Today's article comes from guest editor Tsvi Bisk. From his perch at the Center for Strategic Futurist Thinking, Tsvi has a great long-term outlook on the future of global energy. His piece today draws an uncommon link between the world's large coal reserves and the green energy movement.
Enjoy,
—Keith
The United States has the largest recoverable reserves of coal in the world - equal to the entire world's proven oil reserves.
An energy/environment program that includes coal would generate local jobs and augment local tax bases, garnering support amongst large segments of the working and middle class presently alienated from environmental concerns because of their own economic interests.
The cavalier attitude of ivory tower environmentalists towards the millions of working and middle class people who make their livings (directly and indirectly) from coal creates enemies of the environmental movement amongst the very people who should be the most avid allies of environmentalism. After all who suffers more from the health and property damage consequences of irresponsible mining and use of coal?
If we do not help coal become a friend of the environment we are in trouble. It is the fastest growing fuel source in the world and the most democratic - found on every continent and in almost every country. About 40% of the world's electricity comes from coal and approximately 50% of the electricity in the United States comes from coal. Millions of people depend on it for their living. Glib declamations about banning coal are not doable and are dysfunctional to a rational energy and environmental strategy.
But in order to help coal become a friend of the environment, we must create a linkage between the use of coal and the promotion of alternative energy. How might this be done?
"Linking" Coal to Clean Energy through Coal Liquification
First of all, the present system of burning coal for electricity should and can be replaced by a new system of liquefying coal for transportation. If all the coal used for electrical production today in the United States was liquefied (using current liquefaction techniques) this would result in about 3 million barrels of synthetic oil production a day - an amount of liquid fuel equal to that envisaged by the Pickens Plan.
Together, both plans could be producing 6 million barrels of liquid fuel a day for the next 50-100 years. This is equal to the daily amount of petroleum now being pumped from the lower 48 States. Since a metric ton of hard coal is approximately equivalent to 5 barrels oil and a metric ton of lignite coal is approximately equivalent to 2.5 barrels oil there is room for technological innovation to increase the level of extraction from the present 1.25 barrels of oil per metric ton. Prudent policy making, however, dictates that we draw on the most conservative quantitative assumptions.
How would the linkage work?
Hybrids, plug-in hybrids and electric cars should be advantaged for licensing and other taxes. All non-emergency vehicles purchased by governments (Federal, State and Local in the United States) should be hybrids, plug-in-hybrids or electric by 2010. Purchasers, whether private or governmental, would earn greenhouse emission credits they could sell to the coal liquefaction program thus providing an additional economic incentive advantaging these technologies.
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Incandescent bulbs should and can be banned by 2010. Replacing a single incandescent bulb with a Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) will keep a half-ton of CO2 out of the atmosphere over the life of the bulb. It is estimated that if everyone in the U.S. used energy-efficient lighting, 80 average-size coal powered plants (500 megawatts each) could close. World over, up to 270 500-megawatt plants could close. There are about 600 such plants in the United States. Just this one step would release over 13% of the coal presently used for electric production. Since about 900 million tons of coal is used annually in the United States to produce electricity, this savings would be in the range of 117 million tons which could be converted into a little over 400,000 barrels of daily synthetic oil production. Most coal fired plants in the United States are 30-40 years old and will be retired over the next decade to be replaced by one of two options:
New ultra-critical coal-fired plants which have 48% energy efficiency (and are much more environmentally friendly) as opposed to the 36% energy efficiency of today's sub-critical coal-fired plants. This 12% savings would release an amount of coal for liquefaction which would yield another 320,000 barrels of synthetic oil a day.
Alternative wind, solar, geothermal and waste-to-energy plants.
Greenhouse emission credits thus earned could be sold to the coal liquefaction program. Alternative energy companies could sell their products/services to homes and businesses as "loss leaders" or "at cost" in order to accumulate greenhouse emission credits which they could then sell for their profit. Such a gambit would make the price of alternative energy technologies more attractive. Consequent increased volume of sales would generate economies of scale and further lower the cost of alternative technologies. In other words coal liquefaction could become a major driver in the dissemination of alternative energy technologies and in this way become a major benefactor of the environment.
The Road to Liquified Coal
The technologies for coal liquefaction have been available since before WWII and can produce a barrel of oil for about $30. Opposition derives from the fact that these technologies release more CO2 in the conversion process than the extraction and refinement of liquid fuel from petroleum.
