Did I hear COAL???

[Dogzilla]

Okay, I'm watching the Presidential Debates -- no, more like watching two minutes at a time between commercial breaks elsewhere, because I just can't handle that much Bush and Gore all at once. I'm delicate, ya know? ;) (Even in porn movies, they separate out the bush from the gore!)

Now, I could have sworn on my dead cat's grave that BOTH candidates said something about how they are FOR exploring new Coal Technologies, because gasoline is a limited resources and we have lots and lots of coal around, nevermind it's still a fossil fuel.... blah blah blah, back to South Park.

Was I hallucinating? Coal? Really? What the hell are we thinking?

I could understand the Idiot Bush, being all for it. But Mr. Green Gore? Who is backed by the Sierra Club, no less... What's up with that?

Does anybody out there know exactly what new coal technologies they are talking about and can you also please explain to me why I should support this, instead of oh... I dunno... Solar/Hydrogen power? Hell, I think I'd rather support Nuclear Power than see this country go back to being so dependent on highly-polluting, fossil-fuel coal. Have they figured out a way to use coal for power without spewing CFCs into the atmosphere? Did the hole in the ozone close back up while I was sleeping last night? Huh?

Clearly I am missing something... Can anyone enlighten me? Or is the Coal Lobby just the one with the most money this year?

[lurkernomore]

well, Anthracite, I guess this one's for you.....

[Akatsukami]

Dogzilla had the misfortune to write: Have they figured out a way to use coal for power without spewing CFCs into the atmosphere?
Yes. They slap the feces out of those teenaged punks who keep trying to throw aerosol cans into the boilers in order to watch them pop. :rolleyes:

(Yes, I am aware of the fact that aerosol cans have not contained CFCs for a couple decades...)

[Una Persson]

Just out of curiosity, did you try to find out anything about this anywhere else first?

No? I didn't think so. Alright, I guess it looks like I'm going to have to enlighten you. But it'll have to wait for a couple hours, as I'm sick right now.

[Una Persson]

Originally posted by Dogzilla
Now, I could have sworn on my dead cat's grave that BOTH candidates said something about how they are FOR exploring new Coal Technologies, because gasoline is a limited resources and we have lots and lots of coal around, nevermind it's still a fossil fuel.... blah blah blah, back to South Park.
Well, I'll tell you what. Even though by blind luck you found the best person who can answer these questions, I'll not spend much time on them so you won't be taken away from too much Cartman et al.

And what they were talking about was the term "Clean Coal Technology", a program in the Department of Energy for some time now, which has the goal of promoting research into the cleanest possible use of coal to generate power.

Was I hallucinating? Coal? Really? What the hell are we thinking?
I know what the hell I'M thinking, what the hell are YOU thinking?

I could understand the Idiot Bush, being all for it. But Mr. Green Gore? Who is backed by the Sierra Club, no less... What's up with that?
Al Gore only pays lip service to "Clean Coal Technology". He is very strongly anti-coal, and will do everything in his power to limit and shut down coal generation in the US if elected President. And that includes forcing the PM 2.5 issue, mercury and heavy metal monitoring and scrubbing, and possibly complete bans on new coal generation.

Does anybody out there know exactly what new coal technologies they are talking about and can you also please explain to me why I should support this, instead of oh... I dunno... Solar/Hydrogen power?
Because Clean Coal Technology research can result in immediate improvements in emissions and energy efficiency, whereas solar and hydrogen are quite far away from being economical alternates (and you can ask sailor about those issues, he has a good grip on them).


Hell, I think I'd rather support Nuclear Power than see this country go back to being so dependent on highly-polluting, fossil-fuel coal.
Wow...that's mighty generous of you. What do you mean "go back" to coal? We never left coal! Coal is still responsible for well more than 50% of all the electricity generated in the US. Bet you didn't know that, huh? Well don't feel too bad - almost no one does. In fact, almost no one really gives a shit about this stuff in their daily lives, except people like me. And even the very highly intelligent population of the SDMB really only views me as an amusing, mostly harmless curiosity at best, and don't really care about my work or research into coal.

But I digress.

In 2000, the projected breakdown for US electrical generation sources (in terms of capacity, not generation) from the DOE is as follows:

Coal Steam - 306.34 GW
Fossil (non-coal) Steam - 137.03 GW
Natural Gas (combined cycle) - 23.33 GW
Natural Gas and Diesel (simple cycle) - 78.84 GW
Nuclear - 97.46 GW
Pumped Storage/Hydroelectric/Renewable - 107.98 GW

Total - 740.15 GW

So just in terms of raw generation, coal is 41.4% of the total US capability. HOWEVER, in terms of actual generation over the year, coal and nuclear are both much higher fractions, because their units have much higher capacity factors. Which essentially means they can operate much longer periods at higher outputs, so their yearly contribution is proportionately much higher than that of gas.

SO let's look at the projected 2000 numbers from the DOE:

Coal - 1876 Billion kWh, or 55.3% of the total electricity
Gas - 403.41 Billion kWh, or 11.9% of the total...
Nuclear - 668.41 Billion kWh, or 20.3% of the total...
Petroleum - 77.48 Billion kWh, or 2.3% of the total...
Renewables (almost all hydro) - 346.58 Billion kWh, or 10.2% of the total...

