Usually if something’s too good to be true, it’s a sham.
Like a fuel cell that pulls CO2 out of the air sounds as likely as a unicorn.
Well, get ready to believe in unicorns.
Hi there, power hungry maniacs, Julian here for DNews.
We talk a lot about energy production here at DNews, and with good reason; the comfortable
way we live in developed countries is impossible without a huge amount of energy, but to make
it we often end up damaging the environment and lower our quality of life.
Two steps forward, one step back.
Clean and renewable sources of energy are gaining ground, but in the US natural gas
is still #2 behind dat king coal.
According to the US Energy Information Association, Coal produced 39% of our energy and Natural
gas made another 27% in 2013.
Coal and Natural gas have the advantage of being cheap, well established, and don’t
have the problem of intermittency.
The drawback is their byproducts are harmful to air quality and contribute to climate destabilization.
So if they’re making harmful gasses, why not just capture the gas and put it underground?
I know that sounds like a stupid question, but it’s actually one potential fix.
Older methods of Carbon Capture and Storage used steam from the plants to compress CO2.
But that steam is what drives turbines to make electricity so to keep up with demand
coal plants would have to burn 25-40% more fuel.
Then the price of energy goes up and coal gets used faster, making it infeasible.
Now however, a company called FuelCell Energy believes they have a solution.
Using a carbonate fuel cell, The CO2 in the plant’s exhaust is converted into carbonate
ions, then they’re passed through an electrolyte layer and converted back into CO2.
This generates electricity and concentrates the CO2 from 13% to about 70%.
If it’s more concentrated, it’s more efficient to condense it.
The Carbon Dioxide can then be chilled to a liquid from at -40 Degrees Celsius and stored
in geological formations underground.
As a bonus, the process also cleans up about 60% of nitrous oxides that are a component
of smog.
Its a pretty incredible process that just keeps getting better.
It’s like having a mirror that makes you more handsome when you look at it.
FuelCell energy has been testing the concept on a small scale for the last 5 months, but
they’re getting ready to scale it up to hundreds of megawatts.
The process does use power from the fuel cell to refrigerate the CO2, but it’s much more
manageable than the older methods, and the fuel cell is still adding to the overall output
of the plant.
These fuel cells could also be used at oil wells where it’s illegal to burn off the
natural gas byproduct but there’s no pipeline to transport it.
Energy could be generated on site, and the CO2 could be pumped into the ground where
it forces the oil out of the pores of the rocks and makes the well more efficient.
Of course burning petroleum products would release more CO2, so in that scenario it’s
not clear how much the technology would actually be helping.
But at least it shows a lot of promise for keeping the cost of clean energy down while
more renewable sources are brought online.
If this ends up cleaning up Coal and Natural Gas plants, would renewable energy even be
worth it?
Trace has the answer to that right over here.
So do you think it’s a stopgap or a permanent solution?
Let us know in the comments, and I’ll see you next time on DNews