TIGHT OIL
Site
Contents
Restoring
Our Oil Independence
Chapter 10, Page 1:
Global
Warming and "Zero Emissions" BioBlend Vehicle Fuels
< Chapter Page
2 >
Categories:
Global
Warming and "Zero Emissions" BioBlend Vehicle Fuels
by
adding BioGasoline refineries to our largest coal power plants
An
environmentally-clean coal-to-oil refinery to make environmentally-clean vehicle
fuels.
The Global Warming component of
transportation is surprisingly small.
CO2 from all sources is about 78% of
all Global Warming gases and transport is 13% of that or about 10% of all Global
Warming gases.
What this implies is that making a
big effort to end CO2 emissions from the transportation sector isn't attacking
Global Warming's mother lode.
3-way catalytic converters.
Beginning of Insert
TIGHT OIL
Site
Contents
Restoring
Our Oil Independence
Chapter 10 Page 2: Blended Biocrude Vehicle Fuels
From Coal, Gas, Garbage, Sewage, Air
< 1 Page
A ZERO-EMISSIONS SYNTHETIC
OIL REFINERY 
A Zero-Emissions Synthetic Oil
Refinery
making Net-Zero Emissions Coal
+ Biomass Transportation Fuel
Peak Oil and Global Warming
are compelling reasons to design a
zero-emissions coal-to-liquids refinery
http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/
Severe search blocking
http://www.covol.com/coalLiquids.asp
Headwaters
http://www.americanfuelscoalition.com/
http://www.rentechinc.com/processFAQ.php GTL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur-iodine_cycle
http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/hydrogen_clean_fuels/refshelf/refshelf.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karrick_process Using reactor or plasma
torch heat may give this a Karrick-like process.
1)
Introduction
This pushes coal-to-liquids refinery
technology beyond its current frontiers. There has never been a nuclear
powered, zero emissions, coal + biomass coal-to-liquid refinery before. In
writing about one, the author earns several chutzpah awards. The author has
no formal background in either 1) nuclear energy or 2) CTL refineries.
This is almost Jules Verne territory. But the thorium-fueled, molten salt
reactor has been built, tested, and well-documented by Oak Ridge National
Laboratories and Sundrop Fuel's state-of-the-art-clean
natural gas + biomass refinery is springing up
near Alexandria, Louisiana.
2)
Two studies on
future coal-to-liquids refinery growth.
Our government
has a path to U.S. Energy security and independence. For example, we
will have to pump about 9 million barrels per day in 2007. In fact, we
actually pumped less than 5. The projection below says we will be
pumping less than 2 million barrels per day by 2030 compared to the 7 shown at
right.
(Right) British Petroleum's take on global
Non-Conventional oil sources up to 2020.
3)
Synthetic BioGasoline from
Blends of U.S. Coal +
Biomass
4)
A
Zero-Emissions Coal + Biomass Synthetic Oil Refinery
(From Summary Page)
A Zero-Emissions Synthetic Oil
Refinery for Making Net-Zero Emissions Transportation Fuels
This is the difficult part. By using high temperature nuclear heat instead of
coal heat to make coal-to-oil, you are painting with a different palette.
The RAND Corporation studies indicate that complete
capture and disposal of CO2
emissions would add less than $5 to a barrel of CTL oil, burning coal to make
oil.
Co-generation of electricity by burning unusable
process gas is the major source of CTL's Global Warming emissions. Since
this is no longer acceptable, this gas must be kept inside the product stream or
become part of the CCS disposal stream.
If coal-to-oil is to be done squeaky-clean, we will
have to use high temperature nuclear heat and capture the inevitable streams of CO2
and H2S.
This will take more processing, more expensive
heating equipment
such as
Westinghouse-plasma electric torches with 1,000 hour electrode life to
vaporize the coal feedstock. 
But it can be done. The
author has a 2002 Westinghouse Plasma Corporation paper about a
"next-generation" Plasma Gasification Reactor study with a capacity of 360
tons/day. 42 of these gassifiers would vaporize the 15,000 tons of coal per day.
At 1/2 billion dollars.
The
biggest hit will be the additional energy needed to make clean happen.
But, heat from thorium is so cheap it is almost free.
That's the trade-off.
And nuclear promises even cleaner, more energetic synthetic
fuels (higher miles-per-gallon) than today's fuels if we can manage to cleanly
obtain the hydrogen available from water to upgrade the oil molecule even more. "A nuclear source of hydrogen coupled with nuclear process heat
would more than double the amount of liquid hydrocarbons from the coal and
eliminate most CO
2
emissions from the process." -
http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf116_processheat.html
The coal-to-oil conversion process produces
ultra-clean clean fuels with all of coal's solid pollutants being trapped
in the coal's solid waste char and gas pollutants captured during refining. Coal-to-oil conversion is a well-known process, and
its environmental aspects are well-documented by many sources.
(Click to enlarge.)
Environmental impact.
Converting our 286 largest power plants from coal to
nuclear to make both electricity and synthetic oil would end about 40% of ALL U.S. Global Warming emissions. If the
solid waste, CO2,
and H2S
(sulfur) from the coal refining process is sequestered, then there should be no objections about use of
ultra-clean synfuels produced from coal.
Replacing all of America's imported oil would consume a little more than ALL the coal
the U.S. is
currently burning to make electricity.
To make this all environmentally sane, the
EPA should make the allowable combined power plant and coal-to-oil refinery
emissions equal to or lower than had the power plant alone converted to "Carbon
Capture and Sequestration" emissions control instead, i.e., an 80% or more
reduction in ALL emissions, including CO2
(carbon dioxide). CCS backgrounder:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage
More on the zero-emissions synthetic oil refinery page >
Bad News: Scientists Make
Cheap Gas From Coal
By
Alexis Madrigal
March 26,2009
"The new process could cut the energy
cost of producing the fuel by 20 percent just by rejiggering the intermediate
chemical steps, said co-author Ben Glasser of the University of the
Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. But coal-derived fuel could produce
as much as twice as much CO2 as traditional petroleum fuels and at best will
emit at least as much of the greenhouse gas.