To assuage environmentalist opposition, liquefaction installations would be permitted to become operational on condition that they produce a half a ton of CO2 for every ton of greenhouse gases eliminated by other methods of producing energy. Trading a half a ton of CO2 for a ton of CO2, the environment would get a 2X1 benefit. Trading a half a ton of CO2 for a ton of methane the environment would get a 20X1 benefit. The ability to sell greenhouse emission credits would make waste-to-energy technologies much more competitive, especially sewage and garbage to bio-fuels (the largest generators of free methane are garbage and sewage). In this way Coal liquefaction as a major driver in the dissemination of alternative energy technologies becomes even more significant.
Coal liquefaction installations could be manufactured serially, much as Liberty Ships were manufactured in WWII or F16 fighter planes are manufactured today, using the underutilized manufacturing and human resources of America's industrial heartland in the upper Midwest. Operating licenses would be contingent on the coal companies purchasing greenhouse emission credits to offset liquefaction emissions and would be cancelled when this condition is not observed.
Within five years the United States could be producing a million barrels of liquefied coal daily; within ten years this could increase to 2-3 million barrels a day. The upper amount would be limited only by the availability of greenhouse emission credits and new, cleaner, liquefaction technologies such as microwave technology.
Can there be clean coal? Of course there can. But to be implemented in practice rather than only in public relations puff pieces it must be economically viable. The linkage called for here makes clean coal more than possible - it makes it economically desirable.
—Tsvi
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Tsvi Bisk is an American-Israeli futurist, social researcher and strategy planning consultant. He is Director of the Center for Strategic Futurist Thinking (www.futurist-thinking.co.il). His most recent book is The Optimistic Jew: a Positive Vision for the Jewish People in the 21st Century (Maxanna Press, 2007). His previous book was Futurizing the Jews: Alternative Futures for Meaningful Jewish Existence in the 21st Century (Praeger Press, 2003). Both are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. He has also published over 100 articles and essays and is a popular lecturer in both Hebrew and English.
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vast coal reserves to become energy
independent while other forms of energy production are developed and
implemented.
Thank you
Second even if we can burn coal cleanly, which a coal to liquids program and use of advanced high-temp generators, can help with, the mining process is still a disaster. I grew up in anthracite country and the scars from the past are quite evident everywhere. Mine acid drainage, sink holes, mine fires, black lung, etc continue to plague my area. (See the Economist article this week on the mine fires) Mountaintop removal mining is even more detrimental.
We need coal power. I am under no illusion that we don't. We just need to do things smarter if the industry is not be despised and reviled. Increased care during all stages of production to consumption must be improved. Coal will remain vital to our energy needs for the foreseeable future - we need to be honest about its costs and benefits.
I suppose Al Gore would argue that he is talking about "clean" power for his Fisker Magma plug-in car, except that clean power won't exist for several decades, if then.
Furthermore, in the process of becoming "clean" the price of electricity will more than double, simply because renewables cost more and require additional investments in storage facilities to be available when needed, plus if we go ahead with cap-and-trade the cost of electricity will jump still higher, until T Boone Pickens' CNG looks cheap.
DOE Sect'y Chu has said that we are TEN years behind Australia in drought. Noticed all the wildfires there this past year? How about the failing crops? The rice industry that's GONE?
WAKE UP. FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, IF YOU THINK MAKING A BUCK IS SO IMPORTANT, TRY GOING WITHOUT WATER FOR A DAY.
This is really, really a sad and awfrul posting from a group from a group that is otherwise "progressive."
Ick.
profit off coal... I am not one of those.
On the other hand if, by environmentalist, you are referring to someone who is aware of how polluted Earth's environment already is, and is rapidly becoming, and damned well intends to take this into consideration in making any decision at the polls, or supporting any bill forthcoming in the Congress then, in that case, by all means do count me in.
It doesn't matter who spins rhetoric to make one side of an issue seem snow white and the other (excuse if trite) coal black.
And it doesn't matter who claims his own opinions and spin doctoring are "the truth" while every opinion or spin to the contrary is a blatant lie. What DOES matter is bottom lines.
As a citizen and an individual investor, what I need is less spin doctored opinionation and more
bald face facts.
I'm not from Missouri, but have a Missouri attitude of SHOW ME.
