If there's one big environmental concern surrounding power plants that burn material such as coal in order to produce power, it's the amount of carbon dioxide that they release into the atmosphere. Various experimental technologies have been developed for removing most or all of the CO2 from smokestack effluents, although no one system appears to have been universally accepted as of yet. One technology that shows some promise, and that could perhaps be used in conjunction with other systems, is called Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC). Norwegian research group SINTEF is now building a special new type of CLC system, for use in the DemoCLOCK pilot project, to be installed at Spain's Elcogas Puertollano power plant.
When fuel is burnt in a regular power plant, the fire is fed by oxygen in the air. The CO2 that results is diluted in nitrogen in the air, which makes it difficult to economically separate, capture and store. In a CLC system, this problem is avoided by never allowing the fuel and the air to come into contact with one another. Instead, they are housed in two separate units, a fuel reactor and an air reactor. In the air reactor, through the heat-producing process of oxidation, oxygen is drawn from the air and transferred to metal oxide granules. Those granules are then transferred to the fuel reactor, where they react with the fuel, creating more heat.
The exit stream from the fuel reactor consists of only CO2 and H2O - no nitrogen. The H2O can easily be condensed out of the mixture, leaving nothing but easily-captured pure carbon dioxide. The depleted metal oxide carrier granules are cycled back to the air reactor for reuse, while the heat created in both reactors can be used to spin turbines, which in turn generates electricity.
The medium-scale 500kW DemoCLOCK will be a little different, in that it will be a packed bed system. It will only have a single reactor, in which the carrier granules will alternately be exposed to the air, in order to get "charged up," and then to the fuel gas, in the absence of air. It should offer the same performance as a traditional CLC system but will be more compact, and simpler, as the carrier won't need to be moved back and forth.
The packed bed system was originally developed by a team at The Netherlands' Eindhoven University of Technology. DemoCLOCK has a budget of EUR 8.2 million (US$11.8 million), and is being funded by the European Union. It includes ten other industry partners, besides SINTEF.
\"...although no one system appears to have been universally accepted as of yet.\"
How can this even start to be an argument? Maybe it had some merit in communist Russia where a one size fits all was the norm but why should a solution be universally be accepted? I\'d suggest power generators pick the system that is most cost effective for their situation. Obviously that would mean they pick none since everyone knows there is no problem in the first place.
So I take it that the author considers it as a given, that the government needs to force a solution for a non existing problem upon the power generators.
Guys, give it up already please. You are not doing science a favor flogging this. Work on something productive.
Unproven hype around CO2! Just what on earth does it take to convince you? Go spend an hour or so for the sake of your kids, and if you haven\'t got any, for the sake of mine, at skepticalscience.com, it will give you the proof you clearly lack.
The only people who decide science are scientists. It's not up to a vote from "impartials". There're no "impartials" denying it anyway - they're from Libertarian thinktanks or receiving corporate lobbiest money and aren't scientists. The fact that you would charge mainstream science with being paid to promote their positions when numerous articles detail companies like ExxonMobil funding the deniers shows it's you who's not being objective.
The Truth About Denial http://www.newsweek.com/2007/08/13/the-truth-about-denial.html
Royal Society tells Exxon: stop funding climate change denial http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/20/oilandpetrol.business
Oil firms fund climate change 'denial' http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/jan/27/environment.science
There is no worldwide conspiracy of scientists to force you to clean your emissions because of some unholy agenda. If it was "debunked", science would change its position. Science is based on facts and reproducible experiment. Show the evidence, the theory changes. Climate scientists have reached consensus, just as biologists have about evolution. You're no longer allowed to claim the high ground or act like those who accept man-made global warming are crazy. It's the official position, and you now need extraordinary evidence for anyone to accept your extraordinary claim that all of the evidence collected by the world's climate scientists is in error.
The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: How Do We Know We're Not Wrong? http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.172.3835&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Besides using a membrane based oxygen concentrator, to produce the oxygen to either feed into a CO2 environment to support the combustion of fuel in an internal combustion engine, or feed an oxygen & fuel burner looks simpler, and more efficient. Plus you would get purified nitrogen as a byproduct.
As for the gullible sorts who fall for the Koch Industries anti-global warming propaganda, no amount of empirical data can undo the fine job that Karl Rove and company have done in concocting this fossil fuel profit protecting falsehood.
AGW is a scam designed to defraud, and inflict Socialism on a panicked world.