Glasser’s new production method
allows them to set a lower limit on the amount of energy that would be needed to
transform solid coal into fuel. The very best possible CTL process would require
350 megawatts of input to make 80,000 gallons of fuel; the current process uses
more than 1,000 megawatts."
Please read the entire article at:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/coaltoliquids/
This is the difficult part. By using high temperature nuclear heat instead of
coal heat to make coal-to-oil, you are painting with a different palette.
All technologies will have to be checked out - FT CTL, GTL, and MTG seem to be
favored for controllable emissions and product market compatibility but not
efficiency. Against this backdrop, we have Shenhua, a direct conversion
process and the largest to be built since South Africa. Headwaters is
known to have participated in this effort.
Key to coming clean is unlimited amounts of clean
hydrogen. Brute force electricity from a local generator comes to mind.
Burning coal to convert coal-to-oil (CTL) is very
environmentally dirty and will probably never be considered outside of China or
India. Pre-nuclear coal-to-oil refinery technology is optimized for
economic yield rather than emissions at about 50%, i.e., one ton of bituminous
coal yields two barrels of oil.
It is unreasonable to expect non-nuclear coal-to-oil refineries to be totally environmentally clean or
to make frugal use of the feedstock. While the Chinese have made some progress cleaning up their new coal powered
coal-to-oil process at Shenhua, no one has ever tried to engineer a nuclear
powered "ultra-clean, don't spare the energy" coal-to-oil refinery.
The RAND Corporation studies indicate that complete
capture and disposal of CO2
emissions would add less than $5 to a barrel of CTL oil, burning coal to make
oil.
Co-generation of electricity by burning unusable
process gas is the major source of CTL's Global Warming emissions. Since
this is no longer acceptable, this gas must be kept inside the product stream or
become part of the CCS disposal stream.
The energy challenges a FT CTL plant presents are
substantial, even for a 1,300°F liquid thorium reactor. Pyrolyzation
temperatures range from 1,800°F to 2,700°F at 500 psi, substantial amounts of
heat must be extracted - some of which can be used to produce electricity or
feedstock drying - and substantial amounts of hydrogen may be needed for fuel
upgrading.
A Bergius direct liquefaction plant calls for 750°F,
1,500 psi, and huge amounts of hydrogen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur-iodine_cycle (1,560°F)
http://www.chinatungsten.com/Molybdenum/Molybdenum-Disilicide-heating-elements.html
http://www.sentrotech.com/mosi2-molybdenum-disilicide-heating-element
http://andy666.en.ec21.com/1900C_Molybdenum_Disilicide_Heating_Elements--2258650.html
http://keithcompany.com/clientfiles/MoSiO2%20Data.pdf
If coal-to-oil is to be done squeaky-clean, we will
have to use high temperature nuclear heat and capture the inevitable streams of CO2
and H2S.
This will take more processing, more expensive
heating equipment
such as
Westinghouse-plasma electric torches with 1,000 hour electrode life to
vaporize the coal feedstock. But it can be done. The
author has a 2002 Westinghouse Plasma Corporation paper about a
"next-generation" Plasma Gasification Reactor study with a capacity of 360
tons/day. 42 of these gassifiers would vaporize the 15,000 tons of coal per day.
At 1/2 billion dollars.
The
biggest hit will be the additional energy needed to make clean happen.
But, heat from thorium is so cheap it is almost free.
That's the trade-off.
And nuclear promises even cleaner, more energetic synthetic
fuels (higher miles-per-gallon) than today's fuels if we can manage to cleanly
obtain the hydrogen available from water to upgrade the oil molecule even more. "A nuclear source of hydrogen coupled with nuclear process heat
would more than double the amount of liquid hydrocarbons from the coal and
eliminate most CO
2
emissions from the process." -
http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf116_processheat.html
The coal-to-oil conversion process produces
ultra-clean clean fuels with all of coal's solid pollutants being trapped
in the coal's solid waste char and gas pollutants captured during refining. Coal-to-oil conversion is a well-known process, and
its environmental aspects are well-documented by many sources.
(Click to enlarge.)
Environmental impact.
Converting our 286 largest power plants from coal to
nuclear to make both electricity and synthetic oil would end about 40% of ALL U.S. Global Warming emissions. If the
solid waste, CO2,
and H2S
(sulfur) from the coal refining process is sequestered, then there should be no objections about use of
ultra-clean synfuels produced from coal.
Replacing all of America's imported oil would consume a little more than ALL the coal
the U.S. is
currently burning to make electricity. A similar process using natural gas as
"Gas-to-Liquids"
(GTL) feedstock is being used now by Shell in Qatar.
Shell's Pearl There is enough American natural gas to replace
three times the oil America
imports from the Mideast. A good learning example is the "
Mini-GTL ". With combinations of both coal and natural
gas (not to forget our oil sands and oil shale), America can supply all of America's oil needs
- even when all pump-able oil is gone.
Similar "unconventional oil-to-liquid oil" processes
powered by the vast amounts of cheap and clean high temperature heat available from liquid
thorium can also be used for oil sands,
shale oil, and oil sludge deposits so we will
never, ever, run out of oil.
Along these same lines of thinking, given enough cheap electricity, plasma
torches can also gasify solid municipal waste - what your garbage truck picks up
- into fuel feedstock, metal, and glass-like waste ash.