So guess what? This year, coal will supply about 55.3% of all the electrical energy in the US!

A large reason why clean coal technology research might yield a benefit for us.

Why not just do nuclear? Do you think the Sierra Club wants nuclear any more than coal? In fact, according to the DOE,
of the 97 gigawatts of nuclear capacity available in 1998, 40 gigawatts are projected to be retired by 2020, and no new plants are planned to be constructed in that same timeframe. So somewhere, even if our consumption stays flat, we need 40 more GW just to replace retired nuclear plants. Where does this energy come from?

Have they figured out a way to use coal for power without spewing CFCs into the atmosphere? Did the hole in the ozone close back up while I was sleeping last night? Huh?
Yeah, "Huh?" is kinda what I thought when I read "CFCs" coming from coal. You're demonizing the wrong thing here...

Clearly I am missing something... Can anyone enlighten me? Or is the Coal Lobby just the one with the most money this year?

No, it's pretty much simpler than that. To quote Living Colour, I'd like to talk right down to Earth, in language you can understand:

* Solar, Wind, and Hydrogen are all really cool and neat things. They cost too much, and can't deliver the output needed even if you are willing to pay the price.

* Nuclear is feared and loathed by the average American just slightly less than Saddam Hussein, and most of the "Green" parties fear and hate nuclear as well.

* Petroleum is out of the question, as it's both too expensive and too badly needed for mobile transport to be used for electrical generation right now.

* Biomass has serious practicality issues, which I discussed at length in a thread in GQ recently.

* Hydro is great, but we have all we probabaly ever will in terms of capacity. And the Greens want to start tearing down some dams...

* Natural gas is great - not too expensive, decent efficiency, and decent emissions. The problems is everyone has been treating it as a panacea, and it is being consumed at an alarming rate. Leading many to wonder if it will even be cost-effective to use in 12 years.

So then we come to coal (and conservation, which is another topic completely). Coal can be burned with very high efficiency and cleanliness, and is in the US, except for a few large grandfathered plants. All of which are slowly adding emissions controls to become cleaner and cleaner with each upgrade. In fact, a coal plant built to today's regulations would be a very efficient and clean plant, like Deseret's Bonanza Unit in Utah - a very fine running, super-clean plant, which I have been to myself. Coal is very cheap, and will be so not just for the next 20 years, but possibly for the next 100 years - we simply have a lot of coal.

[Narile]

A question for you Anthracite, I have known we can burn coal fairly cleanly for some time, but do have a few concerns about the Ash/Solid residue. I seem to recall that it has a fairly high concentration of toxics and undesirables in it. One of them being pretty high concentrations of radium. How well is the solid waste being handled these days? I remember seeing large piles of what I assumed was ash near one of the old coal fired plants we used to pass in WV driving to DC just out in the open, is that done anymore?

Thanks.

[honkytonkwillie]

Originally posted by Anthracite
And even the very highly intelligent population of the SDMB really only views me as an amusing, mostly harmless curiosity at best, and don't really care about my work or research into coal.


Not so. Give yourself some credit.

I enjoy your posts most when they shed truth and reason to issues that people have misconceptions and strong feelings about. Today it was coal power. Great post.

[screech-owl]

Wow. Anthracite, I am both impressed and enlightened. Thank you for the info.
Now to dig out the pictures of my grampa and uncles - all the men on mom's side of the family worked the coal mines in PA (except one of my uncles - he was in the railroad, but he transported the coal so the family forgave him.)

[BoBettie]

I agree, Anthricite- I find your posts very intelligent and informative. Thanks for all that info- I had no idea (and I don't normally keep my head in the sand over energy issues- I just didn't realize the impact coal had on our everyday energy use).

Zette
(remembering her late Grandfather today, who died from working in the coal mines many years ago)

[Una Persson]

Originally posted by Narile
A question for you Anthracite, I have known we can burn coal fairly cleanly for some time, but do have a few concerns about the Ash/Solid residue. I seem to recall that it has a fairly high concentration of toxics and undesirables in it. One of them being pretty high concentrations of radium. How well is the solid waste being handled these days? I remember seeing large piles of what I assumed was ash near one of the old coal fired plants we used to pass in WV driving to DC just out in the open, is that done anymore?

Thanks.

Coal ash is disposed of in one of three general ways:

1) It is sluiced with water to wet ponds, where most of the water evaporates but the ash remains. When the pond fills up, it is capped with earth and rock like any other landfill.

2) It is collected dry, taken to a landfill, mixed with water to keep it from blowing, and then landfilled.

3) It is sold, for one of two purposes:

a) Concrete, if there is little carbon residue in the ash and the ash is the right color and has the right calcium content.

b) Soil stabilization, if there is too much carbon.

The light fly ash from a pulverized coal power plant (about 80% of the ash produced) makes some of the best concrete that you can buy. Selling fly ash is a big business in the US and abroad, and most coal plants can sell all of their fly ash, at up to $2 to $8 per ton.

