Points of Interest | Green Energy News

January 25, 2004 – Vol.8 No.44

POINTS OF INTEREST.

(A weekly collection of websites worth visiting.)

Like it or not the world is awash in cheap coal. It will be a scene in the energy picture for a century or more. So a better energy conversion process than burning it must be found.

By the earliest definitions, a fuel cell was a device in which the energy released in the oxidation of a conventional fuel is made directly available in the form of an electric current.

So, what about conventional fuels such as coal or charcoal? Coal gas (methane) is used in Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells (MCFC) but solid coal, cleaned and powdered, for fuel cells is the subject of research done by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as well as a California-based company known as Scientific Applications and Research Associates (SARA).

SARA has patented a device it calls a Direct Carbon Fuel Cell (DCFC) in which carbon (from coal or biomass waste converted to charcoal) combines with oxygen in the air to make carbon dioxide and electricity. Carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas, is released, sequestered, or pumped back into the fuel cell.

According to SARA and DOE research, the coal conversion to electricity can be as high as 80 percent efficient. And since it doesn’t involve combustion (no smokestacks - nothing burns) there are no smog-forming emissions nor fly ash.

The company’s claims seem to be backed up by the DOE research.

SARA also claims the process is sustainable, since biomass can be used as fuel, and carbon dioxide emissions are significantly reduced compared with a conventional coal-fired power plant.

For the DOE study visit the National Energy Technology Laboratory at http://www.netl.doe.gov/ (see Publications, Conference Proceedings, Direct Carbon Fuel Cell Workshop 7/20/03). For SARA visit http://www.sara.com/ .

(While at the SARA website be sure to also examine the company’s experimental Ocean Wave Energy Conversion system that utilizes a float bobbing up and down in waves while connected vertically to a linear electric generator.)