Hitting Three Birds with One Stone, er, piece of charcoal!
Recently, my interest in a particular technology has been sparked. The process (like many things that are ecologically-sound and sensible) uses technologies which have existed for well over a century and are readily available and cheap - no fancy-shmancy new stuff necessary. A new way of thinking is all that is needed.
The center of this idea is the addition of carbon (in the form of charcoal) to the soil. This has been shown to have remarkable effects on fertility and the ability of the soil to hold moisture, nutrients, and support plant life. See Activated Carbon? The resulting soil is known as a "terra preta" and has been produced by people of the Amazon jungles many centuries ago through a process referred to as "slash and smolder" agriculture, where the smoldering biomass produced mainly charcoal which was then tilled into the soil. This is in opposition to "slash and burn", where the carbon is put into the atmosphere through complete combustion.
The charcoal used in such a manner is often referred to as "Biochar"
In addition to improving soil fertility, the carbon is more or less (on human time scales) permanently stored out of the atmosphere (where it would otherwise act to affect the global climate).
A full article on the subject can be found at Energy Bulletin . It is quite interesting, at least to me. I don't have problems with the "MEGO" ("my eyes glaze over" ) effect that is mentioned.
So, there are three critical things that this has the possibility of doing:
Removing CO2 From The Air (rather than simply preventing the addition of new CO2, which is what coal-based CO2 sequestration will do). I'm sure we are all aware of the climate change/global warming situation. What we all think of it, actually know about it, or say about it before actually knowing about it is a different story.
This correlates with what NASA climatologist James Hansen recommended - coupling carbon sequestration with biomass fuel rather than with fossil fuels in order to produce a net reduction in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Instead of simply bringing fossil carbon to the surface, taking the energy, and sending it back underground, we would be taking carbon from the atmosphere, taking its energy (put there through photosynthesis) and then sending that carbon underground.
Produces electrical and/or thermal energy. We all had better be aware of the world's energy situation. We all seem to demand limitless amounts of cheap energy, though few people really know how it all works or what it takes to make that possible. A by-product of charcoal making is the volatile component of the biomass which can be used for energy production.
Naturally and safely enriches the soil for agriculture. We all had better be (though I know we're not) aware of the condition of the world's food producing soils and how industrial agriculture really works (by applying petroleum-derived chemicals to a dead soil "sponge" to grow food.)
Now, there obviously must be some engineering that goes into this if all three outcomes are to be accomplished in a clean and safe manner. All bickering over money and politics aside, I've described below a possible "Biochar Cogeneration Facility" for the production of energy and charcoal as a soil amendment as well as the possibility of producing feedstock for chemical manufacture. Versions of this are also discussed in that article linked above (On Energy Bulletin).
Wood, Husk, Shells, Straw and other biomass materials are shredded and homogenized. Unlike highly criticized corn alcohol, the ENTIRE biomass is utilized - not just a little sac of starch inside a kernel. Forestry and agriculture wastes would work quite well. Even municipal solid waste (paper, cardboard) could be used, but these have the possibility of being contaminated with heavy metals.
The resulting biomass is then dried, using waste heat from the generator engine block and/or exhaust and/or possibly solar energy.
The dry, homogenized biomass is fed into a kiln, heated to above 1000 K and kept under reducing conditions (very little air is allowed). In the kiln, the volatile components of the biomass are converted into flammable gases (methane, hydrogen, various other organic compounds) while the fixed carbon remains in its original state. The flammable gases can be passed through a bed of hot charcoal and converted to hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Steam may be added to facilitate the production of hydrogen.
The process could be tweaked to optimize either energy production or charcoal production/sequestration. Leaving more carbon in the reactor and producing the maximum level of charcoal would result in less energy production, but more carbon going to the soil and less to the atmosphere. Charcoal could also be gasified and used for energy production. Charcoal produced by the plant could be used as a form of energy storage, gasifying some of it during times of high energy demand.
The H2/CO mixture (called "syngas" ) is siphoned off and is used either directly for energy production or is used in further chemical synthesis. With H2 and CO, virtually every organic compound currently produced by humans in chemical facilities can be synthesized. It can also be converted to liquid fuels capable of being used in diesel engines (through Fischer-Tropsch synthesis).
