After Gutenberg

One favored efficiency while the other was in favor of going great guns.

Expressing concern about an increasing gap between supply of and demand for natural gas in the United States, Andrew Weissman, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Energy Business Watch, has called for accelerated deployment of clean coal technology, specifically major gasification and CTL (Coal To Liquids)projects. Thus, I too had lumped (hee-hee) the two together.

Writing for Autoblog Green, Mike Magda relays information gleaned from a discussion between Grist blogger David Roberts and Washington Congressman Jay Inslee.

According to Roberts, if you go with producing liquid diesel fuel from coal (or biomass*) via a Fischer-Tropsch process, then you solemnly face two equally unappealing choices:

1. Either the taxpayer subsidizes an outrageously expensive means of carbon sequestration during a process that results in diesel fuel no cleaner than what what is refined from crude oil
2. Or we continue to allow the escape of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which may keep the fuel cost down.

* Note: There is considerable development of biomass gasification, to include conversion of agricultural and forestry waste to energy, plus the use of lignocelluosic crops as feedstock. A very promising area repeatedly noted by After Gutenberg has been the conversion of MSW (Municipal Solid Waste) to energy using one of several possible gasification methods.

Roberts wants the public to understand that there is an important distinction between CTL and producing electricity by means of IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycles), which might some day be environmentally tolerable, if accompanied by carbon sequestration.

[CTL] will never be tolerable, because even if the CO2 created in manufacturing is sequestered, the fuel itself releases twice as much CO2 as gasoline when combusted.

Entrained flow gasification technology can make use of many different types of coal, petroleum coke, several sewage and industrial sludges, oils, slurries, liquid production wastes and biomass. The coal industry strongly advocates these gasification technologies, even when they can use feedstock other than coal, since a high minimum throughput of many tons per day is required to be cost effective.

I was glad to see that someone else had noticed an all-out push for Syngas now. Roberts cautions against flim-flammery from the coal industry and its allies.

When they discuss the costs of CTL, they don’t include carbon sequestration (a technology that, when it comes to CTL, basically doesn’t exist yet). But when they discuss the environmental impacts of CTL, they include carbon sequestration.

Thus, Roberts puts forward a position that would seem to favor a Carbon Tax. He also urges better enforcement of existing Clean Air Act provisions on particulate pollution by coal-powered generation, which could force retirement of some of the worst polluting plants. Third, he advocates a tougher federal mercury pollution law.

Coal-fired power plants spew particulates and mercury pollution in to the air, cutting short some 30,000 lives a year. Those power plants are also responsible for 40 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions; electric power generation is the single biggest source of global greenhouse gases. The industry funds deliberately deceptive propaganda campaigns about global warming. Coal barons like Massey Energy’s Don Blankenship openly purchase state government officials to fight off labor and environmental enforcement. “Unified Green Field Theory“

And, it is not just deception and disregard for public health and the environment, Old King Coal is making a concerted effort to return to a greater role in the transportation sector, either with liquid fuel and / or greater electrification. For instance, Felix Kramer, a major campaigner for flex-fuel, plug-in hybrids advocated in a recent video that the focus should be on electrification first, with more clean-up by Big Eddie in the future. Which is somewhat different advocacy than Jim Hansen calling for a moratorium on all new coal-powered generation, yet ostensibly to achieve the same outcome.

One commentator to Roberts critique of coal questioned the author’s motive since the article would seem to direct attention away from the combustion of oil as a primary source of greenhouse gases.

“Well, bovine enteric fermentation failed to distract you.”

True, not since Bonzer Burger started offering complementary flatulence cards, but more to the topic, a non sequitur with halting coal-fired generation is nuke, nuke, nuke. Anyway, back to what makes for clean efficient energy…

Emissions profiles for electricity generation in most states in the United States, along with the greater efficiency of electric drive, are strong arguments for electrification. Peter Darbee — Chairman, CEO and President of Pacific Gas & Electric Corporations — has called for more action toward greater efficiency and a cleaner environment.

For now, let’s give the last word to Tom Konrad, who recently provided a visual comparison of electricity generation technologies. Improving transmission efficiency won ahead of other technologies when comparing 1) availablilty versus price and 2) emissions versus price. Unfortunately, since electricity is seen as so much more efficient from the outset, increasing efficiency is a more difficult sell than more coal and nuclear, at least for those ignoring the pollution or solutions and instead focused on the contributions.