The heavy bottom ash from the plant (about 20% of the ash produced) can be sold as abrasive material for sandblasting, and as aggregate. But normally it is not. When it is sold, it is often sold for free transport off the site.

My experience has been that any coal plant that has efficienct combustion (and thus low unburned carbon in the ash) can sell all of their flyash, as the demand is greater than the supply.

Because of it's light nature, stacking it in a pile is never done (in the US at least). What you probably saw was just plain old coal.

Now, as to toxics in the coal ash. When fixed in concrete, the toxics are not a concern at all. And even when just landfilled, coal ash is relatively benign stuff. You asked about radium being an issue. In reality, the radium and radon level released in coal combustion is pretty insignificant. In fact, they are so low they are not even reported on any standard detailed coal trace element analysis, nor does the EPA require and monitoring, tracking, or accounting.

What can be a concern are heavy metals. And I stress the "can". Antimony, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, mercury, lead, selenium, vanadium - all of these are found in varying levels in coal and the coal ash - from 0.1 ppm to 500 ppm. And while the levels overall are small, a coal plant can produce a million or more tons of ash per year. That results in a whole lot of some of these heavy metals.

But this is not a coal-specific problem. Petroleum has very high levels of nickel and vanadium, so high that sometimes the vanadium can be processed out of the oil ash and sold.

Based on current EPA direction (regardless of who wins the election) most likely the Coal Plant O' the Future will be required to monitor mercury, arsenic, lead, and cadmium emissions. And possibly even start scrubbing these out of the flue gas. So the possibility of taking extra measures to prevent leaching of these metals from the ash as it sits in the pond or in storage exists.

I also want to add something to my earlier post. Regardless of how clean you make coal, there is still one, key emission that cannot be eliminated practically - carbon dioxide. We have enough energy to last for well more than 100 years in the form of coal, but while this can be burned very cleanly overall it will still result in an enormous contribution to carbon dioxide emissions, and thus any potential greenhouse effect.

[Dogzilla]

I really appreciate you going to the trouble to enlighten me (us) on all that. I truly am ignorant on the subject and thanks for setting me straight.

Did ya have to be so condescending at the beginning? I was trying to be a little silly. IRL, I'm actually funny, but you can't hear my tone of voice on a message board, so obviously I came off as a pompous ass, ranting on something I don't know anything about. I'll go do some actual research now.

I had no idea the US was still using so much coal... This makes me wonder about all those poor Appalachian coal miners... I was under the impression that many of them had nothing to do/were unemployed. Have we cut back on coal production so significantly? I'm a little confused about why there's such ferocious poverty up there if we use/need coal so much. Are we getting it from other parts of the country and the West Virginians are just SOL?

And thanks again for clearing up my confusion: I hear CFC's and know that means Chloroflourocarbons (sp?). In my tiny brain, Carbon = coal. Thought burning coal would do the same thing as spraying Aqua Net. Evidently not.

{slinks off, humiliated, to find a thread about South Park}

[Una Persson]

Originally posted by Zette
I agree, Anthricite- I find your posts very intelligent and informative. Thanks for all that info- I had no idea (and I don't normally keep my head in the sand over energy issues- I just didn't realize the impact coal had on our everyday energy use).

Zette
(remembering her late Grandfather today, who died from working in the coal mines many years ago)
I am sorry about your grandfather. Coal mining was an ugly and dangerous business for more than a century, and although I know it doesn't help in your loss, at least today it is a reasonably safe, high-paying business for those brave men and women that still work in it.

[Una Persson]

Maybe this has turned into a GQ topic? Unless no one else wants to talk about coal, in which case I'll be happy to let it slide into oblivion...

[TwistofFate]

Atracite, I now know a something I necer know before. Thank you for educating me.

btw, you aren't coal, you're a diamond. ;)


as an aside, would the level of Solar/Hydro "green" methods be able to compensate with the downturn in Nuclear creation?

is it worth the time and effort to develop these to help compensate the level of coal energy production needed?

[Narile]

Thank you Anthricite.

[BunnyGirl]

OMG, what a great thread! Very interseting, Mr. Coal Man :)

The original power plant here in Lansing was constructed with different color bricks, darker at the bottom and progressing lighter toward the top, to illustrate the coal combustion process. Its a pretty neat building, right downtown. The local Board of Water and Light is trying to find a buyer for - I guess it wasn't functional or whatever anymore. No one wants to tear it down 'cause its a pretty cool building, right on the river, and has a lot of local history.

[pluto]

Just a note about the use of fly ash in concrete:

Adding processed fly ash (known as pozzalin) to concrete results in a stronger, more uniform finished product, but the most common reason for using it is because it reduces the amount of water required in the mix. The water in concrete doesn't evaporate -- it drives a chemical reaction known as curing. While curing, concrete gives off heat and the amount of heat given off limits the amount of concrete you can use at any one time. Very large projects (e.g., Grand Coulee Dam) would be much more costly and time-consuming without the addition of pozzalin to the concrete.

