ Materials Badly, Even Energy. Digesterati generally favor higher-use cases.

That’s why readers look at digester technologies and say, why can’t we make a higher-value liquid fuel instead of lower-value electrons? Or, look at fermentation technologies and say, why can’t we make a higher-value chemical instead of lower-value fuels? Or, look at some algae technologies and say, why can’t we make a higher-value protein or vitamin instead of a lower-value bulk chemical?

This group of people tend to look at resources on a rationalist basis, seeing a wide gap between “plunder it all, heedless of the future” and “never touch it, amigo” — they tend to seek the middle ground. Looking for an evidence-basis on genetic manipulation, or resource depletion, or land-use — trusting that there’s always a way to optimize resources, and that there’s no such thing as a bad feedstock, there’s only a bad use case.

Consider coal, then. The evidence has piled up that coal is not as affordable as it used to be, in comparison to other feedstocks, and that the environmental consequences are dire in terms of the pile-up of CO2 from an industrialized world if we continue to use it for power generation like we do today.

Yes, we struggle with Do-Nothingism because not everyone “follows the science” when the economics are inconvenient and not everyone “reads the science” either.

The problem, friends, is not in the feedstock, but in the use case. There are very interesting things that can be done with coal resources that do not involve venting CO2 into the atmosphere, and which add value compared to our current use cases.

One technology that has attracted a lot of attention is Carbon Capture and sequestration — that is, burying CO2 back in the ground. Digesterati tend not to like that technology class because it adds cost, solving the environmental problem but not with a higher- or better-use case. It’s an ACE Case — as in Avoid the Consequences, Expensively.

NEMBEEs tend to prefer carbon capture and use. Take the CO2 and make something useful and valuable from it. There’s Algenol, Sapphire Energy, Joule, or Liquid Light technology to work with, for example.

Here’s another one, very interesting though not as far along in terms of development. One to watch.

It’s called Oxidative Hydrothermal Dissolution, a direct liquefaction technology developed by Thermaquatica. Greenpower has the rights to the OHD technology for Australia and New Zealand, and is in the early-stages of developing projects.

The output stream can be modified so that 100% of it can be converted to oxygenated fuels. A major work in progress is the creation of a manufacturing chain starting at pHB and ethyl vanillate and culminating in the production of bio-degradable plastics.

The development of products useful in soil enhancement is a second major work in progress. When one considers the reliable repeatability of the process and the ability to produce large volumes there is an excellent prospect that the OHD liquor can enable soil improvements to be implemented on a broad acre scale.

Finally, the OHD liquor will readily grow mould which contains lipids. As lipids are the basic building block for bio-diesel, commercial significance of the mould growing propensity is being investigated and quantified. READ MORE