To make this all environmentally sane, the
EPA should make the allowable combined power plant and coal-to-oil refinery
emissions equal to or lower than had the power plant alone converted to "Carbon
Capture and Sequestration" emissions control instead, i.e., an 80% or more
reduction in ALL emissions, including CO2
(carbon dioxide). CCS backgrounder:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage
5)
The coal-to-liquids technologies
The
Technologies
Direct
Conversion
Based on high-pressure dissolution of coal
More energy efficient than indirect liquefaction
Produces high energy density fuels
- Diesel fuel low cetane #
- High aromatics
Used by Germany in WWII, improved by U.S., now being deployed in China
Advantages
Conceptually simple process
Produces high-octane gasoline
More energy efficient than indirect conversion (i.e., more fuel / BTUs produced
per ton of coal)
Products have higher energy density (BTU/gallon) than indirect conversion
Disadvantages
High aromatic content
Low-cetane number diesel
Potential water and air emissions issues
Fuels produced are not a good environmental fit for the U.S. market
May have higher operating expenses than indirect conversion
Indirect
Conversion (This technology appears
to the author to be most promising from an environmental standpoint.)
Based on gasification
Converts syngas (H2
and CO) into clean methanol or hydrocarbon liquids
Can also produce ultra-clean diesel or jet fuel
CO2 can be
captured for sequestration
Can co-produce electric power or hydrogen
Advantages
Ultra-clean products
Well suited for CO2
capture
Well suited for electric power co-production
May have lower operating expenses than direct conversion
Disadvantages
Conceptually more complex than direct conversion
Less efficient fuel production than direct conversion
Produces low-octane gasoline
Fewer BTUs per gallon than direct conversion products
Gasification
of coal
Molten salts have also been studied since the
early 1900s to gasify coal in a process called Molten Salt Oxidation (MSO). The
molten salt used is usually sodium carbonate heated above its melting point of
851° C ( 1564° F) to around 900° - 1000° C. At this temperature the red hot salt
functions as a catalyst, fluid reacting bed, and heat transfer medium; all in
one! The coal is flash pyrolyzed such that no tars or oils are produced. Steam
is usually injected too so that the combination of coal's thermally decomposed
higher organic molecules along with catalytically assisted carbon-steam
reactions (i.e., C + H2O = CO + H2) produces mainly carbon
monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H2) gases at atmospheric pressures. At
higher pressures, there will be significant methane (CH4) and higher
hydrocarbons produced. Carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H2) can be
used directly as a fuel gas or as a synthesis gas to produce virtually any
organic material. The most common use of synthesis gas however, is to produce
Methanol (methyl alcohol - CH3OH) which can also be used as a fuel,
and is used in race cars, but is usually a raw material for the production of
various organics (octane boosters, gasoline additives, plastics, chemicals, and
drugs).
Given the renewed interest in the so called "Hydrogen Economy", whereby
hydrogen is used as a "carrier fuel" to provide energy portability and
transmission, it is likely MSO will play a significant role in the production of
hydrogen fuel for the Hydrogen Economy via the "water shift" reaction where the
Synthesis gas (the mixture of CO and H2 gases described above) is
converted into nearly pure H2 gas by the following, catalyzed
reaction:
CO + H2O = CO2 + H2
The CO2 can then be fairly easily
removed via various reactions, as it is a mild acidic gas which can be combined
with various alkaline substances [e.g., CaCO3 (s) + H2O +
CO2 = Ca(H2CO3)2 (aq)]. Generally, the more
alkaline the substance the faster and more complete the reaction (absorption) of
the CO2. Thus, sodium hydroxide (i.e., "Drano", or Lye - NaOH) would
work much better at absorbing the carbon dioxide. Another method to remove the
CO2 from the H2 gas is via liquefaction (using pressure
and lower temperatures) of the carbon dioxide gas which liquefies much easier
than the hydrogen gas. The liquefied CO2 could then be resold for
various industrial or food processes.
Molten salt gasification of coal has also been
proposed for wastes, to include
garbage (Municipal Solid Wastes - MSW).
CTL - Molten Salt
Waste Oxidation .pdf
Molten Salt Oxidation (MSO) -
Chemical Weapons
In the mid-1950s Rockwell, Inc. conducted
extensive tests of molten salts for the purpose of destroying chemical weapons.
This was also called Molten Salt Oxidation (MSO --> good description at Lawrence
Livermore National Lab's
Upadhye's MSO description), and was a spin-off of the earlier coal
gasification studies. Similar to the advantages of using molten sodium carbonate
to gasify coal, MSO has the additional advantage of having large amounts of
sodium in close proximity to the decomposing chemical weapons molecules. This is
significant because chemical weapons usually contain large amounts of fluorine,
sulfur and/or chlorine, all of which can form radicals which may cause the
production of carcinogens such as dioxins. The long residence times of the
chemical weapons in a molten salt bath, as compared to incineration, combined
with the presence of large amounts of sodium allows the chlorine, sulfur, and
fluorine radicals plenty of time to form stable, and safe, sodium compounds such
as sodium sulfate (a laundry soap and food additive), sodium chloride (table
salt), and sodium fluoride (an anti-cavity toothpaste ingredient). Although
there were no significant technical obstacles to employing MSO for chemical
weapons' destruction, widespread Molten Salt ignorance and inertia prevented its
deployment.
CTL
- Molten Salt Explosives Oxidation - Upadhye .pdf
6)
Coal +
Biomass Zero-Emissions Synthetic Oil
Refinery Diagrams
The original of the above modified
schematic came from:
End Of Insert
Endless, Non-Global Warming BioGasoline.
(Left) If you notice, the
imported oil slice of our energy pie and the coal slice are about the
same size. We could convert our coal into synthetic crude oil to end imported
oil and regain our energy independence.
How?
(Right) It will take all our coal to replace all our imported oil, so we would
convert our 300 largest power plants to nuclear and then add coal-to-oil
refineries to the power plants to make the oil. The power plant's unneeded
coal transportation, handling, and pulverizing equipment would be reconnected to
the coal-to-oil refinery.
1)
Introduction: Restoring America's Oil Security
At the right, you can get an idea of
how much carbon there is available on Planet Earth. A relative tiny amount
of carbon is available in the form of Oil, Gas, Tars, and Shales. They are
extensions of coal, the big Kahuna of easily burned carbon.
We have enough carbon to make many
Global Warmings.
In about a 150 years, man has burned
a trillion barrels of oil. At first, oil was so easy to find and pump there were
"Oil Wars" between oil companies and oil prices plunged to as low as 10 cents a
barrel.
