RMP draws contrast between the common misunderstanding between what is combustion and what is a non<\/strong>–combustion<\/strong> chemical reaction. \u00a0Burning coal is not the same thing as thermolysis<\/a>\u00a0 or the thermal decomposition of matter without releasing particulate matter to atmosphere.\u00a0\u00a0 The byproducts of thermolysis are inert and saleable for road making material and other construction material.<\/p>\n Be it known to all within the sound of my voice, whosoever shall be found guilty of burning coal shall suffer the loss of his head.<\/p>\n -King Edward II of England, 1276<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Coal has generally had three major knocks against it<\/a> with regard to pollution and its negative effects on the environment: \u00a01) \u00a0CO2 emissions, \u00a02) Sulfur Dioxide emissions, & 3) Mercury emissions. \u00a0 Other complaints about coal involve NOx’s and other particulate matter released to atmosphere. \u00a0 \u00a0So if we could produce cleaner energy from our abundance of US coal without releasing those types of pollution to the atmosphere,\u00a0we could make a positive impact on the hard reality that coal isn’t going anywhere any time soon.<\/p>\n The Kemper Power Plant<\/a> in Kemper Mississippi will take a very low grade & dirty coal\u00a0called lignite<\/a>\u00a0and convert it to synthetic natural gas (SNG). \u00a0The Kemper plant will capture 65% of the\u00a0CO2 produced by the conversion\/gasification process, have little to no particulate matter, SOx’s, NOx’s, Ammonia, or mercury pollution. \u00a0It will also produce 582 megawatts of power, create 12,000 direct & indirect construction jobs, and 1,300 permanent jobs. \u00a0The SNG has other potential uses too; SNG can\u00a0be reformed into pure hydrogen to power Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles which only emit water vapor as exhaust and eliminate our need to import oil from hostile Middle Eastern\u00a0countries.<\/p>\n This means, not only can we make clean energy from dirty fuels, we can migrate away from crude oil which the USA simply does not have enough of to supply our energy needs. \u00a0The USA imports more than half of the crude oil we consume. \u00a0Oil also accounts for roughly 13.7% of our import\/export deficit at September 2015<\/a> and we spend billions of dollars annually on military expenses\u00a0to protect oil infrastructure assets and maritime routes\u00a0in hostile\u00a0Middle Eastern countries. \u00a0 Oil also threatens our fresh water resources with contamination from\u00a0pipelines, railcars, and above ground & below ground storage tanks.<\/p>\n It’s hard to talk about coal when most people just hope it will go away if we focus on renewables; but the world doesn’t work that way. \u00a0Let’s talk about coal from a more global perspective than we are used to seeing in America. \u00a0Let us remember the earth is shaped less like America and more like a sphere anyway. \u00a0Most people reading this will probably be from America or some other developed nation but there are more people in this world than just those of us in developed nations. \u00a0In fact, 1.3 billion people on this planet\u00a0will never read this message. \u00a0 1.3 billion people who badly want electricity and internet access will never see it. \u00a0 This message is only readable by people who live in nations where coal is used to produce electricity.<\/p>\n There is something, however, those 1.3 billion people without electricity will be demanding over the next 20 years: \u00a0they will be demanding their leaders build coal fired power plants so they can have access to the same electricity you and I have. \u00a0 They’ll be building coal fired power plants\u00a0because they want cheap and reliable access to electricity. \u00a0They want coal so they can build and operate water treatment plants to\u00a0have clean drinking water. \u00a0It’s somewhat ironic that\u00a0coal is demonized as something that threatens our lives when coal actually plays an important part in our high standard living and good health.<\/p>\n Here are some facts we all should wrap our heads\u00a0around:<\/p>\n The international community must recognize that in many cases the economic and energy security priorities of the world\u2019s emerging and developing economies will be met through coal-fired electricity. Coal will also continue to play a critical role in building modern infrastructure in an urbanizing world as the key raw material for steel and cement production.<\/p>\n Coal provides 40% of the world\u2019s electricity<\/a>. It will\u00a0soon overtake oil as the world\u2019s largest source of primary energy. According to research by the IEA, coal demand in Southeast Asia is expected to grow by 4.8% a year through to 2035 as the region turns to coal to fuel its growing energy needs. In the 2011 edition of the World Energy Outlook, the IEA predicted that more than half of the on-grid electricity needed to meet energy requirements for all scenarios would come from coal. \u00a0Global coal demand is expected to reach 9 billion tons per year by the year 2019.<\/p>\n Coal use may be waning where you live and in the periodicals you read, but in the big picture it\u00a0is growing in key demographics.\u00a0 Despite popular environmentalist\u00a0contentment about coal use waning and bankruptcies being filed in America, coal is not dead. \u00a0In developing countries coal growth is driven by the need to deliver affordable, reliable energy to populations that currently lack modern energy services. It is also driven by the significant trend towards urbanization where coal-fired electricity helps power modern cities but is also a key ingredient in steel and cement production.