There are naturally occurring pozzalins, but, as Anthracite stated, fly ash is a very good source and is used almost exclusively nowadays.

[ASD]

Part of the reason that you hear about unemployed coal miners in the East is because much of the coal there is high-sulfur and once Clean Air Act regulations went into effect it became cheaper to use or mix in coal from other places which had lower sulfur content.

The much bigger part of the picture however, is that a lot of the work that used to be done by people can now be done much more effectively by machines. It's not unique to the coal industry--it's just that alot of coal areas weren't ever that strong economically anyway and didn't have a very diversified employment base so losing the coal jobs really hammered them.

A state of the art coal plant will actually emit less carbon dioxide than a natural gas plant. Also, combined heat and power plants can cut down dramatically on carbon dioxide emissions (that's when they use the steam generated to heat buildings rather than venting it or using cooling towers). My college actually used this system--it was pretty cool.

Anyway--I'm not quite the expert Anthracite is, but I did do a MS thesis on reducing CO2 emissions from coal in central PA so I know a little bit about that side of things.

[Una Persson]

Originally posted by Dogzilla
Did ya have to be so condescending at the beginning? I was trying to be a little silly. IRL, I'm actually funny, but you can't hear my tone of voice on a message board, so obviously I came off as a pompous ass, ranting on something I don't know anything about. I'll go do some actual research now.
No, I most certainly did not have to be, and I apologize to you. I posted that I was sick in my first response, and I will fall back on that as my only excuse for why I was in a bad mood last night. Once again, I am sorry.

This makes me wonder about all those poor Appalachian coal miners... I was under the impression that many of them had nothing to do/were unemployed. Have we cut back on coal production so significantly? I'm a little confused about why there's such ferocious poverty up there if we use/need coal so much. Are we getting it from other parts of the country and the West Virginians are just SOL?

Well, the coal produciton in the US has had a dramatic shift to the West over the last 10 years, and this is likely what you are seeing. There are two reasons for this:

1) Although the coal in the Eastern US is pretty good quality overall, it has been mined very heavily, such that prices have been climbing steadily every year. And many good mines have really started getting into the "boney" coal (coal with a lot of rock and debris mixed with it).

2) But the major reason is the sulfur content, as the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 caused most all coal plants East of the Mississippi to consider switching to low-sulfur Wyoming and Montana coal to reduce SO2 emissions (sulfur dioxide, a principal component of acid rain). Coal commonly mined in the East can typically have sulfur contents ranging from 1 to 3 percent, while coal mined in Wyoming and Montana can range from 0.2 to 0.5 percent typically.

Most all miners in the East were not willing to move to the West, and in the West most mining is done by open-pit mines anyways, which are less labor intensive than longwall (underground) mines.

And use of these PRB coals (Powder River Basin, meaning the region in Wyoming and Montana from which they are mined) has grown enormously in just the 8 years I've been working on this issue. Coal plants as far East as Virginia are now either receiving or planning to receive coal from Wyoming, due to it's low sulfur and low nitrogen content as well (low nitrogen and the high moisture and other flame-specific characteristics of these PRB coals means less NOx, or nitrogen oxides produced, which are another component of acid rain and photochemical smog).

[UncleBeer]

I think I'm going to move this to GQ. Thanks for the poop, Anthracite.

[Una Persson]

Originally posted by TwistofFate
as an aside, would the level of Solar/Hydro "green" methods be able to compensate with the downturn in Nuclear creation?

is it worth the time and effort to develop these to help compensate the level of coal energy production needed?
The short answer is, hardly at all, depending on how much you want to pay for electricity. But then again, 2020 is a ways away still. If you can stand a $600 to $1000 a month electric bill at your current rate of consumption, then solar and wind will work for you.

The main issue comes down to cost. Solar is very expensive, wind is as well. It's hard to see how wind can be made a whole lot more efficient, but solar definitely has some promise. I think more effort should be spent on developing these, certainly.

Hydro is cheap and great, but like I mentioned, we already have dammed everything we're going to be able to in the US, and many environmentalists are now actively pushing to have dams removed. So hydro has apparently peaked. Great stuff, but it's at the limit.

IMO, it's always worth the time to explore ways to better use renewable energy sources. You see, many think that because my life's work is with coal and coal power plant analysis that I am 100% pro-coal. Well, if someone produced a solar cell with a 90% efficiency, or fusion, or whatever, I would readily embrace it, even if I could no longer do my job.

[Sunspace]

Thanks, Anthracite, for a great post!

I live in a province that uses mostly nuclear, hydro and natural-gas for electricity generation; coal is a very minor item in the list.

I *do* pass a coal-fired power-plant regularly--but there's a deal in the works for the state-owned utility (which was just privatized and broken up) to convert it to natural gas and sell it.

BTW, I remember reading a science-fiction novel about a small country in an unspecified location that had to rebuild its railways in the 21st century and chose advanced coal-powered steam locomotives, an innovative solution that had been overlooked by most other countries.

I got to thinking, we've tricked up the internal-combustion engine with computer controls and made it more efficient... is there any comparable work being done with external-combustion engines, either railway or road? Or are most people looking at fuel cells these days?