The world may be able to find and
pump another trillion barrels over the next 300 years. The scarcer, more
difficult to recover deposits of oil will become much more expensive to find and
pump. Our leaders are hoping pumped oil will stay below $200 a barrel for the
next 20 years.
Converting coal into oil is, in many
ways, completing what nature has been doing for 150 million years - taking coal
and cooking it into oil.
So it's not too surprising that oil
chemists figured out ways to duplicate the coal-to-oil conversion process on an
industrial scale about 100 years ago. Over the years, these processes have
been improved to the point where synthetic vehicle fuels can compete with pumped
oil whenever pumped oil costs more than about $50 per barrel.
The author is suggesting that
"Restoring America's Oil Independence" be a synthetic oil made from blends of coal, tars, natural gas,
and shales + cellulosic biomass in a process that does not harm the environment
in any way. From this synthetic biocrude oil, we can make as much
BioGasoline, BioDiesel, and BioJet Fuel as we want forever.
While the feedstocks are extremely
cheap, this process will consume very large amounts of electricity and heat.
If we use the 1,000 times cheaper energy metal, thorium, instead of coal, to
make electricity and heat, the costs and environmental impacts appear to remain
attractive.
The "Clean
Coal" to Oil Refinery Idea:
In May of 2008, Bonne Posma proposed
a nuclear-powered "Clean Coal-to-Oil" mine-mouth refinery. (
http://www.liquidcoal.com/pdf/reality%20energy_revised_050908.pdf )
Bonne suggested using a very high
temperature helium cooled pebble bed nuclear reactor then under development by
PBMR of South Africa.
Since that time, PBMR went out of
business with most of the technology being transferred to China. A
descendent of PBMR's reactor lives on in the form of China's 100 mW(e) Pebble
Bed reactor. About 20 of them are to be built at a electricity generating complex at
Rongcheng Shidaowan Nuclear Power Plant, China.
The author adapted Bonne's idea for
a nuclear powered clean coal-to-oil refinery to the thorium powered molten salt
reactor currently under development in China.
In the author's conceptual sketch
below, the Oak Ridge National Laboratories EBASCO molten salt reactor and its
confinement cell are being suggested.
Both concepts are "Dry" in the sense
that no water is used to cool the reactors. Also, the "Carbon Capture" and
sequestration component is explicit in the author's sketch.
(The United States shelved thorium
as a heat source along with the molten salt reactor in favor of the uranium +
plutonium fast breeder reactor, which showed much better weapons material
production potential, in 1972, at the height of the Cold War.)
Return to Contents
________________________________________________________________________________________
Part 1 The
Issues
________________________________________________________________________________________
Reality
Check: Altona energy (UK)
believes it can supply vehicle-ready diesel at $53 a barrel ($1.26 per gallon)
from coal, by burning coal with carbon capture, at Arckaringa, Australia.
Reality Check: Natural Gas can also be used
as Gas-to-Oil feedstock but gas does not promise the same vehicle fuel cost
reductions as coal.
Shell's Pearl
Return to Contents
3)
COAL-TO-LIQUIDS (CTL) Synthetic
Oil: Making Our Own Oil From Our Own Coal
Eventually, the United States
will begin the job of replacing its imported oil with oil made from our own
coal, natural gas, oil sands, and oil shale.
We are not alone. The South
Africans have been burning coal to convert coal to oil and other liquids (Coal
To Liquids or CTL) - mostly diesel - for over 30 years,
South Africa now has the capacity of producing over 160,000 barrels per day
(BPD). South Africa's
SASOL company
alone has produced over 1.5 billion barrels of oil this way. Oil poor China is
also investing heavily in CTL (Their first plant,
Shenhua, will be
60,000 BPD).
Australia is considering a 10
million barrels per year project called Arckaringa. Germany had more than
50 coal-to-oil refineries during WWll. US, UK, and South Korea have small pilot
plants and a global total of 600,000 BPD capacity are expected to be on line by the end of 2011.
CTL - US
Synthetic Fuel From Coal - DOE .pdf
<G
Return to Contents
4)
SYNTHETIC
BioGasoline from Blends of U.S. Coal + Biomass
"Carbon-Neutral" means
burning the biogasoline neither hurts nor helps Global Warming.
There are several
general approaches: Biomass
only; Blended coal or natural gas + biomass; Completely synthetic.
1) Biomass
Only
Ethanol, Algae, BioDiesel, Cooking
Oils, Plant Oils,
etc., processed by fermentation and distillation,
by using fossil fuel energy.
2) Blended
Coal or Natural Gas + Biomass Synthetic
Coal + Biomass
refining technologies for cheap, environmentally friendly transportation fuels,
processed by clean nuclear energy (in this web site).
"Indirect" conversion of coal
into synthetic oil opens the door to environmentally friendly gasolines,
diesels, and jet fuels. By using Liquid Thorium nuclear energy to power the
"Coal and Biomass to Liquid" (CBTL) process, a substantial additional Global
Warming benefit can be achieved. Chart:
"Carbon-neutral" synthetic
gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel may be possible
when coal feedstock + certain biofuel feedstocks + carbon capture + nuclear heat
are combined. Results from some blends using coal heat + carbon capture
technology are very promising. Chart:
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel
CTL - Affordable, Low-Carbon Diesel Fuel from Domestic Coal and Biomass - CBTL
Final Report .pdf
If the coal + biofuel blend folks
are correct, it may be possible to come up with identical or better (and
cheaper) gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels having net zero lifecycle CO2
emissions with surprisingly small percentages of biofuel in the blend if
liquid thorium instead of coal burning is used to power the CTL conversion and
if carbon capture technology is used to prevent the CO2
emissions normally associated with the CTL process from being vented to the air.
In addition to cellulosic biomass
feedstock (grasses, woods), municipal solid wastes (MSW) and sewage are
potential sources of carbon-neutral carbon.
