Coal as an Energy Source

[Tractionengines]

I will not say much.... but this could be interesting reading for someone interested in these kind of things. (The way back machine will find some info from development over the years that is not on the web now. And from other countries that have been involved in development over the years.)

The Stirling Energy System design was started in 1970's (~50 years ago). For ~30+ years, its held the world record from solor to grid quality conversion effenecy. Yet it's virtually unheard of.... ( Why is that... )

Home | SES Stirling Energy Systems

www.stirlingenergy.com

[ If technology advances get swept under the carpet by those controlling the $ , we all loose in the long run while some with $ make more $. ]

 

[jderimig]

That is only because we are mandating winners and losers. I suspect it is not cheaper to use wind and solar if you remove all subsidies.

It also will not be cheaper if all those solar panels and windmill components are not manufactured in China with 3.4 cent per kw/hr on demand electricity.

Wind and solar are not cheaper than fossil fuels because you are comparing intermittent weather dependent power against on demand power. Apples and Carburetors comparison. What would be the cost of a wind and solar system that was able to produce power on demand 365/24/7?

 

[RocketScientistAustralia]

It also will not be cheaper if all those solar panels and windmill components are not manufactured in China with 3.4 cent per kw/hr on demand electricity.

Wind and solar are not cheaper than fossil fuels because you are comparing intermittent weather dependent power against on demand power. Apples and Carburetors comparison. What would be the cost of a wind and solar system that was able to produce power on demand 365/24/7?

But they ARE manufactured in China. We live in a free market economy. eg Apple chose to move their production to China. So have many others. That's the big business model. The right or wrong of that is another conversation. You can bet on the fact that if power could be manufactured offshore cheaper and distributed to your home for less, that's the model you would get. (perhaps why Australia produces and sells LNG to California for less than it sells it commercially to business IN Australia) Business in a free trade market does not care. You or I might, but in business, it's simply about the numbers. Saying that it would be cheaper to use coal if the solar subsidies were not there and the panels were made "not in China" doesn't make it so. This is a what-if, rather than a what-it-is discussion. What if the government bought all solar panels and sold that massive government purchase at government purchase prices you and I could only dream of at the cost to the people directly..... If we're doing what-ifs.

I prefer what-is. You can do real math with it. And that math, for me, says at my location, paying my costs, solar works financially over coal-fired electricity at the prices I'm being charged.
Norm

 

[aerostadt]

Remember that China manipulates their currency and can subsidize industries in ways that are not transparent to the outside. Compared to us they are a controlled economy. Technologies are stolen and foreign countries are encouraged to build there and technology is transferred that way. To have all our crucial manufacturing be transferred to China is not a good situation.

 

[RocketScientistAustralia]

Remember that China manipulates their currency and can subsidize industries in ways that are not transparent to the outside. Compared to us they are a controlled economy. Technologies are stolen and foreign countries are encouraged to build there and technology is transferred that way. To have all our crucial manufacturing be transferred to China is not a good situation.

China expects you to train up the locals. As does the US if you set up there. The US employees we had decided to go direct to our customer and quote directly. Property theft is not a unique China problem. Amazon insists you give them the details of your suppliers, then if your product is successful, makes an Amazon brand clone of it. This is all a whole different question and not unique to one country.

 

[bwayne64]

I will not say much.... but this could be interesting reading for someone interested in these kind of things. (The way back machine will find some info from development over the years that is not on the web now. And from other countries that have been involved in development over the years.)

The Stirling Energy System design was started in 1970's (~50 years ago). For ~30+ years, its held the world record from solor to grid quality conversion effenecy. Yet it's virtually unheard of.... ( Why is that... )

Home | SES Stirling Energy Systems

www.stirlingenergy.com

[ If technology advances get swept under the carpet by those controlling the $ , we all loose in the long run while some with $ make more $. ]

Because the powers that be, don't actually want to solve problems. They are way too valuable as is. If you solve a problem, you can no longer use it to divide and extort. The govt can only create and invent problems, or leverage already existing ones. I would love to have one of those Sterling systems. I could power my whole neighborhood. I think SES went bankrupt a while back and all the dishes went to India or China. Isn't it great how taxpayer subsidized projects get reallocated to foreign countries. It's almost like our govt is actively working for them and not the American people. Perish the thought, ; )

 

[aerostadt]

Coal is also used in another important production item, Cement. Concrete is made of essentially 3 items; gravel, sand, and cement (and, of course, water). The difficult item to obtain is cement (The ancient Romans had an excellent source of cement, a particular volcanic ash, really good for making harbor breakwaters). Cement is the most difficult item to obtain. (Some say that western civilization didn't figure out how to make cement until our colonial days) Cement can actually be obtained from fly ash from coal fired plants. A lot of cement is obtained this way, but not all coal fly ash is good for cement. Cement can also be obtained by heating certain kind of rocks. Portland Cement comes from a special rock found near Portland, OR. Of course, coal can be used as a heat source to heat that rock to turn it into cement. There are other ways of producing cement without coal, but none of them has come close to capturing the market at this time. Lo and behold, the world's leading producer of cement and concrete is China (and not by a slim margin, but a landslide).