<\/p>\n Many developing countries are building, or planning to build, new fleets of coal-fired power plants. A report by the World Resources Institute<\/a> highlighted that 1,199 plants (representing 1,400 GW) are anticipated across 59 countries. These countries\u00a0are doing this because for them coal is the most affordable, accessible and reliable source of power. Other sources of energy will make a significant contribution, but for many coal will be the cornerstone of their energy system.<\/p>\n American gasification technologies like those being employed at Kemper in Mississippi should\u00a0be employed\u00a0across America and exported to\u00a0developing nations to help eliminate emissions from energy produced from coal. \u00a0Coal gasification will also give us the ability to power FCEVs and eliminate our collective\u00a0need for oil which threatens fresh water. \u00a0Near zero emissions in SOx, NOx, Mercury, Ammonia, and significantly reduced CO2 can be achieved with modern coal gasification technologies for energy production.<\/p>\n We can act right now to make a difference and share our technology with the world’s poor or we can watch more coal fired power plants get built the wrong way in developing countries that we are currently obsoleting in the United States. \u00a0We can do this while we simultaneously continue to invest in cleaner infrastructure like wind and solar as we work toward phasing coal out of the global energy mix over the long term.<\/p>\n The average efficiency of coal-fired power plants around the world today is approximately 33%. This is well below the state-of-the-art rate of 45% and even \u2018off-the-shelf\u2019 rates of around 40%. Increasing the efficiency of coal-fired power plants by 1% reduces CO2 emissions by between 2-3%. Moving the current average global efficiency rate of coal-fired power plants from 33% to 40% by deploying more advanced technology could cut\u00a02 gigatonnes of CO2 emissions. This is the equivalent of:<\/p>\n Modern coal gasification plants have the potential to reach even higher rates of efficiency approaching 65%. \u00a0Companies like Synthesis Energy Systems<\/a> are deploying state of the art gasification technologies in countries like China that allow low rank coals and biomass to become clean energy and pure hydrogen. \u00a0RMP remains focused on educating the public about all types of clean energy and the advancement of the hydrogen economy.<\/p>\n It would behoove all good environmentalists to remember the world is not shaped like America but rather more\u00a0rounded and\u00a0spherical with over a billion people who have no access to electricity that desperately want it.<\/p>\n At RMP, we believe that all the world’s energy can one day come from hydrogen produced from solar, wind and municipal wastes. \u00a0 But, it will take years to build the infrastructure necessary to realize this vision. \u00a0 And, this vision cannot be realized until we adopt a common denominator fuel that allows water to compete as a fuel source. \u00a0 That common denominator is hydrogen. \u00a0 Even the word hydrogen means water genesis. \u00a0 By using fuel sources like coal, natural gas, synthetic natural gas, and garbage to make hydrogen we give water a chance to compete. \u00a0If we give water a chance to compete it can win. \u00a0It will win. \u00a0 If you love water and want to consider yourself a responsible environmentalist, you need to think about the realities of energy from coal. \u00a0If we want to make a difference for the good of the environment, the economy, and our fresh water resources, we need to adopt pragmatism as our approach to energy production and understand coal will be in the mix for years to come. \u00a0 We can either make the best lemonade with the lemons we have or bury our heads in the sand.<\/p>\n Stay tuned to RMP to learn more about coal as we will be publishing many more posts to help you learn about clean energy and the hydrogen economy. \u00a0 We will be taking an in depth look at the Polk Power Plant in Tampa as well as the Kemper Power Plant in Mississippi in future posts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I will reiterate this important point one more time:\u00a0 combustion is the enemy<\/strong>.\u00a0 It may sound like a subtle difference to the lay person not involved in studying the production of energy but combustion<\/strong> and thermolysis are two critically different things<\/strong>.\u00a0 Gasifying coal or biomass or garbage is by no means the same thing as “burning” it.\u00a0 Burning or combusting is what causes the nasties to get into our water and atmosphere.\u00a0 The chemical decomposition of matter through thermolysis is much different.<\/p>\n Portions of this post were excerpted and adapted from the World Coal Association’s PACE platform concept paper<\/a> prepared for the COP21 conference in Paris<\/a> coming up soon in November & December of 2015.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Coal use is growing across the world. Coal will eventually surpass oil as the #1 primary energy source for world energy consumption. Over 1.3 billion people around the world do not have electricity and they will be planning on building coal fired power plants as a cornerstone to their energy plan. We can either understand this reality and help the world’s poor make the best lemonade with the lemons we have, or we can stand by and pretend protesting coal will make the world a better place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[69,74,67,41,71,70,68,73,72,30],"class_list":["post-1196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-carbon-capture-sequestration","tag-carbon-dioxide","tag-coal","tag-energy","tag-fuel-cells","tag-hydrogen","tag-igcc","tag-lignite","tag-pollution","tag-water"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Coal](\"http:\/\/www.respectmyplanet.org\/publications\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Screenshot-2015-10-07-20.23.34.png\")
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