Plasma arc
waste disposal, which gasifies municipal solid wastes using a device called
a plasma converter, are a practical source of carbon-neutral feedstock producer
gas. The useable syngas is drawn off the top off the gassifier, the slag and
metals from the bottom. The non-metal solid wastes can be added to the wastes
from the coal gassifier and placed in played-out mine shafts.
America's sewage alone can supply
almost 10% worth of gasifiable carbon-neutral feedstock for America's vehicles.
In these feedstock blends, coal is used as the sequestered (plant root) carbon
component (See "Comparing Fuels.")
http://www.corebiofuel.com/ Core
Biofuel produces a 100% cellulosic biogasoline that is "greener" than
carbon-neutral but burns to provide the energy to drive the process, thus
reducing the "green-ness" of the final product.
http://www.sundropfuels.com/
Sundrop fuels are building a cellulosic biomass +
natural gas synthesis plant that should be able to make exactly carbon-neutral
biogasoline at a better than natural crude gasoline price.
What is being suggested by
Restoring America's Oil Independence is far "Greener," than Core's or Sundrop's technology since
the energy needed to make its biogasoline will come from extremely cheap CO2-free
nuclear. It can blend coal + biomass for a variety of "green" or cheap
biogasolines. (See "Comparing Fuels," right.)
3) Completely
Synthetic
Beyond Coal-to-Oil: The "Green
Freedom" papers: Green Freedom .pdf
Green Freedom -
Martin_AEC_2008_revised.pdf
This approach has zero fossil fuel
components, relies on extremely large amounts of energy from nuclear.
5)
A
Zero-Emissions Coal + Biomass Synthetic Oil Refinery
A Zero-Emissions Synthetic Oil Refinery
for Making Net-Zero Emissions Transportation Fuels
This is the difficult part.
By using high temperature nuclear heat instead of coal heat to make
coal-to-oil, you are painting with a different palette.
The RAND Corporation studies
indicate that complete capture and disposal of CO2
emissions would add less than $5 to a barrel of CTL oil, burning coal to make
oil.
Co-generation of electricity by
burning unusable process gas is the major source of CTL's Global Warming
emissions. Since this is no longer acceptable, this gas must be kept inside the
product stream or become part of the CCS disposal stream.
If coal-to-oil is to be done
squeaky-clean, we will have to use high temperature nuclear heat and capture the
inevitable streams of CO2
and H2S.
This will take more processing, more expensive heating equipment such as
10,000°F
Westinghouse plasma electric
torches with 1,000 hour electrode life to vaporize the coal feedstock.
(
About (pdf)
Applications
(pdf) ) But it can be done. The author has a 2002 Westinghouse
Plasma Corporation paper about a "next-generation" Plasma Gasification Reactor
study with a capacity of 360 tons/day.
The biggest downside will be the
additional energy needed to make "clean" happen. But, heat from thorium is so
cheap it is almost free. That's the trade-off.
And nuclear promises even cleaner, more energetic synthetic
fuels (higher miles-per-gallon) than today's fuels if we can manage to cleanly
obtain the hydrogen available from water to upgrade the oil molecule further.
"A nuclear source of hydrogen coupled with nuclear process heat would more than
double the amount of liquid hydrocarbons from the coal and eliminate most CO
2
emissions from the process." -
http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf116_processheat.html
The coal-to-oil conversion
process produces ultra-clean clean fuels with all of coal's solid pollutants
being trapped in the coal's solid waste char and gas pollutants captured during
refining. Coal-to-oil conversion is a well-known process, and its environmental
aspects are well-documented by many sources. (Click to enlarge.)
Environmental impact.
Converting our 286 largest power plants from coal to
nuclear to make both electricity and synthetic oil would end about 40% of ALL
U.S. Global Warming emissions. If the solid waste, CO2,
and H2S
(sulfur) from the coal refining process is sequestered, then there should be no
objections about use of ultra-clean synfuels produced from coal.
Replacing all of America's
imported oil would consume a little
more than ALL the coal the U.S. is currently burning to make electricity.
To make this all environmentally
sane, the EPA should make the allowable combined power plant and coal-to-oil
refinery emissions equal to or lower than had the power plant alone converted to
"Carbon Capture and Sequestration" emissions control instead, i.e., an 80% or
more reduction in ALL emissions, including CO2
(carbon dioxide). CCS backgrounder:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage
More on the zero-emissions
synthetic oil refinery page >
Return to Contents
6)
A
Water-Splitting Hydrogen Generator to Upgrade BioCrude to Vehicle Fuels
Upgrading and refining synthetic
crude oil made from coal and biomass. Crude oil made from coal + biomass
from all sorts of sources will be very pure but composed of a wide variety of
different molecule weights that will have to be broken down (cracked) into
vehicle-ready fuels. The 1,300°F heat from the reactor will hit the spot for
hydrocracking of some synthetic oil molecules which, in a conventional oil refinery, uses hydrogen from
natural gas, a process that produces large amounts of carbon dioxide.
Small amounts of hydrogen can be
obtained without Global Warming emissions from electrolyzers. If large
amounts of hydrogen are needed, the extremely high temperature water-splitting
sulfur-iodine process will have to be used. The reactor's 1,300°F heat
isn't quite hot enough to drive the water-splitting process, but when another
350°F is added via electrical heat booster elements, the FLiBe heat transfer
salt should be hot enough to get the job
done. Both electrolyzers and calrod heat boosters consume a lot of
electricity. Being located at the power plant, they avoid costly
electricity transmission costs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_refinery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrocracking#Hydrocracking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel#Biogasoline
Return to Contents
7)
Endless Heat Is
Necessary To Make Endless Oil
The US has virtually
endless
feedstock for making oil, but we also need endless, clean, very hot heat to
make endless clean oil. While we do have 27% of all the world's coal, we can't
burn coal or natural gas because they are our feedstocks, it is becoming obvious
coal is so valuable we simply can't afford to burn coal to make the necessary
heat for producing electricity or synthetic oil. Coal reserves expectancies
chart:
Windmills are clean and endless but don't make heat. That leaves only nuclear
heat. (Click to enlarge image at right.)