The hydrogen in the gas stream may be used in the Haber-Bosch synthesis process (ammonia making), and the resulting ammonia used on the charcoal to add nitrogenous value as well. Adding the Haber process, though, would require a larger-scale operation rather than a village- or town-scale operation.
The carbon (charcoal, or biochar) left in the kiln after gasification is collected and used as a soil amendment, with the capability of sequestering large amounts of carbon dioxide in the soil for long periods of time while increasing the fertility, moisture, and nutrient holding ability of the soil. The nutrients (potassium, phosphorus) that were in the biomass before gasification are returned to the soil.
Adding charcoal to the soil produces the "terra preta" previously described. Sequestering carbon in the soil using the terra preta method is probably more technically feasible than using proposed "geosequestration" systems which store the CO2 from coal-fired power stations in a compressed state deep underground in rock strata. It is also much simpler to build the plant (a very good possibility for the developing world), and the use of biomass as fuel instead of coal means that CO2 will be actively removed from the atmosphere while producing energy and enriching the quality of soils. Coal-Fired systems produce energy, but do not remove CO2 from the air or enrich the soil.
Facilities for combustion of the syngas for energy production would consist of a diesel engine, gas turbine, and/or steam-based Rankine cycle turbine. These engines would drive a generator for electricity production, and the waste heat they produce would be collected for use as well. Part of this waste heat may be used to operate the plant itself (drying the biomass).
The waste heat may be used to heat adjacent greenhouses, while the flue gases from the syngas combustion, rich in humidity and carbon dioxide, may be funneled into the greenhouses to encourage plant growth.
This all seems to be much easier, cheaper, and more effective than coal-based geosequestration, and with available technology. There are not too many things we do which act to reverse ecological damage; most things tend to simply halt or slow further damage. This actually REVERSES damage.
Lessening our dependence on fossil fuels with...more fossil fuels?
American industry and politicians continue to pursue a twisted idea that we can reduce our dependence on fossil energy with, well, more fossil energy!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/11/AR2008061103948.html
Everyone wants a quick fix to the "problem" of high fuel prices, and the current administration along with many of the "conservatives" believe that more oil is the way to solve the dependence on oil.
It's like trying to break a heroin addiction with more heroin.
Lower Prices = Increased Consumption = More automobile dependence + Growing Economy + More Consumerism = Greater cliff to fall off when our "new" oil reserves start running dry
Our fuel price "problem" is creating a lot of solutions. I am seeing more and more motorcycles and scooters in parking lots, more carpooling, and many more smaller vehicles on the roads. People are finally getting the hint, thinking about their consumption, and changing the way they do things. That's what we need - not more fossil energy! Everyone talks about getting off of foreign oil, but no one does anything - they just drive off in their SUVs and believe that they can't do anything about it. Everyone wants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but again, they just crank up the air conditioning to 68° and believe there's nothing we can do as individuals... High prices are actually causing the opposite, and they are causing people to do things that they would never even think about doing before.
It seems that our leaders and citizens who are pushing for more oil supply seem to have forgotten the following:
- That it takes years for new oil production to come online.
- That nine billion barrels of oil is enough to fuel our wonderful transportation system for about six months, and that we cannot extract all nine billion barrels at any rate we please.
- That going to remote corners of the world to extract fossil fuels is a waste of time and money when we have truly efficient and renewable options right here at home.
- Is there even any good light sweet crude left?
- That they bash the EROEI of ethanol (which really is not good, I will agree there), then promote such low-EROEI and even more environmentally-destructive options as oil sands, oil shale, heavy oil - essentially trying to make gasoline from tar. It takes energy to break molecular bonds - cracking those big tar molecules into lovely little gasoline molecules comes at a price.
- I guess they could gasify the tar, into syngas, then convert it to diesel via Fischer-Tropsch. It costs billions and billions of dollars to build such a facility! Billions of dollars better spent elsewhere on truly renewable options - not trying to sustain filthy internal combustion with unsustainable resources.
- That barges full of "sour crude" sitting in Iran's harbors do not represent a "supply glut." They call it "sour" for a reason.
It is a shame that the $17-billion or so in tax breaks over 10 years which are received by the petroleum industry will continue, as the energy bill which would have repealed them was not passed. On TV we had the big-shots saying "I studied business, and I know how businesses treat taxes - as a cost which gets passed on to the consumer (customer)."