[Una Persson]

Originally posted by BunnyGirl
OMG, what a great thread! Very interseting, Mr. Coal Man :)
Thank you. However, I prefer to be called Ms. Coal Woman...

The original power plant here in Lansing was constructed with different color bricks, darker at the bottom and progressing lighter toward the top, to illustrate the coal combustion process. Its a pretty neat building, right downtown. The local Board of Water and Light is trying to find a buyer for - I guess it wasn't functional or whatever anymore. No one wants to tear it down 'cause its a pretty cool building, right on the river, and has a lot of local history.
That does sound cool, BunnyGirl. I never heard of that building - do you know what the name of the power plant was?

[Una Persson]

Originally posted by pluto
Adding processed fly ash (known as pozzalin) to concrete results in a stronger, more uniform finished product, but the most common reason for using it is because it reduces the amount of water required in the mix. The water in concrete doesn't evaporate -- it drives a chemical reaction known as curing. While curing, concrete gives off heat and the amount of heat given off limits the amount of concrete you can use at any one time. Very large projects (e.g., Grand Coulee Dam) would be much more costly and time-consuming without the addition of pozzalin to the concrete.

There are naturally occurring pozzalins, but, as Anthracite stated, fly ash is a very good source and is used almost exclusively nowadays.
Great contribution, pluto, thank you. BTW, I read an article in Power once that in the early part of this century (err...last century, whatever) there was a very small coal plant in Connecticut that was built almost solely for producing fly ash for concrete use, using a high (about 25%) ash coal. From what I understand, they didn't really add any tube surface to get steam and use for heating and power until nearly 2 years after it was first in operation!

[Una Persson]

Originally posted by Sunspace
I got to thinking, we've tricked up the internal-combustion engine with computer controls and made it more efficient... is there any comparable work being done with external-combustion engines, either railway or road? Or are most people looking at fuel cells these days?
Well, I'll add this interesting note. The newest high-tech trend in coal plants is in installing and using Neural Net Optimization Systems to improve the performance and emissions of the power plant. And in some cases, they do a very good job, where the software, hardware, sensors and instrumentation, and labor are paid back within one month!

It is amazing how little instrumentation and measurement goes on in a $200 Million coal plant. I am always just floored when the owners of a plant that large and that vital that costs that much to operate can't tell me even what their coal burn rate is, which is the single most important variable in measuring the performance and emissions of a coal plant. With the installation of more and more measuring equipment and instruments and controls, huge efficiencies can be realized. And savings measured in millions of dollars per year. And cleaner air for all.

[Una Persson]

Originally posted by ASD
A state of the art coal plant will actually emit less carbon dioxide than a natural gas plant. Also, combined heat and power plants can cut down dramatically on carbon dioxide emissions (that's when they use the steam generated to heat buildings rather than venting it or using cooling towers).
While I agree that directly using the steam for heat is more efficient, I have to disagree about natural gas emitting less CO2 than a coal plant. If you mean in terms of equal electricity output, there are a few factors to consider:

Natural gas burns with a lower CO2 level than coal on a Btu basis. This can be verified by simple stoichiometric calculations. For example, in a unit I am evaluating which is cofiring Foidel Creek coal with Natural Gas, the results are:

lbm CO2 emitted /100 lbm coal : 230.84
lbm CO2 emitted /100 lbm gas : 266.66

with the coal at 11,300 Btu/lbm, and the gas at 22,737 Btu/lbm (1027.7 Btu/scf), we get the following:

CO2 production, lbm/MBtu:

Coal - 204.28 lbm/MBtu CO2
Gas - 117.25 lbm/MBtu CO2

so while they are close on a lbm basis, they are not on a Btu basis. And remember, the boiler doesn't care about mass - it cares about Btu's.

But this case was for coal steam versus gas steam plants. If one is comparing aeroderivative gas turbines, they have an even higher utilization efficiency, or heat rate than a coal plant does. So on a per-kW basis, a typical gas turbine will emit much less CO2 than a coal plant will. A top of the line coal plant will have a Net Unit Heat Rate of around 9000 Btu/kW*hr, which means for every 9000 Btu/hr (higher heating value basis) of coal which are burned, 1 kilowatt will be produced. This is approximately a 37.9% efficiency. And this is for an *exceptional* coal plant.

A gas turbine can be expected to have a Net Unit Heat Rate of about 7000 Btu/kW*hr (higher heating value basis), which means for every 7000 Btu/hr of gas burned, 1 kilowatt will be produced. This results in an efficiency of around 48.7%.

[Nukeman]

Wow, Anthracite, that first post has to be one of the longest on record. And the most fact - filled.

[sailor]

As usual, extremely good information from Anthracite. I have to give credit to dogzilla for learning from this thread but when asking "Did ya have to be so condescending at the beginning?" I would have to say *yes*, you were really asking for it. The OP was filled with assumptions and innuendo and was asking for a put down. If instead of Anthracite you would have got some responses from the conspiracy crowd, this thread would have taken a totally different direction. I commend you for being openminded and learning but if you read the OP you will see it was asking for a harsh response. I cannot blame Anthracite in the least.