THE BAD
NEWS: The nuclear reactors we are using today are
simply not hot enough at 550°F
to do anything much beyond boiling water to make
electricity.
THE GOOD NEWS:
Another type of reactor, the air cooled 1,300°F high
temperature Molten
Salt Reactor is hot enough to replace the coal being burned in power
plants and also to convert that coal into crude oil. This much safer reactor
has little in common with today's reactor.
Reality
Check: At the present time, there are no molten salt reactors in
operation. The US government abandoned molten salt reactors about 1972 when
it was understood that thorium had near-zero nuclear weapons value. That was
then, this is now. You wouldn't be reading this if liquid thorium were not
being "taken back off the shelf" in many places for many reasons.
For the purposes of showcasing a
Molten Salt Reactor on this web site, the author has chosen the 1 gigaWatt
(electrical) [2.5 gigaWatt (thermal) reactor and confinement cell combination
designed by EBASCO.
Molten salt
reactors have little in common in physical size, cost, or the way they work
when compared to the solid uranium reactors in worldwide use today. The most
commonly suggested nuclear fuel for this type of reactor is
thorium.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor
Top
U.S. molten salt web site:
http://energyfromthorium.com/
Return to Contents
8)
What About
Stripper and Dirty Oil (Brine and Bromine) Wells?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stripper_well
http://stripperwells.com/
There are over 420,000 of these wells in
the United States, they average 2.2 barrels per day, and together
they produce nearly 915,000 barrels of oil per day, 18 percent of
U.S. production.
Return to Contents
________________________________________________________________________________________
Part 2
The Economics
________________________________________________________________________________________
10)
ECONOMICS: Cheaper Electricity, Crude Oil, Coal Mine Mouth Oil
ECONOMICS,
Part 1: Electricity At 1/66th Today's Production Cost?
The economics of using
thorium-fueled molten salt heat instead of coal heat to make electricity.
(About 40% of the "Energy Charge" on your electricity bill.)
Cost of thorium vs. coal for a power
plant to make 1 gigaWatt-year of electricity: Thorium: $50,000;
Coal: $200,000,000.
It takes about 3 million tons of
coal (costing 200 million dollars at $68/ton, delivered) to make one
gigaWatt-year of electricity.
"Once up and running, 800 kg of thorium [1,760
pounds] - costing about 50,000 dollars [US$28.40/lb] - would produce one
gigaWatt-year of electricity." (Stated by Dr. David LeBlanc, Physics Department,
Carleton University, Ottawa, in a Google lecture on Feb 19, 2009.)
d_leblanc@rogers.com
His Google lecture:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F0tUDJ35So
So, using June 10, 2011 coal prices,
heat from simple thorium would be about 4,000 times cheaper than heat from
coal.
Reality
Check: The author is suggesting using the
Denatured
(pdf) thorium fueled molten salt reactor protocol rather than pure thorium, so
the actual annual fuel costs (with uranium ore at $100/kg, $45/lb) for the
reactor being discussed on this web site would increase to about
$3 million per gigaWatt-year or about 66 times cheaper than coal. The
denatured fuel protocol is used to zero-out as much as is possible the fuel's
potential for proliferation and terrorist uses.
With a margin that large, using a
denatured thorium fuel protocol instead of coal to make electricity is highly
attractive.
Natural gas is about twice as
expensive as coal.
ECONOMICS,
Part 2: Synthetic Oil Forever At 1/8 Of Today's Natural Oil Cost?
The economics of converting coal
to oil to replace imported oil.
At about
$2 per million British Thermal
Units (30.8 million BTU per ton at $68 per ton), the energy content in US coal
is priced at the equivalent of about $13
per barrel of oil (5.8 million BTU), meaning that coal is about 1/8 of the cost
of internationally traded crude oil, such as Brent ($104 on 10/1/2011).
(Natural gas is about $4 per million BTU.)
With a margin that large, using coal
instead of oil to make vehicle fuel is highly attractive.
Reality
Check: Altona energy (UK)
believes it can supply vehicle-ready diesel at $53 a barrel ($1.26 per gallon)
from coal, by burning coal, at Arckaringa, Australia.
ECONOMICS,
Part 3: Mine Mouth or Power Plant Coal Yard?
The cost of transporting coal
from the mine to the power plant in the United States is roughly 25% the
cost of the delivered coal. This would make "Mine-Mouth" coal about $50 per ton
or about $100 million cheaper per year than delivered at the power plant for a
50,000 bbl/d CTL plant. Mine-mouth coal refining also makes disposing of the
solid waste (about 1/5 the volume of the coal removed from the mine) back into
the mine extremely cheap. (Click on image to enlarge.)
Summary
Repowered Power
Plants Can Produce BOTH Electricity and CTL Oil
We have to import about 11 million
barrels of oil every day. This drains America of about 250 billion dollars
every year. Coal burning power plants should be modified to make their
electricity from thorium nuclear and to use their coal and biomass as feedstock
for cheap, environmentally friendly synthetic gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.
Thorium-fueled
molten salt reactors are technology's
unharvested low-hanging fruit.
Return to Contents
________________________________________________________________________________________
Part 3
Recycling Power Plants and Adding Refineries
________________________________________________________________________________________
12)
Recycling our largest coal burning power plants into nuclear power plants.
To replace the
11 million barrels of oil per day we are importing,
it will take 220 50-thousand barrels per day coal-to-liquids refineries.
If you look at the RAND CTL paper,
220 power plants seems like an outrageous concept. But they are thinking inside
the coal box.
America's electricity: Out of 4
trillion kiloWatt-hours produced in America in 2009
Coal produced 1.800 trillion kiloWatt-hours of electricity;
natural gas 0.920 trillion kiloWatt-hours;
nuclear 0.806 trillion kiloWatt-hours; and
oil 0.040 trillion kiloWatt-hours of electricity.