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

My uncle worked in the coal industry. He moved his family to a town near the Green River Utah testing complex when he was in the Army testing missiles. When he left the Army, he got a job with a local Utah coal mine. I don’t think he was ever a miner who worked underground, but he worked for the mine the rest of his career.

He had a huge fossilized dinosaur footprint that was chiseled out of the roof of the mine. Apparently dinosaurs walked through the prehistoric peat bogs that would later become coal, and then mud filled the footprints and became stone. As the mine removed coal from the coal seam, it would expose the tracks in the ceiling, and those could be carefully removed. They kept the footprint in the basement ruckus room.

The basement was also where the coal-fired furnace was for heating the house. A truck would deliver coal for the furnace periodically. And one of my cousin’s chores was to remove the “clinkers” from the furnace. The whole thing was a novelty to me as a kid, because our house in San Diego had gas heat. So it was really interesting to me that they would get a truckload of rocks to feed their heater, and then my cousin had to carry out buckets of burnt rocks to the yard every now and then.

I think that’s mostly a bygone way of life now. My uncle retired decades ago and has passed away. I’m not sure if the mine is still in operation. But for his generation, it provided a job, heat, electricity, and a pension for retirement.

 

[aerostadt]

Did you ever set a fence post with concrete? Probably, coal was used to make the cement. What country makes the most cement by far? See post 67.

 

[Blast it Tom!]

China expects you to train up the locals. As does the US if you set up there. The US employees we had decided to go direct to our customer and quote directly. Property theft is not a unique China problem. Amazon insists you give them the details of your suppliers, then if your product is successful, makes an Amazon brand clone of it. This is all a whole different question and not unique to one country.

Angry at the Amazon part, not you.

 

[RocketScientistAustralia]

Angry at the Amazon part, not you.

To quote Pink Floyd, "There is no dark side in the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark. The only thing that makes it look light is the sun"
It's useful for our politicians to make the other sides look bad. It's useful for any other side to make us look bad. Matter of fact, we're all bad, and good.

Big business does not care. It merely meets the minimum legal standards to be compliant and make a profit. ( usually if they won't get caught and the legal cost is more than the cost of not being compliant and paying the fines) But it does legally and actually need to make a profit. If they don't, no-one will invest in them. The big business model is the one we all seem to be stuck with for power generation. There's no mom and pop power generators to compare that model to.

Coal as a fuel is neither good or bad. Modern coal fired plants could be green, but only green enough to meet the minimum legal requirements. Let's not start implying they'd do that out of any altruistic concern for mankind. There are a lot of "untested at scale techniques" like CO2 sequestration that we'd all have to be convinced about before anyone is going to invest in them over alternative pollution free sources of energy. The alternative energy sources are inherently green ( if you don't take into account the hardware production process which as they are made predominantly in China, we don't have to, for any easy sell math model we'll all be given)

It's the lack of investment that will kill off coal fired plants in the Western world. Which is the majority of coal production/use. That will make coal a more niche product.
My 3c worth( inflation)
Norm

 

[kuririn]

Coal is also used in another important production item, Cement. Concrete is made of essentially 3 items; gravel, sand, and cement (and, of course, water). The difficult item to obtain is cement (The ancient Romans had an excellent source of cement, a particular volcanic ash, really good for making harbor breakwaters). Cement is the most difficult item to obtain. (Some say that western civilization didn't figure out how to make cement until our colonial days) Cement can actually be obtained from fly ash from coal fired plants. A lot of cement is obtained this way, but not all coal fly ash is good for cement. Cement can also be obtained by heating certain kind of rocks. Portland Cement comes from a special rock found near Portland, OR. Of course, coal can be used as a heat source to heat that rock to turn it into cement. There are other ways of producing cement without coal, but none of them has come close to capturing the market at this time. Lo and behold, the world's leading producer of cement and concrete is China (and not by a slim margin, but a landslide).

A cement plant doesn't need coal to produce cement. It needs a heat source that will burn limestone to produce lime. The only reason that cement plants have predominantly been using coal is the same reason that electric generating plants have been predominantly using it: it's cheap and abundant in many parts of the US.
It's all about the money, baby.
The cement industry has been taking steps to reduce carbon emissions. They include changes in the production process, new formulations for cement, and carbon capture. Cement production is particularly well suited to incorporate carbon capture. Once the CO2 is locked in the structure it is captured permanently. Think about all the cement and concrete structures that are going up every day in the world.

Cement has a carbon problem. Here are some concrete solutions.

The biggest carbon polluters don’t always advertise that fact loudly.

grist.org

 

[Funkworks]

I'm not following this thread, but to add fuel to the fire (HA!), it seems that some people prioritize reducing FF emissions, while others do not. FF emissions reduction can be seen as not being worth it, or as a great challenge, depending on attitudes.