At any rate, good and informative thread. I have some questions about electricity rates but I don't want to hijack this thread so I should start a new one.

[ASD]

Ok--perhaps state of the art was a little overly optimistic. Experimental coal technologies (some of the pilot programs in the clean coal technologies program) using systems like fluidized pressurized beds and integrated gasification combined cycles can emit less CO2/kWh than exisitng natural gas plants. These are coal plants that are expected to see efficiencies of over 40% (I'd have to go back and check my thesis for the exact projections). Not exactly a fair comparison perhaps since methane plants are also improving, but the point is that research into cleaning up coal-based energy production is an important part of our energy strategy in my opinion. I would love to see us move more towards renewables--but until they become more reliable and cheaper we need to use cleaner coal technologies rather than relying on existing and aging plants that are inefficient.

[cornflakes]

I'll second honkytonkwillie, Zette, et al. Thanks for your expertise.

The heavy bottom ash from the plant (about 20% of the ash produced) can be sold as abrasive material for sandblasting, and as aggregate. But normally it is not. When it is sold, it is often sold for free transport off the site.
So, roughly how dense is bottom ash and how rough of grit is this stuff? I'm looking for some blasting media that is lighter than sand, yet cheap. Maybe a better question would be what are the chances of someone driving up to a plant in Texas and driving away with a hundered pounds or so of this stuff. I assume that most plants would not allow this for safety reasons.

[Una Persson]

Originally posted by cornflakes
So, roughly how dense is bottom ash and how rough of grit is this stuff? I'm looking for some blasting media that is lighter than sand, yet cheap. Maybe a better question would be what are the chances of someone driving up to a plant in Texas and driving away with a hundered pounds or so of this stuff. I assume that most plants would not allow this for safety reasons.
The density of bottom ash varies from coal to coal, but the typical number I use for calculations is 65 lbm/ft^3 (and 70 lbm/ft^3 for fly ash, if you are interested). It's abrasiveness I can't speak for in terms that would compare with sand.

Unfortunately, I really doubt (due to plant safety and security concerns) that they would allow people to just come on-site and remove bottom ash. So you are probably stuck looking for something else, I'm afraid.

[Duke]

Wow, Anthracite, I had no idea how much you'd earned your name. Thanks for the posts.

But I have two questions.

1. How safe is coal mining these days? I ask from a highly personal standpoint. My grandfather, who worked in a coal mine his whole life, died this April of lung cancer. My uncle, whom I am named after, died in a mining accident at the age of 21 (in 1965). He was my mom's only brother. What is the total human cost of coal?

2. No matter how "non-polluting" coal is, the fact remains that it is still a fossil fuel, and a CO2 emitter. CO2 emissions are widely believed to contribute to the "greenhouse effect" and global warming. The European Union is hounding the US on its level of CO2 emissions and demanding a cut. Will the US be able to politically sustain the current level of use of coal in electricity generation, or will there have to be a shift to non-CO2 fuels?

Again, thanks for your thought-provoking discussion. I have to say that, because of my family experience, I am wary about the continued use of coal.

[Cartooniverse]

I've stood deep underground IN the Lackawanna Coal Mines....surrounded by Anthracite Coal. I now have a deeper appreciation for it. ( pardon the pun ). Ms. Anth, you are the best !!!!!

Cartooniverse

[sailor]

Duke, can you explain what you mean by "non CO2 fuels"?

[Una Persson]

Originally posted by Duke
1. How safe is coal mining these days? I ask from a highly personal standpoint. My grandfather, who worked in a coal mine his whole life, died this April of lung cancer. My uncle, whom I am named after, died in a mining accident at the age of 21 (in 1965). He was my mom's only brother. What is the total human cost of coal?
A good place to find all the information you would ever want on coal mining safety is the Mine Safety and Health Administration of the Department of Labor's Website (http://www.msha.gov/).

According to their site, there have been just 30 deaths due to all mining-realted causes as of 10/6/2000 for this year Coal Mine Fatalities, 2000 to date (http://www.msha.gov/FATALS/FABC2000.HTM). These are almost all heavy machinery accidents, with a couple related to mine cave-ins or collapses. Black lung and other respiratory problems are no longer an issue, due to very stringent Government regulations on respiratory protection of coal miners and coal mine support workers.

I will leave you this website to give you more information, as it explains things a bit better than I can in the space provided. I will add this - of all the coal miners and persons in the industry I have ever met, none of them ever hated their job, or thought they were underpaid, or worked in an unsafe environment. But then again, this is the 1990's, which is a far cry from the time of your grandfather and uncle.

2. No matter how "non-polluting" coal is, the fact remains that it is still a fossil fuel, and a CO2 emitter. CO2 emissions are widely believed to contribute to the "greenhouse effect" and global warming. The European Union is hounding the US on its level of CO2 emissions and demanding a cut. Will the US be able to politically sustain the current level of use of coal in electricity generation, or will there have to be a shift to non-CO2 fuels?

