Andrew Perlman indicates off the gasifier his organisation goes to use to expose it can flip coal into natural gasoline or methane at less than half the price of other technologies. They name their product bluegas. Elizabeth Shogren, NPR hide caption fuelphp render template
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Scroll down to read approximately different clean coal technology. fuelphp render template
GreatPoint is attempting to prove it could make natural fuel out of reasonably-priced, abundant coal at this test plant outdoor Chicago's O'Hare Airport. Elizabeth Shogren, NPR conceal caption fuelphp render template
toggle caption Elizabeth Shogren, NPR
Today's pricey gas is making people look for alternatives. That has opened doors of opportunity for entrepreneurs together with Andrew Perlman, who is betting that the "clean" fuel of destiny might be made from one in every of humanity's oldest -- and dirtiest: coal. fuelphp render template
Perlman desires to flip coal into clean natural gasoline. The idea isn't new. In the 1800s, towns along with Boston used big, grimy ovens to turn coal into town gasoline to gasoline streetlights and gas lamps in homes. During World War II, Nazi Germany turned coal into liquid gas to run tanks. fuelphp render template
During the energy disaster of the 1970s, the U.S. Government promoted studies initiatives to produce gas and liquid fuel from coal. But the ones efforts were abandoned after the disaster passed. Now, instability in the Middle East and record-high prices for petroleum products have brought on a brand new wave of interest in technologies to show coal into natural gas and liquid gasoline. For marketers including Perlman, these technology maintain the promise of producing cleaner gasoline out of coal, that's abundant and affordable. fuelphp render template
"The U.S. Has extra coal than every other country within the world. It's surely about as cheap as dirt," said Perlman, co-founder and CEO of Greatpoint Energy, a Cambridge, Mass.-primarily based business enterprise.
GreatPoint Energy is refining a system called catalytic gasification to transform coal into methane or replacement natural gasoline. In their system, coal is mixed with a catalyst and fed right into a gasifier: a tall, narrow, metallic cylindrical container. fuelphp pagination template
Inside the gasifier, the coal and the catalyst are blended with steam and subjected to pressure. GreatPoint says the key to its new era is the catalyst it uses. Perlman says it's a combination of readily available metals, however so far, the components are secret. fuelphp pagination template
Because of that catalyst, GreatPoint's technique works at a lower temperature than different technologies, which makes the process much cheaper. The catalyst also enables GreatPoint to separate out approximately 1/2 of the carbon dioxide, a chief motive of climate change. (The employer plans to promote that carbon dioxide to be injected into oil or fuel wells to facilitate production.) Other pollutants also are eliminated at the plant, which makes the product lots cleaner than the synthesis gasoline produced through other gasification processes. fuelphp pagination template
Greatpoint's generation works in the laboratory. Sometime this summer, the organization will learn whether or not it will also work at a small-scale plant in Des Plains, Ill. fuelphp template 404
Coal has lengthy been a popular, reasonably-priced and plentiful supply of energy -- but it's also dirty. Several corporations are running on new technology to change that. Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis hide caption
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Gasification is vital to some of different efforts under way to develop flora that produce easy strength from coal: fuelphp template 404
FutureGen
The Department of Energy is the usage of coal gasification as the basis of its attempt to build an emissions-free energy plant. As envisioned, its so-referred to as FutureGen task might produce energy and hydrogen from coal and seize the carbon dioxide that would be generated in the method. fuelphp template 404
The carbon dioxide could be injected thousands of feet underground on web site. The Energy Department's goal is to have an experimental facility operational by way of 2012. The hydrogen would be used to create energy. Later on, the identical task might be used to create hydrogen to gasoline cars and different vehicles. fuelphp template controller
Coal to Liquid Fuel
Rentech Inc., primarily based in Denver, is one of the agencies trying to show coal into low-polluting liquid fuel. Their era is primarily based at the Fischer-Tropsch system, named after the German researchers, Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch. They invented the manner inside the 1920s, while Germany lacked petroleum reserves however had masses of coal. fuelphp template controller
With the Fischer-Tropsch procedure, you start with coal or another carbon-based totally resource and placed it in a gasifier. You take the resulting gas, referred to as syngas -- a combination of hydrogen and carbon monoxide -- and placed it into another reactor. In the reactor, the gases are combined with a stable catalyst which include iron or cobalt. A chemical reaction takes region to transform them into hydrocarbons, which later cool to form liquid fuel. fuelphp template controller
The process changed into used by Nazi Germany and Japan at some stage in World War II. When apartheid was the regulation of the land in South Africa, the country changed into concern to an global petroleum embargo. To compensate, South Africa developed Fischer-Tropsch operations, that are still in use today. fuelphp templates
Rentech's process makes use of an iron-based totally catalyst, which the employer says improves on existing era. According to Rentech's Web web site, its system effects in fuel that burns very cleanly because it's miles low in sulfur, particulates and aromatics. It can be adapted for use for quite a few purposes, along with jet fuel. Rentech's Web site states that the corporation is currently building a small pilot plant in Commerce City, Co., outside of Denver. fuelphp templates
Several other companies and the states of Pennsylvania and Montana are engaged in their very own initiatives to create liquid gas out of coal. fuelphp templates
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