Re: Coal + hydrogen question

From: brianb (bri1600bv_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 07/21/04 

Date: 21 Jul 2004 06:20:22 -0700

dezakin@usa.net (Dez Akin) wrote in message news:<dd43b4da.0407201436.127180e5@posting.google.com>...
> bri1600bv@hotmail.com (brianb) wrote in message news:<68a6629.0407191917.43a535c0@posting.google.com>...
> > Would it be possible to instead of converting coal to oil, convert
> > coal + hydrogen to oil? Would this allow the process to use more of
> > the carbon in the coal?
>
> Yes. William Mook proposes this as part of his business model over the
> next decade. I'm not sure where he gets the capital to build the
> fischer-tropsh reactors, but if he can provide the very cheap
> hydrogen, maybe he can sell it to some big name synthetic fuel
> company, or a company that does oil refining, as hydrogen is utilized
> in the refining process.
>
> For the easier way, if you're right next to a large natural gas
> source, you can do partial reformation of the methane for synthesis
> gas thats heavy on hydrogen, and then do partial oxidation of the coal
> for CO to mix in. After you have Mook's inexpensive hydrogen you can
> discard the natural gas source and the coal/water shift reaction and
> make maximum use of your carbon source. Hopefully William will
> deliver.

What do you think the cost total would be?

IE 100*H + 1*C + capital cost + heating + operation = 7 barrels

Where H are cost of hydrogen (per kg)
C = cost of coal (per ton)

Chinese have a plant with capital costs around $10/barrel. It gets
3barrels per ton of coal. Not sure if this plant would be more
efficient capital wise as the Chinese probably use some coal for
heating the process.

If Hydrogen is $2/kg and Coal is $40/ton that's $34/barrel in raw
materials. If you add $30 for capital and labor and heating it
$64/barrel or about $1.50 /gallon (42 gal per barrel), which is about
what we pay now (w/o tax).

Hydrogen at $2/kg (kg is about 125,000BTU approx., I think) - if that
requires 50kwh of electric then wind at 3-4c/kwh could do that. Wind
wouldn't have to be hooked up to the "grid"....just a line into the
electrolyzer.

To make 700M barrels would require 100M tons of coal (10% of what we
use). So that's 100kg/ton * 100M = 10 billion kgs of hydrogen. 500b
kwh. Each 1MW wind makes (at 30% capacity) about 2.5M kwh per year.
So that's 20K 1MW wind machines.

This sounds pretty doable, but I never hear anything like it
mentioned.
Maybe it doesn't make sense as just using coal (in my numbers) the
costs would be $40/3 + $30 per barrel or about $43 and this isn't done
in the US.

>
> > How much energy would this take to add the heat and whatnot?
> >
> > I think about 100kgs of hydrogen and 1000kgs of coal (which is 6%
> > hydrogen) would do it.
> >
> > Would it be cheaper to use sequestered carbon dioxide? Or would
> > splitting the carbon from the oxygen require too much work?
>
> It would require much more energy certainly. You would have to have
> fiat mandate from the government to persuede industry to pursue this
> option while the inexpensive coal lies around everywhere.
>
> > Does anyone know? Is this even possible? I would think so, it would
> > also allow liquid fuels to be made from renewable energy (wind for
> > example) rather than just hydrogen. Right now wind is limited on the
> > grid due to intermittency.
>
> Add more dams or pumped storage and you can rev up wind all you
> want... as long as you can get wind itself competitive, which I have
> some reservations about.

There's nothing left to dam down here, I don't think. You could have
storage where you pump the water above the dam with wind and then let
it go through in high demand. But this assumes that the dam isn't run
100% during high demand already. Plus that it needs more water in the
reservoir.

The good thing about a wind to hydrogen (I think, maybe I'm wrong) is
that you don't have to hook it up to the grid, where it's somewhat
problematic and under-utilized.

Relevant Pages

  • Sold on hydrogen
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    (sci.energy.hydrogen)
  • Re: Global Warming / Renewable Energy
    ... for a later date when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow. ... If the energy companies paid for the equipment using subsidies from the ... A2 We need to find a way of re-locking carbon back into rocks etc, ...
    (uk.sci.weather)
  • Re: OT ~ The Carbon Credits Smokescreen
    ... that we use nothing but "green florescent" bulbs ... If the wind doesn't blow, ... Then we sell Carbon Credits! ... "Follow The Money" ...
    (rec.outdoors.rv-travel)
  • Re: Lochluichart eagles and ospreys
    ... >>exposed, bleak places, and being exposed, bleak places, nobody lives ... >>There may be better places to build wind farms, ... > and solar energy. ... Better still, you can grow crops which fix carbon, then burn them to ...
    (uk.rec.birdwatching)
  • Re: Coal + hydrogen question
    ... > Would it be possible to instead of converting coal to oil, ... if you're right next to a large natural gas ... make maximum use of your carbon source. ... Right now wind is limited on the ...
    (sci.energy)