I mentioned above that CO2 emissions were the one thing that coal utilization could not avoid, regardless of how many other emissions controls one places on the plant. The answer to your question is complex, as it is almost entirely a political one at this point in time. My guess is coal consumption will stay constant or slowly decline over the next 10 years (possibly to as low as 45% of the total energy production over the year), being replaced somewhat by natural gas. But I, and some other energy analysts I know, feel very strongly that natural gas prices will simply be too high within 12 years due to depletion. And if fusion energy does not come about, solar does not have a remarkable breakthrough in technology, and nuclear does not re-enter public favor and plants continue closing, then we will be steadily increasing coal combustion once again.

[Arjuna34]

Thanks for the safety info, Anthracite (as well as the extremely informative posts before it!) My grandfather was also killed in a coal mine, in western Virginia when the mine caved in.

Arjuna34

[RM Mentock]

My father worked down in the coal mines of Wyoming when he was young, alongside my grandfather and great uncles. I tell my kids that we were the envy of the neighborhood because we had coal-fired TVs, while everybody else only had wood-burning TVs.

This DOE site (http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/overview.html#electricity) projects the percentage of electricity generation from natural gas will increase, while that from coal will decrease over the next twenty years. "Generation from both natural gas and coal is projected to increase through 2020 to meet growing demand for electricity and offset the decline in nuclear power; however, the share of coal generation declines through 2020 because assumptions about electricity industry restructuring, such as higher cost of capital and shorter financial life of plants, favor the less capital-intensive and more efficient natural gas generation technologies."

[Dogzilla]

Originally posted by Anthracite

No, I most certainly did not have to be, and I apologize to you. I posted that I was sick in my first response, and I will fall back on that as my only excuse for why I was in a bad mood last night. Once again, I am sorry.


2) But the major reason is the sulfur content, as the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 caused most all coal plants East of the Mississippi to consider switching to low-sulfur Wyoming and Montana coal to reduce SO2 emissions (sulfur dioxide, a principal component of acid rain). Coal commonly mined in the East can typically have sulfur contents ranging from 1 to 3 percent, while coal mined in Wyoming and Montana can range from 0.2 to 0.5 percent typically.
[/B]

Thanks and I forgive you now! And I hope you're feeling a lot better, too! I can be pretty grouchy when I feel crappy too so I completely understand.

Now that you (and someone else) mention it, I do remember something from my environmental geology class about the sulfur content in the WVA coal. I went to college in the Appalachian foothills in SE Ohio -- two minutes out of town and you could clearly see the tragic effects of the coal industry (esp. the now-defunct -- I think -- practice of strip mining) all over the place. There were many grassroots organizations formed to try and assist these people.

Anyway, thanks to all for a lively and informative discussion -- I'm learning loads! ;)

[lemartel]

Since coal is the topic I have a question. I heard that Clinton set aside a large portion of a western state, Utah I think, as a national monument a year or so ago. This site was supposed to have a large deposit of coal under it that could not now be mined because of the monument designation. Is this true and does it affect the numbers stated above in any way? The context I heard this in said something about the only other comparable site in the world was in Riady controlled Indonesia. Do you or anyone else know the straight dope on this?

[Duke]

Anthracite:

Thanks kindly for the information. I guess coal mining has become safer in the modern era, though 30 deaths to the first ten months of the year is still a bit troubling. BTW my uncle died in a strip-mining accident; not the deep-pit he and my grandfather usually worked in, but obviously still a dangerous business in the 1960's.

A bit more about the EU, UK and coal--it goes without saying that the UK government over the last 25 years has been awful to the coal industry here. The coal industry is pretty much no more in England--there are only two deep pits still operational at anything like near capacity (both in Yorkshire). Wales still has some mining (many of the old miners, especially in northeast PA, were from the Welsh valleys).

On top of that, the EU has been fighting the US tooth and nail over CO2 emissions, and one of the sore points seems specifically to be the US's reliance on coal-powered electricity generation. Gore is on the record as wanting to "negotiate" with the EU on emissions, so that could spell problems for the US coal industry if he's elected.

Again, thanks for the info, Anthracite.

[Una Persson]

Originally posted by RM Mentock
I tell my kids that we were the envy of the neighborhood because we had coal-fired TVs, while everybody else only had wood-burning TVs.
Hehe...nice one.

This DOE site projects the percentage of electricity generation from natural gas will increase, while that from coal will decrease over the next twenty years. "Generation from both natural gas and coal is projected to increase through 2020 to meet growing demand for electricity and offset the decline in nuclear power; however, the share of coal generation declines through 2020 because assumptions about electricity industry restructuring, such as higher cost of capital and shorter financial life of plants, favor the less capital-intensive and more efficient natural gas generation technologies."

Yes, I am familiar with that report, and in fact took some assumptions for year 2000 generation from it. However, both I and some I know in the energy futures arena have some disagreements with it, principally on two levels:

1) The assumption of natural gas pricing is thought to be overly optimisitic on the part of the DOE. Some recent forecasts of demand seem to indicate that while in general gas will increase as a percent of energy supply for electrical production, the price per MBtu will increase far more sharply, and with greater variability, than the DOE predicts.