I do know that what he describes is exactly true - repealing those tax breaks and diverting them towards renewable energy would DOUBLE the amount of subsidies going to renewable energy (See the DOE 2008 Budget Request to Congress ) and at the same time might increase the cost of a gallon of gas by a few tenths of a cent, seeing that when we divide the 1.7 billion dollars per year in would-have-been lost tax breaks by the nearly 145 billion gallons of gasoline consumed in this country per year, we see that it is equivalent to about a penny per gallon. On top of that, gasoline only accounts for half of all oil products, so the real number would be much less than that - less than half a cent. Big Whoop - people throw that kind of change into the fountains at their local monuments to consumerism (the mall).
$45 Trillion
$45 Trillion - the number of U.S. Dollars recommended by the International Energy Agency that will be required to decarbonize the world's energy systems over the next fifty years.
It seems like yet another number to scare the world away from actually doing anything worthwhile and to keep corporations and governments bickering over who should be responsible for CO2 emissions. (The U.S.! No, China! NO, EVERYONE! )
While the IEA has good intentions in trying to put this very large undertaking into perspective, it probably does more to scare people than actually get them to realize that the time to start is now, and with the cost of petroleum at record highs there is the continuous impulsiveness in the U.S. that we can still "drill our problems away" and pursue backwards "solutions" such as coal liquefaction to keep the 20% efficient, dirty internal combustion engines rolling. On the other hand, I have seen much hope and intelligent thinking in the past few weeks - more carpooling, people trading in SUVs for compact and subcompact cars, cutting back on unnecessary trips, and even more hybrid vehicles on the road. These high prices are just the slap in the face that Americans have needed for years - we are finally beginning to think about our consumption and the fact that one-twentieth of the world's population guzzles one-quarter of the world's oil.
According to this article on IHT, they [the IEA] also seem to believe that the only way we can do this is with the same technologies that we rely on today - big nuclear power stations and coal units (with carbon sequestration). I strongly disagree, and feel that the decarbonization and sustainability of our society will be based upon smaller-scale, distributed systems rather than massive "Big Energy"-operated grids continuing the be fueled by non-renewable resources. One fairly sad fact about those "big" traditional options is that they waste two-thirds of the energy that is put into them. What is the point of a big, expensive carbon sequestration project when you are throwing away most of the energy generated to begin with?
How much money did it take to build the energy infrastructure that we already have in place today? I'm sure no one has counted that...
Nor does anyone sit around and try to figure their return on investment before going out and buying an iPod. We are more than willing to spend our money on "consumer goods", but when it comes time to create a better energy system to ensure a world which is cleaner, more livable, and that adequate energy supplies are available to meet our basic needs - the bickering begins! Everyone wants it/knows that we need it, no one wants to pay for it. With the price of fossil fuels, however, renewables are becoming a better deal every single day!
$100/bbl oil, climate change...and we're still debating renewables? WHAT?
An article in a Tampa, FL area newspaper decries that state's plan to require 20% renewable electricity production in an unspecified number of years. Rates May Soar If Green Electric Bills Are Passed
Here is yet another example of obstruction of renewable energy development by scaring people on account that their electrical expenses might go through the roof. Adjectives like "soar", "through the roof", and "skyrocket" are used to describe 10-20% increases in electric bills. $5 per year flat tariffs are being described as a hardship. The time frame for the mandate has not even been developed yet and people are already blowing up about it.
It is FLORIDA, you don't need to heat your home, and I am sure you can cut back on the air conditioning a few degrees. Open up a window, get some fresh air. Hang your clothes out to dry in the beautiful weather! Put some clothes on in winter, and take some off in summer. Dim down the artificial suns in stores, offices, and along the street. Cut back on the outdoor illumination. Get rid of some of those ridiculous 500 watt wallpack lights that are on every single building (and some homes! ) nowadays. I know that at some convenience stores it is indistinguishable between night and day. Businesses ought to think about adjusting their dress code so that their offices don't have to be refrigerated during the summer.
So much for the angry part...