Show me that in liquifying coal the POLLUTANTS are removed, and show me an actual operation that is unequicably "clean" in comparison to other energy sources (and industrial PROCESSES actually doing it that way, and you can bet your boots I will hawk it to the winds and invest in it.)
Making statements about what percentage of electrical energy is now produced by coal might impress someone else as a warm fuzzy thing to say, but if coal puts out all the pollutants it actually does put out, which no chemist in his right mind can demonstrate otherwise, and coal is relied upon to make so much energy then -- rather than a warm fuzzy, that is THE SIZE OF THE PROBLEM.
Hopefully, you can see that I do not hate the offender, just the offense. Clean up the offender (the present way coal is actually being used) and I'll back you 100%.
Until then, calling me and other people who are NOT stupid and gullible, and who are not taken in by spin doctor glossing over of the issues, are not inclined to be
taken in, nor intimidated by any insinuations that we are some kind of freaks for calling a spade a spade... whether it's a coal shovel or the kind graves are dug with.
Let me repeat: SHOW ME what can be done with coal that is both clean and cheaper than some of the alternative sources now just starting out (where oil was a century ago, and coal several centuries ago, insofar as getting production infrastructures established) and I'll be one of the biggest supporters you've got.
Some, like me, lived through all the days of "nicotine and coal tar won't hurt you" and saw the FACTS take decades before getting exposed.
There are not any laws making it hard for clean coal... just DIRTY coal. Don't tell us what can be done to keep coal cheap, while cleaning up its act. SHOW US!
Build it, and investors like me will come.
I believe it is far more beneficial to utilize coal in oxygen blown gasification ,using the product gas to power high efficiency gas turbines in an ICCG power plant. The concentrated CO2 stream would be much easier to capture and sequester and the overall coal to power efficiency will be perhaps twice that of the liquefaction route.
I believe it is far more beneficial to utilize coal in oxygen blown gasification ,using the product gas to power high efficiency gas turbines in an ICCG power plant. The concentrated CO2 stream would be much easier to capture and sequester and the overall coal to power efficiency will be perhaps twice that of the liquefaction route.
Is it by energy content or by tons equivalent with barrels, it would be good if you can specify more clearly in what way will it be equal to the entire world's proven oil reserves.
thx, ken brown
Interesting article, however, some false information here. While I agree that florescence light bulbs are more efficient, your opinion that they should be banned is a mistake. A detailed analysis performed in Canada by Canadian scientists show that in cold climates, the most efficient decision to be made regarding lighting is to use florescence bulbs in the warm months and incandescent bulbs in the cold months. This is because of the fact that incandescent produce more heat and even though it is a small amount, without that heat more heat is needed in a house and thereby requiring the consumption of additional CO producing fuel material.
This is documented in a paper by Ivanco et al and delivered to the IEEE Electric Power Conference 2007.
Thanks
Gerard
add co2 at 1000 ppm. No need to panic just yet. If global cooling was to continue at the rate it is at this time we will be in a ice age by the 21st cent- but you know there are cycles with in cycles, look at the World financial problems, it
looks very familiar, I have seen it all before.
Farmington NM is one of the most polluted areas in the US due to caol mining. The fish in New Mexcio's rivers have high rates of mercury from coal mining. Farmington also high rates of birth defects due to coal mining and mercury in the water.
While I agree that coal will play an increasing role in our energy future as oil and gas pass their peak production, the cost of producing liquid fuels from coal will never be competive with fuels from petroleum. At the moment it is only lack of taxes and subsidies or stranded gas (tar sands) that make altermative fuel supplies economically viable. If we are serious about reducing cabon dioxide we need a carbon or fossil fuel tax not a carbon trading scheme. Trading schemes are for the profit of traders and have no other useful function.
Chris Nelder is correct in that by 2020 we will have less energy available than we do now and his prediction of 25% less is close to the mark.
In short a hopeful fairy tale far from reality.
Dan
this was done on a pilot scale @ wilsonville AL during 1981-85. yields were 3.1 bbl/ton. the program was shut down by orders of ronald reagan, the houston oil millionaires did not want any competition from synthetics.
> jack
do you want the world to tip into toxic overload?
do you not value your kids....their kids...their kids quality of life.. if nothing else?
how about all of our money focused, cashed up investors that have been profiting from terrorism (environmental & imperial (who's earned lots from weapon shares)) be forced to invest ONLY in stuff that HELPS the planet...
or have we already gone to far...
have corporations grown to big to let this DEMOCRATIC idea through?