Solid Coal Fuel Cell | Green Energy News

November 6, 2005 – Vol.10 No.33

SOLID COAL FUEL CELL.

Much to the chagrin of those concerned about global warming, coal-fired power plants - a leading contributor to greenhouse gases - could be around for a few hundred more years.

The reason?

There’s plenty of coal on the planet to feed them.

However, even though coal is abundant, its cost is rising too. The reasons are varied. Some companies blame increased transportation and shipping costs. (Diesel, which has gone up in price along with gasoline, is used to fuel locomotives, barge tugs, and trucks that transport coal.) Other companies claim higher demand for coal has driven up market prices. (Like the sale of oil, and natural gas, coal is sold to the highest bidders at market-trading determined prices.) Still other companies say the lack of qualified and trained coal miners has caused production to drop, thus costs to increase. (Do high school or college grads look for careers in coal mining?)

If the cost of coal continues to increase, coal mining companies and utility companies reliant on coal might voluntarily find ways to burn coal more efficiently or face growing competition for other energy sources including renewables.

One technology coal companies may soon be looking at is a device called a Direct Carbon Fuel Cell (DCFC) which can convert the chemical energy in coal directly to electricity without gasification. The device can use pulverized coal, or any variety of solid high-carbon fuels such as coke, tar, biomass, and organic waste, as fuel.

Researchers at SRI International (Stanford Research Institute) say that a Direct Carbon Fuel Cell would be able to generate power at twice the efficiency of conventional coal power plants. The only emission would be a stream of almost pure carbon dioxide which could be captured and sequestered, or sold for industrial purposes.

The DCFC design uses the best features of solid oxide fuel cells and molten carbonate-air fuel cells to oxidize carbon (thus carbon dioxide) in a one-step process to make electricity from solid coal.

Researchers from SRI will be presenting the DCFC technology at a special workshop at the 2005 Fuel Cell Seminar in Palm Springs, California on November 14, 2005. (About the time you read this.) Hopefully there will be more information available after the seminar.

Visit SRI at http://www.sri.com/ and the Direct Carbon Conversion Workshop at http://www.fuelcellseminar.com/free_workshop.asp .