Already I have personally seen in one area of the US electric power generation from natural gas curtailed during the Winter months, because they can't risk not having enough natural gas for home and business heating. So they fire up the coal plants and let them go 5% overpressure to squeeze every MW they can get out of them.

2) It is hard to see how coal generation will increase much at all in the US currently. There is only one coal power plant being built right now in the US (or actually, rebuilt - the KCP&L Hawthorne Unit, which exploded a couple years ago). And no more units realistically expected to be built anytime soon. And the EPA is cracking down hard on many older units that try to increase their capacity, claiming it is in violation of the Clean Air Act Amendments. In fact, the EPA has even brought a suit (of sorts) against another quasi-governmental entity, Tennessee Valley Authority, for increasing capacity at several of their coal plants (ignoring the HUGE strides TVA has made in cleaning up their coal plants for the last decade).

[Una Persson]

Originally posted by lemartel
Since coal is the topic I have a question. I heard that Clinton set aside a large portion of a western state, Utah I think, as a national monument a year or so ago. This site was supposed to have a large deposit of coal under it that could not now be mined because of the monument designation. Is this true and does it affect the numbers stated above in any way? The context I heard this in said something about the only other comparable site in the world was in Riady controlled Indonesia. Do you or anyone else know the straight dope on this?

Here's Anthracite's straight dope on this (condensed from research I did last year, from various sources):

In September 1996, President Clinton designated 1.7 million acres of Utah wilderness as a national monument - the Escalante Memorial. The Administration alleged that the purpose of blocking coal mining in the area (called the Kaiparowits area) was simply to preserve a "beautiful, exotic place" that featured several archeological sites.

However, according to members of the Western States Coalition, a key archeological site and other important environmental sites the local residents wanted protected were left outside the 1.7 acre memorial, while ordinary desert land with no significance or unique natural features was included solely to block entrance to the environmentally friendly coal deposits.

The timing of this was also very suspect, since the announcement was made in the middle of the presidential campaign, right after the Democrats received large contributions originating from the Lippo group. John Huang, just after becoming second in command at the Commerce Department in 1994, began immediately campaigning for changes in US foreign policy in areas that would aid his former Lippo employer.

The Associated Press claimed that the Lippo Corporation in Indonesia is the only other source of the very low sulfur, non-polluting coal, outside the Utah Kaiparowits basin, that is currently available. And that several coal power plants arounf the World were potential customers for this coal supply in Utah. The Andalex Corporation, which held the leases on the now unavailable Kaiparowits coal, was forced to purchase equivalent quality coal from the Lippo group conglomerate, or use polluting coal sources. This especially had impacts for a plant to be built in environmentally-troubled Mexico, since now it must either buy coal from the Lippo group, or use a MUCH poorer quality local Mexican coal, with HUGE ramifications for pollution in the border region of Mexico and the US.

Another "curious" issue is that the President made this announcement very suddenly, without even consulting with the state of Utah's lone Congressional Democrat, Bill Orton, in whose district the Kaiparowits basin is found. His plan removes all competition for his friends, the Lippo group, which alloes it to become the sole readily available source of the high quality (very low ash and very low sulfur) coal for the entire world.

The Lippo corporation founder, billionaire Mochtar Riady, his family members and associates gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Clinton and the Democrats. Earlier in December, Bill Clinton admitted that he received a letter from Riady urging him to "normalize" trade relations with Vietnam at a time when Riady was moving its $6.9 billion real estate and investment empire into the country. Shortly thereafter, in 1994, over protests from veterans and family members of American soldiers missing in action in the Vietnam War, Clinton ended the 30-year Vietnam trade embargo.

This was going to be a big operation too. There are about 62 billion tons of coal in southern Utah's Kaiparowits Plateau. Mining it would have created thousands of jobs, and generated billions of dollars in school funds under the State's 1896 agreement with the Federal Government under the Utah statehood enabling act. Andalex Resources had a projected production capacity of more than 3 million tons of coal per year from just their first mine in the region. With Clinton's change of plans, they had to abandon the entire project.

This now un-mineable coal is known as "compliance" coal because its properties and quality meet Clean Air Act standards. It's not the absolute best quality, as coal from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana is of better quality. However, the Kaiparowits region had the largest supply of clean, easily marketable coal, according to the director of Utah's geological survey.

Thus, Clinton's actions had several effects:

* They helped create a monopoly for the Lippo Conglomerate coal,

* They hurt the economy in Utah, and

* They left Utah without a source of locally-available clean burning coal to provide the state's energy needs when its present mines are depleted, in the range of 15 to 30 years from now.

Another issue is that unlike Utah coal, which is extracted by relatively environmentally friendly underground mining, the Indonesian coalis extracted by surface strip mining, which is not very environmentally friendly.

Overall, in the grand scheme of thing for the US, restricting mining in this area causes a dent on the coal supply, but only a small one. There is so much coal in Wyoming, Montana, North and South Dakota, and still in the Appalachians it doesn't change projections out to 100 years very much at all.

Anyhow, I hope this answers you question...