Plant Selection: According
to CARMA (a carbon emissions monitoring web
site, 2007 data), the United States has a total of 5,211 CO2
emitting power plants. The author divided them into four groups: "Mega,"
"Midi," "Mini," and "Micro." Their CO2
emissions distribution is shown below. Most of the "Mega" plants are coal
burners.
Emissions Tons CO2
per yr Count Tons CO2
Total Tons CO2
Average Comment
"Mega" Over 2,585,125 286
2,107,121,906 7,393,410 (About 40% of United States' entire
5.4 billion ton annual CO2
total.)
"Midi" Over 97,426 983
670,955,785 682,559 (Average Midi's emit about 11 times
less than average Megas.)
"Mini" Over 0 3,942
37,587,796 9,535 (Many rural diesel power plants in
this group.)
"Micro" Unknown or None
4,263
(Hydro, does not include wind and solar lull "shadowing" by fossil.)
The average "mega" coal burning
power plant is emitting about 775 times more CO2
than the average "mini" plant. There's
no way you can say the EPA is
being fair - or even intelligent - by treating all
of them the same. If you have a bunch of problems that take similar effort to
fix, you get the biggest payback by fixing the worst first.
From CARMA's data base, the first
U.S. plant to fix is Georgia Power Co's Scherer plant. In 2007, it produced
27,200,000 tons of CO2.
That's 3.7 times as much CO2
as the average "mega" sized plant and 40 times as much CO2
as the average American "midi" power plant.
This way,
we would be playing fair with America's thousands of small "midi" and "mini"
power plants and their several hundred thousand skilled trade workers.
Recycling the 983 smaller "midi"
coal burning power plants.
(Left) This rural 55 megawatt power plant is typical of the hundreds of small power plants caught
in the environmental squeeze created by our "one EPA rule fits all" government.
These regulations could cause 40% of our coal burning power plants to go out of
business in the next 10 years taking about 100,000 good-paying skilled trades
jobs with them. - - Power Magazine, May 2011
Too small to convert to nuclear,
too vital to America's economy to kill, an excellent compromise would be to allow them
to repower with "Combined Cycle Natural Gas" (Right). A 30% efficient
coal burning power plant, when converted to combined cycle natural gas can
approach 50% overall efficiency using a fuel that produces only 60% of the
carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour as coal. This is a great way to increase
power generating capacity while reducing CO2
emissions.
Later, when the Chinese version of
our molten salt reactor is being sold here, the natural gas combustor in the
turbine can be swapped out with a
salt heat exchanger and the power plant can go zero CO2
on thorium, a fuel that can be as much as 7,000 times cheaper than coal.
Thorium liquid reactors have
little in common with today's reactors, produce less than 1% of their
nuclear waste, are the most energy-dense of all nuclear reactors, and are hot
enough to replace coal's red-hot fire - something today's conventional reactors
cannot do. We have reached the performance limits of today's reactors. They
have not brought humanity an era of greatly increased amounts of electricity
"too cheap to meter."
Fortunes will be made
converting the world's thousands of coal burning power plant boilers to combined
cycle natural gas, and later, liquid thorium boilers. The two "Fuel
Switch" conversion examples (below) show how Liquid Thorium could be efficiently
integrated into most fossil fuel power
plants, large soon, small later. The United States has become a very risk-adverse country, not a place
where entrepreneurs will want to do new things. In addition to the almost 300
candidate power plants in the United States, there are at least 1,000 similar
coal burning power plants spread around the world.
This link should take you to
a list of them elsewhere on this web site.
The "Top Ten"
candidates for the first U.S. nuclear Coal + Biomass to Biocrude Oil refinery.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank |
Power Plant Name |
2007 Tons CO2 |
State |
City |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1 |
RW SCHERER |
27,200,000
|
Georgia |
Juliette @
33 03 37N 83 48 34W Elev. 455' |
|
2 |
MILLER |
23,700,000
|
Alabama |
Quinton |
|
3 |
BOWEN |
23,200,000
|
Georgia |
Cartersville |
|
4 |
GIBSON |
22,400,000
|
Indiana |
Owensville |
|
5 |
MARTIN LAKE |
21,800,000
|
Texas |
Tatum |
|
6 |
WA PARISH |
20,900,000
|
Texas |
Thompsons |
|
7 |
MONROE (MI) |
20,600,000
|
Michigan |
Monroe |
|
8 |
NAVAJO |
20,200,000
|
Arizona |
Page |
|
9 |
GAVIN |
19,100,000
|
Ohio |
Cheshire |
|
10 |
LABADIE |
18,700,000
|
Missouri |
Labadie |
Return to Contents
13)
RW Scherer Quad 880 megaWatt
(3520 total) coal burning power plant.
(There is nothing about RW Scherer on
this web site that is not available on the internet.)
A suggestion about how one might
nuclear repower and add a coal-to-oil refinery facility.
Listed as the largest producer of
Global Warming CO2
in the United States. "The coal used at the Scherer plant comes
from Wyoming's Powder River Basin, and is delivered by BNSF from the
mines to Memphis, Tennessee. From there, it is taken to the plant by
Norfolk Southern in unit trains of up to 124 cars. Currently, at
least three and as many as five trains a day are unloaded at
Scherer. The trains use an air-dump system and are unloaded from the
bottom of the cars while passing over the unloading trestle. They do
not stop while unloading, and are usually unloaded in around
90 minutes." - - Wikipedia
(Stacks are about 1,000 feet tall.)
-- About 50,000 tons of coal
every day. Enough for three 50,000 barrels per day coal-to-oil refineries
or 150,000 bbl per day (or 6.3 million gallons per day). The United States
is burning about 243 barrels of crude per second (21,000,000 bbl/day), so that
would be about 10 minutes of oil per day for the entire United States. RW
Scherer alone would be making about the same amount of coal-to-oil as all the
CTL refineries in South Africa (160,000 bbl/day).
