Future of Engineering
Monday, April 7, 2008
Invention Scrubs 90% of Coal Plant Pollutants for Fraction of Cost
Let's face it. For all the big nice talk about alternative energy, it’s not realistic to eliminate fossil fuels in the next 50 years, unless you can afford to shut down the world economy!
The US Department of Energy’s 2008 energy outlook estimates the use of renewables will increase by only 2.5 percent in the next 23 years.
By 2030, it estimates that the use of coal will constitute 55 percent of the nation’s fuel, up from 49 percent last year. The chief reason? There’s an estimated 300-year supply of coal in known reserves in the United States alone, the Energy Department said.
So it looks like coal is going to be a very popular fuel having phenomenal growth. But with that growth will come a surge of roughly 500 million metric tons of emissions, the Energy Department predicts.
All these mean that the urgent need of the hour is a method of removing carbon and other polluting emissions so that coal becomes an acceptable long-term fuel source.
Which is exactly a US scientist has thought up!
A Colorado scientist David Neumann has teamed up with Colorado Springs Utilities to test an invention that could revolutionize the power industry and save the planet at the same time.
Air Force Academy graduate Neumann, who holds a doctorate in physics, has developed a process he says he believes will scrub 90 percent of pollutants spewed by the city’s coal-fired electric plants for a fraction of the cost of other processes under development. If successful, the new chemical treatment would mean thousands of coal-burning plants worldwide could sharply curtail power plant emissions.
So far, there is no proven technology for removing carbon from the emissions, but Neumann said he believes his invention will handle carbon as well as the other pollutants. He also said his unit would be 20 times smaller than other versions being tested, which can cover acres.
The testing of Neumann's process, which has just begun, will start on a small scale.
It is hoped that the test will lead to a way to reduce the cost of retrofitting coal plants. Some analysis suggest a market potential of $700 billion pollution control market worldwide for existing coal plants alone. So, well, Neumann is perhaps not doing it out of just altruism alone, but he deserves the returns if he is successful, doesn't he?
Neumann, after retiring from Space Command in 1994, he started Neumann Systems Group Inc. has done research and development on high-powered lasers for defense contractors. He and his associate, Tom Henshaw decided to work on a way to adapt their laser business to pollution control, and they ended up with a much more powerful (and possibly far more remunerative) idea than their original one!
The US Department of Energy’s 2008 energy outlook estimates the use of renewables will increase by only 2.5 percent in the next 23 years.
By 2030, it estimates that the use of coal will constitute 55 percent of the nation’s fuel, up from 49 percent last year. The chief reason? There’s an estimated 300-year supply of coal in known reserves in the United States alone, the Energy Department said.
So it looks like coal is going to be a very popular fuel having phenomenal growth. But with that growth will come a surge of roughly 500 million metric tons of emissions, the Energy Department predicts.
All these mean that the urgent need of the hour is a method of removing carbon and other polluting emissions so that coal becomes an acceptable long-term fuel source.
Which is exactly a US scientist has thought up!
A Colorado scientist David Neumann has teamed up with Colorado Springs Utilities to test an invention that could revolutionize the power industry and save the planet at the same time.
Air Force Academy graduate Neumann, who holds a doctorate in physics, has developed a process he says he believes will scrub 90 percent of pollutants spewed by the city’s coal-fired electric plants for a fraction of the cost of other processes under development. If successful, the new chemical treatment would mean thousands of coal-burning plants worldwide could sharply curtail power plant emissions.
So far, there is no proven technology for removing carbon from the emissions, but Neumann said he believes his invention will handle carbon as well as the other pollutants. He also said his unit would be 20 times smaller than other versions being tested, which can cover acres.
The testing of Neumann's process, which has just begun, will start on a small scale.
It is hoped that the test will lead to a way to reduce the cost of retrofitting coal plants. Some analysis suggest a market potential of $700 billion pollution control market worldwide for existing coal plants alone. So, well, Neumann is perhaps not doing it out of just altruism alone, but he deserves the returns if he is successful, doesn't he?
Neumann, after retiring from Space Command in 1994, he started Neumann Systems Group Inc. has done research and development on high-powered lasers for defense contractors. He and his associate, Tom Henshaw decided to work on a way to adapt their laser business to pollution control, and they ended up with a much more powerful (and possibly far more remunerative) idea than their original one!
Labels: Energy-Environment-Engineering
PermaLink - Invention Scrubs 90% of Coal Plant Pollutants for Fraction of Cost posted by Ecacofonix : 2:10 AM