The claim that slightly increased electricity costs will hurt businesses and cause job losses seems to be a moot point when you see that California is the spot when it comes to good-paying jobs and high-tech industry, all with highest-in-the-nation renewable mandates and 50% gas-fired power, the most costly form of conventional generation. The same goes for New York City and New England, which have much more expensive electricity than the Midwest and South which have already been gutted of their industrial base and mainly deported to Asia where human resources and allowance to pollute (among other things) are very cheap or free. The extractive coal industry in Appalachia does not appear to be providing very much to the people in those states, according to the statistics.
Electrical energy accounts for a very small portion of a business's total expenses. Electric-arc steelmakers, which use electricity as the source of energy for melting steel, usually see something like 10% of their expenses going to electricity. Aluminum producers and electric-arc steel are probably the most electricity-intensive industries, and the intelligent thing to do would be to site these near hydroelectric power stations or build dedicated cogeneration plants for them, not to rely on the electricity "market" where utility companies seem to be more profitable than ever despite higher costs for gas, coal, and uranium. Run the steelmaking furnaces at night, take advantage of all of that idle generation that is sitting around!
In the case of small businesses, the electrical costs often don't even come close to the wage for a single employee. A single full-time employee making a $5.25 minimum wage will cost $11,000 per year. This is equivalent to 110 MWh of electricity per year at 10 cents per kWh, or a sustained load of 12.5 kilowatts, 17 continuous horsepower, or 1,000 40-watt fluorescent tubes illuminated for 8 hours per day. You've got to be doing some serious stuff (e.g. light industrial) to be drawing that kind of juice. My Point: Electricity is Cheap, DIRT CHEAP.
http://www.steelonthenet.com/steel_cost_eaf.html.
This electric arc steel cost analysis sample is for electricity priced at $70/MWh. That's equivalent to about 7 cents per kWh, and in the South there are the nation's dirtiest coal plants that are producing electricity for as low as $8/MWh (and turning around and selling it for $30). In the coal-fired and hydro regions, 7 cents is a high residential rate, let alone compared with the bargain-basement prices that industrial consumers get. Notice that out of the $400 or so for the whole process, only about $30 goes to electricity.
I did some rough calculations of my own to verify this information:
Electrical Energy to melt one tonne of steel:
(assuming 100% efficiency of the melting furnace)
Ambient temperature of scrap: 20 C (293 K)
Specific heat of iron: 0.45 J/gK
Latent heat of fusion: 13.81 kJ/mol
melting point of iron: 1181 K
Temperature Raising: 0.450 J/gK (specific heat of iron) * (1181 - 293) * 1e6 g = 399.6 MJ
Melting: 13.81 kJ/mol * (1e6 g / 55.85 g/mol) = 247.0 MJ
Total electrical energy (MJ) = 647
Total electrical energy (kWh) = 179.6
Total cost in dollars at 10 cents/kWh: $18
This is about equivalent to the amount of electrical energy used by the average American home in one week.
Why is it that the electricity industry says that new coal-fired units will bring rates down and renewables will make them "skyrocket"? This case was illustrated in Kansas last year when the permit to build two coal units was revoked. New coal is more expensive than the current cost of electricity in most every part of the country, especially in the areas where it is being proposed. Renewables apparently are a few cents per kWh more, but they will produce a stable-priced output once built since almost all of the expense is in the capital cost of building the plant rather than buying coal and other fuels over the entire life of the plant.
The electric industry also must understand that renewables don't exactly work the same way that big coal and nuclear does; it needs to be distributed over a wide area with a fine network of transmission lines in between (a "mesh topology" ), opposed to a massive (and inefficient) power plant in the middle with heavy transmission wires going outward to users (a "star topology", although a "tree topology" might better describe it for the trunk is the long distance between the generation and the consumption).
A similar measure in Pennsylvania to add a $5/year tariff to residential electricity consumers' bills to fund renewable energy was also met with outrage, and PA even has the lovely distinction of considering energy from "waste coal" (anthracite culm and bituminous gob) as part of the acceptable "renewable" energies (though not as preferred as true renewables such as wind). As I have said before, for many people this means buying one less pack of cigarettes or one less Quarter Pounder with cheese from McDonalds each year. In this world of consumerism and multi-billion dollar profits from it, a $5/year tariff for renewable energy is a small price to pay. It seems to be fine for companies to run all kinds of enticing advertising to get people to buy useless junk and prescription drugs that they probably don't need, but paying a little bit for clean energy that we will all benefit from is somehow wrong. I can't connect with that logic...