A single EBASCO liquid thorium
reactor is designed for 1,000 megaWatts (e). RW Scherer has four 880 MW
generators, so would require 4 EBASCO underground reactors because it is not on
navigable water. (See "Mine-Mouth" conceptual sketch below). The
author has no idea at this time how much heat it will take to turn 50,000 tons
of coal into 150,000 barrels (21,000 tons) of crude and how much additional heat
would be required to make the hydrogen needed to upgrade that crude to
vehicle-ready fuel. Let's plug in one additional EBASCO-size reactor.
Plant
Scherer to install coal reburn system
GE Power Systems also recently announced several U.S.
projects, including a contract to supply coal reburn
systems for units 1 and 2 at Plant Scherer near
Juliette, GA. To be installed in the spring of 2001 and
2002 respectively, Southern Company subsidiary, Georgia
Power—the plant operator—expects the coal reburn system
to significantly reduce NOx emissions.
The units at
Plant Scherer have an 870 MW capacity with coal burning,
tangentially fired boilers and GE steam turbines,
possibly "G" Series, (Left).
According to Anthony
James, plant manager at Plant Scherer, the coal reburn
systems will allow it to meet its NOx reduction goals.
"We are excited about this project. It will reinforce
Southern Company's position as one of the leaders in the
application of new power generation technology."
(Right) General
Electric coal steam turbine. About 2,470 psi (170 bar)
and 1,050°F (565°C).
General layout of new underground
silo power plant
reactors plus
the new coal-to-oil refinery and its reactor.
Coal-burning power plant boilers have an
equally hot
nuclear replacement boiler waiting in the wings, the
thorium-fueled
molten salt reactor.
Extremely simple and naturally safe, it has been
built,
tested
at full heat, and
well-documented
by Oak Ridge National Laboratories, and is ready for
final user design. Unlike today's reactors, this
reactor's final user design was not "Cast in Concrete"
by your grandfather. Here is the world's chance to
make a safer, cleaner, more useful type of reactor
incorporating what we have learned from the earlier
types. From a user's standpoint, it would be like
going from candles, with all their weaknesses and
dangers, to electric light bulbs, far more useful, far
less dangerous.
Oak Ridge National
Laboratories had final user design studies for this type
of reactor made in both 1965 and 1972. Both were
for a 1,000 megaWatt (e) molten salt converter reactor.
The 1965 study was ORNL-TM-1060.
The 1972 study was by a team
of senior technical personnel put together by EBASCO
Services, Inc. The team included personnel from
Babcock & Wilcox, Continental Oil Co., Inc., Union
Carbide, Cabot Corp., and Byron-Jackson. It is
archived under TID-26156. Obtaining this document
is the best possible initial introduction to the design
details of the molten salt converter reactor being
suggested here. The author would be delighted to
point out additional such documents to interested
individuals.
Simply Google TID-26156
to download and save this free, extremely detailed 234
page pdf document.
There are about 40 three-line per citation pages of free downloadable ORNL
reports on molten salt reactor technology available at
http://www.energyfromthorium.com/pdf/ (Kirk Sorensen's web site ORNL
collection.)
(Left) Overall view of RW
Scherer plant site and synthetic coal-to-oil refinery
location (rectangle, green).
Coal-To-Liquids refinery and its reactor is located on other side of coal yard for
fire isolation. Click on images for
larger view.
(Left and below) The
liquid thorium reactors (round, blue) and steam
generator buildings (square, red) on gray gravel base;
plus steam lines (red). Size reflects the original
EBASCO confinement cell design. The unpressurized
reactor tank itself is about 30 feet in diameter; the
heavy radiation confinement cell, 70 feet; and the
natural air convection cooling jacket brings the overall
diameter of the blue reactor symbol to about 90 feet.
(Right) Closer view of RW
Scherer plant.
If desired, the original
boiler and coal equipment could be left in place and
selector valves at the coal boiler discharge could make it a
dual-fuel steam power plant.
(Left) Conceptual sketch
showing how new underground silo reactor would be connected to existing
superheated steam turbogenerator. Click to
enlarge, click again to enlarge more.
Return to Contents
________________________________________________________________________________________
Carbon Capture and Sequestration
(CCS) is being developed as both a retrofit and new plant installation
technology to capture up to 80% of the carbon dioxide emissions of a fossil fuel
power plant to minimize it's contribution to Global Warming. It has numerous
drawbacks. As an alternative to CCS, it should be more profitable to convert a
large power plant generating unit to the high-temperature heat of a molten salt
nuclear reactor module. If the power plant site is on navigable water, a
barge-mounted reactor cell offers many advantages over a fixed underground
reactor cell.
Download
"How the Thorium Reactor and Steam Generator Work" pdf
Return to Contents
________________________________________________________________________________________
Wyoming
legislators approve bill providing $10M for coal or natural gas to liquids FEED
study
31 October 2011 - Green Car Congress
Billings
Gazette. The Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Minerals, Business and Economic
Development Interim Committee recently approved a bill providing up to $10
million in matching funds to fund one or more front-end engineering and design
(FEED) studies to determine the feasibility of constructing and operating a
commercial scale facility which converts coal or natural gas to liquid fuels.
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming/article_c5ea34fb-aac2-5edd-a0d5-9a64ff94e631.html
CTL - FEED - 12LSO-0054.C1.pdf
A
representative of a company seeking to develop one such facility applauded the
committee’s decision. Cary Brus of Casper-based Nerd Gas Co., which is planning
a $1.7 billion natural gas-to-gasoline facility possibly located by Lake DeSmet,
said the proposed funding could help developers make a better pitch to potential
partners and financiers.
The
funding is part of a broader state effort to promote new uses for Wyoming's coal
and natural gas reserves. On Thursday, the committee approved a move to change
the name of the state’s Clean Coal Research Task Force, which funds coal
research, to the Advanced Conversion Technologies Task Force. The name
change and a shift in the task force’s mission allows the group to fund
conversion projects such as the minerals-to-liquids facilities instead of just
research into how to use the state’s coal in a more environmentally friendly
way.
________________________________________________________________________________________