I sort of oscillate between the two. Reducing when I can, and burning when I can't solve how to avoid it.

 

[aerostadt]

It is amazing how advocates stating alternatives to fossil fuels make it sound like the resolution is already here. Quoting from the article above as follows:

"Some alternatives to fossil fuels are available today, like wood, agricultural waste, and even car tires. Despite how that last one sounds, Jeremy Gregory, executive director of the Concrete Sustainability Hub at MIT, says spent tires can be a “great source of energy,” and cement kilns are one of the most effective ways to dispose of them.

In the future, we might have much cleaner options. A draft report published in October outlined some emerging technologies for generating the industrial heat needed to make cement, including using hydrogen-based fuels or electric heaters that run on renewable power. These methods aren’t ready for prime time yet, but with further development, tire fires to keep the cement kilns cooking might become a quaint footnote in history."

I am amazed that burning "wood, agricultural waste, and even car tires" is a solution to reducing carbon emissions. "TIRE FIRES" is a solution! Does that mean burning tires is better than burning coal. Crank up those fireplaces for burning wood. It is amazing how some of the New Green Dealers make the persuasion that the cure is already here, when clearly it is not. The cement industry is still using coal for 90 percent of its power souce.

Coal for cement: Present and future trends

Coal for cement: Present and future trends

www.globalcement.com

 

[Funkworks]

...Does that mean burning tires is better than burning coal...

It probably depends on how either one was produced, and whatever their exact smoke compositions are. Which one is "better" (less added GHG emissions per Joule? Per kg of burned mass?) might also depend on how far it is from the furnace and how it gets there. So many variables.

Energy density of a tire? I have no idea, but I can see that it's at least a second use for the same product so there's that.

Delaying the burning of coal (by first burning tires instead) also appears to be an advantage. To reduce shock on climate, spreading the burning of FF over 1000's of years would be better than burning it all over a few 100 years (but I know not everyone cares about 100's of years into the future).

I'm just thinking out loud here about an interesting question. No sources.

 

[kuririn]

It is amazing how advocates stating alternatives to fossil fuels make it sound like the resolution is already here.

Nobody is saying that.
From the article:
"The good news is that there’s no shortage of ideas for how to slim down cement’s weighty carbon footprint. The bad news is that most of them are either in their infancy or face significant barriers to adoption. As our window of time for preventing catastrophic climate change grows ever smaller, we need major investments in new technologies and changes to how the cement industry works. But most of all, we need politicians to wake up to the fact that the cement industry has a climate problem. It’s time for some concrete solutions."

And like I said, it's all about the money:
From the article above:
"Historically, coal prices have usually been considerably lower than oil and gas. This means that coal is, and is expected to continue to be, the most affordable fossil fuel for the cement sector for many years to come. According to BP, coal prices fell in all the regions that it tracked in 2014"

 

[jderimig]

"As our window of time for preventing catastrophic climate change grows ever smaller".... total gaslighting which makes the whole article have zero credibility. Concrete will not be the cause of any catastrophe. Bad energy policy will.

 

[Funkworks]

"As our window of time for preventing catastrophic climate change grows ever smaller"....

If you want to know where that idea comes from, say so.

 

[kuririn]

Concrete will not be the cause of any catastrophe.

Not the cause, but certainly a contributing cause.
Production of cement is energy intensive. Coal is the cheapest fuel to fire up cement kilns.
Cement production contributes three times as much carbon emissions as the aviation industry.

 

[jderimig]

Concrete (and rebar) will certainly be a contributing cause of lifting millions of people out of poverty and increasing the standard of living for every one on the planet.

 

[kuririn]

Concrete (and rebar) will certainly be a contributing cause of lifting millions of people out of poverty and increasing the standard of living for every one on the planet.

No one is proposing curtailing the production of cement and concrete.
They are proposing doing it in a way which reduces carbon emissions.
Big difference.

 

[Tractionengines]

Globally we'll run out of usable sand for concrete at the current rate of use long before other raw materials.

Sand is the second most-used resource after water, but it's unregulated and ripping environments apart. The world uses 50 billion metric tons of sand annually.

 

[Funkworks]

Concrete (and rebar) will certainly be a contributing cause of lifting millions of people out of poverty and increasing the standard of living for every one on the planet.

Everyone knows about the benefits of concrete. But the job of problem-solvers and researchers is to identify problems, to look for solutions, and to apply those solutions.

 

[shockie]

It is very concerning that these days we in the U.S. are constantly tying our hands behind our backs and the Chinese are not.

That's because our government is more concerned about pronouns.

 

[shockie]

Try mowing the lawn with the old type of man-powered lawn mower. I watched a neighbor do this years ago.

I have actually used one back in the day.

 

[teepot]

China is stealing Taiwan's sand. Many dredgers working just outside the the 3 mile[?] limit. Saw that on You Tube.