From the Tampa article:
According to industry estimates, the cost of generating electricity from a coal plant is about 4 cents a kilowatt-hour, 7 cents from a natural gas plant and 0.4 cents from a nuclear plant. The cost of generating electricity from a solar plant is about 10 cents a kilowatt-hour and 8 cents from a biomass plant that burns wood or plants. Wind power, though, is competitive with coal- and- gas-fired power, costing 4 cents to 6 cents a kilowatt-hour.
Damn, I'd like to know where that 0.4 cent/kWh nuclear plant is at! Even hydro, the cheapest electricity source available, costs more than that. I think someone was off by a factor of ten or so. Maybe in 1960 a nuclear plant could produce for that much. I believe that the decommissioning fund alone for nuclear energy is 0.1 cents/kWh.
The solar number is also for thermal solar using a power tower or mirror trough system, not with photovoltaic panels which are more expensive.
Maybe it is time that we stand up and say NO MORE to the fossil fuel industry and their control of our government and our world. The environmental and renewable energy movement is about freedom - freedom to use and capture the natural forces which fall from the sky every day, freedom from greed, pollution, and centralized control of our lives. If that means paying a little more for electricity each month to fund the development of this NEW energy infrastructure and way of thinking, then that is what is needed. When you buy a new car, you have to pay for it. When you buy a new house, you have to pay for it! The same goes for energy infrastructure. Replacing all of the 1960s-era coal plants with something new will cost something! Even with $100/bbl oil, 60% imports, climate change, and unsustainable consumption we are debating whether or not we should be using renewable energy? Something is dead wrong with that picture.
We could just take 1% of the annual national military budget and devote it to renewable energy development. We could also take the $13-billion or so in subsidies away from the oil and gas industry. and provide them to renewables. In this case, no one has to pay a single dime more. If that's not enough, then we can bite more into that military budget. I honesty don't think they will miss a few billion dollars, not when a single F-22 aircraft costs something like $130 million, let alone the $62 billion spent to develop the thing. Develop renewable energy, and no wars have to be fought to secure unsustainable and polluting fossil energy supplies. I think it is money well spent.
An emotional connection to fossil fuels?
Though I am not completely on board with what GE and other large energy companies are promoting (especially regarding the future use of coal in the energy mix), I have found what appears to be one of the most intelligent things said by a CEO of a large energy-oriented corporation...
The [conservative] ideologues "worship false idols." There are no completely free markets. The government has its hand in every industry: Housing has mortgage tax credits; GE got into commercial aviation because the DOD helped fund it; in healthcare there's Medicare and Medicaid and the NIH, researching and funding new drugs. Only in energy, for some reason, "we've decided that the only regulation will be the price of a barrel of oil. That's crazy!"
- General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt. (source )
It is interesting how many of the people bashing new energy policy (that which includes conservation, efficiency, and renewables) tend to complain little about the subsidies received by the fossil energy industry or any other industry, for that matter. Why is it that Congress rejected the bill which would have eliminated $13 billion in tax breaks to the oil and gas industry? If it is so wrong to subsidize renewables (a crazy thing to say...), why is it perfectly fine to continue subsidizing fossil energy, which currently supples 85% of the world's metered energy needs?
To the fossil energy industry, $13 billion is peanuts. That's three months worth of PROFIT for ExxonMobil. But when it comes time to spend $13 billion on renewables, there's an uproar. Why?
We all use much more energy from renewables, but it is not metered. When you open your curtains to let in the sun, that is free for the taking. The same goes for hanging your clothes out to dry or opening a window in the summer. That's one of the beautiful things about renewables. No corporation (or government) can make us pay for them. They can sell collection devices (such as solar panels), and that is fine. But they longer have control of the electricity/heat flow via monstrous, polluting and grossly inefficient fire-powered grids.
A posting on Peak Energy blog describes what is possibly an interesting emotional/mystical connection between Promethius (from Greek Mythology, who provided fire to the mortals) and the apparent love affair with fossil energy that is displayed by libertarians and many conservatives.
- GE’s Immelt: U.S. Energy “Policy” Is a Certain Kind of Hell (WSJ.com)
- Eco:nomics: Immelt vs. the ideologues (Gristmill)