Emerging Tech- Coal to Liquid\Gas CTL\G

The coal-to-gas (CTG)  conversion process uses a new catalyst that lowers the heat needed and therefore the energy loss from conversion of coal to natural gas. The  several advantages of the process:

Produces methane in a single step and in a single reactor

• Pipeline grade product
• No need for external water gas shift reactor
• No need for external methanation reactor
• Produces CO₂ as a valuable sequestration-ready byproduct

Significantly reduces operating temperature

• Lower cost reactor components
• Lower maintenance costs and higher reliability
• Eliminates costly high temperature cooling

Utilizes steam methanation

• Eliminates costly air separation plant

High efficiency

• 65% overall efficiency
• Thermally neutral reaction process
• No need for integrated power plant

The price of oil has gotten so high that lots of talented people with entrepreneurial streaks are coming up with cheaper ways to get liquid and gaseous fuel from coal.

Even if the plants that convert coal to liquid and gaseous fuels can be made to be carbon-neutral at low cost a shift to coal on a scale sufficient to increase liquid fuels production would still lead to higher CO2 emissions. The liquids would get burned in vehicles and vehicle consumption of hydrocarbon liquids would rise.

Advances in battery technology show the most promise for reducing both conventional pollutant emissions and CO2 emissions. First off, cheap and high energy density batteries would lower the cost of hybrids. That would increase efficiency of burning liquid fuels and therefore reduce emissions. Also, batteries will enable a migration toward use of electricity to charge up vehicles. Then stationary power plants – whose emissions are far eaiser to reduce – will supply an increasing fraction of all energy used in transportation.

The migration to pluggable hybrids and pure electric vehicles will allow nuclear, solar, and wind to provide power for transportation. Also, coal-burning electric plants could in theory be made to have zero emissions. Whether the cost of zero emissions coal will ever compete with nuclear, wind, and future cheaper photovoltaics remains to be seen.

Climate Crisis

In developing countries such as India, the concerns for climate change parallel the concerns for meeting energy demands for developmental works.

Total emissions in India are the fourth-largest after the US, China and Russia, but its per capita footprint is 1.2 tonnes a year, against 20 tonnes in the US and the world average of 4 tonnes

Consider this. The country’s largest electricity generator National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has also been identified as the third largest polluter among the world’s power generation companies by the Washington-based Center for Global Development.

At the same time, India faces acute power shortage that leaves more than 400 million, mostly rural, people without electricity every day. Nearly 7 million Indians use firewood and animal waste as fuel for cooking. The country needs to expand power generation capacity by 160,000MW over the next decade.

Analysts estimate that if 1.02 lakh family type biogas plants are installed within a year, the move would save 1.4 lakh tonnes of fuel wood and 14 lakh tonnes of organic manure. Biogas fuel can be used for cooking, heating and lighting, space cooling, refrigeration and in dual-fuel or 100% gas engines for motive power. When attached with alternators, it can generate electricity. The government is close to achieving its target of installing 1.02 lakh biogas plants.

Arun Mohanty of Parivesh Unnayan Parishad, an NGO that works towards environmental causes, feels that while development cannot be compromised, justifying environmental damage in the name of progress is inexcusable. The solution is to find a middle path. He says every citizen needs to be aware of the importance of a balanced ecosystem, and shouldn’t wait for the government to take steps.

“Where is the problem if every individual takes the initiative towards a greener environment? Even the educated ones living in the cities are not aware enough. Tell them that the river Ganges is going to dry up in two to three decades and they will laugh it off as a joke,” he says.

That said, energy security is a key to sustaining India’s 8%-plus economic growth.

India’s consumption of petroleum products is around 112mt per annum and it imports 78% of its energy needs.

By the government’s estimates, energy consumption in the country is set to quadruple over the next 25 years, inevitably expanding Indian emission of greenhouse gases.

But the current figures show that the Indian per capita carbon footprint remains a fraction of that of the industrialized world — the average American produces 16 times the emission of the average Indian. This fact empowers the central Indian argument for its right to consume more, not less, energy in the future.

India points out that it contributes 4.6% of the world’s greenhouse gases although its people represent 17% of the world’s population.

India has pledged to ensure its per capita emissions never exceed those of the developed world. It has consistently tackled pressures to set targets for reducing emissions, arguing that it has neither been a significant polluter nor yet able to spread modern energy to millions of its poor.

Power generation across India has been stepped up, with the government promising to extend electricity across rural India over the next five years, but that, too, is a mixed blessing. The old-fashioned coal-fired power plants in India are among the biggest polluters in the country, according to a survey released recently by an American environmental group, Carbon Monitoring for Action.

“The key is to find the rich and the poor, the developed and the developing, and the large and small polluters in a deal, if we want to leave behind a healthy liveable environment for our children,” contemplates Mohanty.