We’ve been dealing with the “clean coal” mythology for some time now, and you’re probably all very well-versed in de-bunking pro-coal propaganda. I just came across this ad (see page 12) in CitiesGoGreen’s January edition and it got me thinking. Ever heard of E-Coal? The product’s inventors have a whole new way of approaching the coal industry.
“Don’t be fooled by the name, there is no fossil coal in E-Coal. It is only called E-Coal to help the electric power industry executives make the needed mental paradigm shift” says NewEarth Renewable Energy, the promoter of E-Coal and E-Oil.
To me this posits some interesting questions: Could we kick coal by firing traditional coal generators with biomass? Could we save mountaintops from coal miners without shutting down the whole coal power industry? Might there be a place for combustion in the clean energy economy? I don’t know the answers, but I know that if you’re an energy wonk, you might find this interesting.
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“But remember it’s not grey CO2 but natural green CO2.because it does not want to contribute to Global Warming.” (p. 4)
Interesting concept, but what do they mean by “green CO2″ that is produced by burning this stuff? Does anyone know if there is a difference between “dirty CO2″ and “greenwashed C02″ ??
“For example, NewEarth creates its woody biomass feedstock from short rotation energy crops that have been grown only on degraded land or in the ocean, which does not compete with food crops.” (p. 4)
Degraded land? In my short life I’ve never heard of land that did not have value simply by virtue of the fact that it is LAND. The only “degraded” land might be land that has been destroyed by human consumption/destruction. Does that mean they’ll be growing these “sustainable” and “non-food source competing” trees/biomass on SuperFund sites? And what about procuring this biomass from the ocean? While humans might not reside directly in the ocean, other living things do and I doubt that there is a form of biomass extraction from the ocean that is not disruptive to the natural aquatic ecosystem.
Others’ thoughts?
A fascinating article, though E-coal is still made of wood. I am not sure there is enough wood to replace coal. I would think that natural gas would be the combustion fuel in a carbon transition economy.
Hannah –
From just a thermodynamic standpoint, it sounds like E-coal involves humans obtaining large amounts of biomass and concentrating it. For all of coal’s problems, natural processes did the processing ahead of time. My biggest concern with biomass in general is that we had to go to coal because there was not enough energy in single generations of biomass (e.g., UK went to coal during the Industrial Revolution because they were nearly out of wood). With many countries such as India and China still in need of economic development, we are likely going to need economic energy storage for renewables,higher energy density fuels beyond the hydrocarbons, or both.