Google analytics tag

Showing posts with label Zero Carbon emissions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zero Carbon emissions. Show all posts

Sunday, January 24, 2021

ZERO EMISSION BASELOAD POWER USING ONLY SUN AND SEAWATER

 It is estimated about 2000 billion tons of anthropogenic CO2 has been emitted and absorbed by both air and sea since the industrial revolution. Therefore, it is clear there is no need to source anymore Carbon from coal, oil, and gas. This basic fact is of paramount importance in solving the emission problem moving forward to a cleaner future. Any fossil fuel-based Carbon should be penalized with Carbon tax to avoid past mistakes of Carbon emissions. This is precisely what the Carbon Recycling Technology known as Ramana Power cycle (RPC) is based on, a technology developed and patented in Australia. It generates a Carbon negative renewable synthetic fuel known as RSMG (renewable synthetic methane gas) using Carbon dioxide and renewable Hydrogen both extracted from the sea. The process extracts not only Carbon dioxide and Hydrogen from seawater, but also pure Oxygen required for combustion along with de-ionized water for steam and condensers. The process uses only sun and seawater to solve one of the toughest problems of global warming and climate change humanity has ever faced. There can be no better technology than RPC that can solve not only global warming and climate change but also guarantees sustainable base load power generation with zero emissions!

The advantage of this process it uses existing power generation technology such as Allan-Fetvedt cycle using supercritical CO2 gas turbine in closed cycle mode. The only difference is it uses RSMG a renewable fuel instead of natural gas and Oxygen from seawater not from the air using ASU. About 99% of CO2 emitted from this power cycle is captured and converted into RSMG internally for recycling and the process continues to generate a baseload power (24 x 7) with Zero emission.

RPC thus solves the problem of CO2 emission, global warming, and climate change without using any fossil fuel and without any emissions at all. There is no need for energy storage like a huge stack of batteries for few hours of storage at an enormous cost. We can set up such baseload power plants at various parts of the world to cater to hundreds of homes, businesses, Cars (both electric and Hydrogen) and to continuous (24 x 7) process industries such as Steel, Aluminum and Caustic soda, etc

The above Zero-emission power plant can also be installed using LNG at the site as a start-up fuel and subsequently substituted with RSMG. The entire plant will be operated using only renewable energy and locally available water source in the absence of seawater. CRT offers the highest electrical efficiency of 65% of LHV of RSMG and above (more than that of the fuel cell) thus offering the lowest Levelized cost of power. An interesting fact about RSMG is it is an ideal fuel for Space X of Elon Musk with highest heating value, with no CO2 or Sulfur compounds and it is a Carbon negative fuel and it is RENEWABLE. CRT will be the first power plant to achieve a circular economy in a true sense setting an example for future energy projects.

CRT will be the first power plant to achieve a circular economy in a true sense setting an example for future energy projects.The biggest advantage of CRT is it does not require CO2 capturing for every cycle because the same CO2 is being recycled indefinitely (except for a make-up of any losses). In my personal opinion all other technologies such as CCS (carbon capture and storage) and CCUS (carbon capture, utilization and storage) will not be the real solution. They are being promoted only for one purpose, namely to keep the existing and operating fossil fuel based plants running till end of their life. Otherwise it will serve no real purpose because there is no concrete use for CO2 on a larger scale. Products made out of captured CO2 will eventually emit CO2 back into the atmosphere at the point of application. It will only help to shift CO2 emissions from one place to another place and eventually into the atmosphere.

The above process can be readily demonstrated on a pilot scale to validate the concept for further commercialization and technology licensing.


 

 

Friday, April 19, 2019

Why Carbon is inevitable to achieve Zero Carbon emissions?


Generating electricity using fossil fuel is a well-established technology, that has been practiced over several decades all over the world, despite its low efficiency. But this technology inherited certain disadvantages even before it was commercialized such as post combustion emissions, large amount of waste heat, and water intensity. Millions of people died of Carbon pollution over decades. Large scale usage of water both inland and on shore power stations created shortage of drinking water in many parts of the world resulting in desalination technologies creating its own environmental issues. Large scale mining of coal and unsustainable exploitation of oil and gas both on shore and off shore caused enormous environmental pollution. However, such emissions were completely ignored while the world celebrated the discovery of electro-magnetism, steam engine and petrochemicals. Millions of people were employed, and industries grew worldwide. Energy became synonymous with security of a nation. Population grew exponentially. However, we have reached a point in the history of mankind and all great discoveries once acclaimed as human achievements have started a new painful chapter of warming globe and changing climate for new generations to deal with. It is a great challenge of our time, but new generation can take this challenge and convert them into opportunities. The past lessons can show them a new clean and sustainable pathway while dealing with ever increasing population growth. The challenge for the new generation is to curtail and eliminate Carbon pollution completely while meeting the energy demand in a time bound manner because we are running out of time. Currently renewable energy generation is too low to meet these challenges within the time frame to avert disastrous consequences scientists predict. Renewable Hydrogen is a potential substitute for fossil fuel to eliminate Carbon pollution but that will not solve our current problem soon because renewable energy generation is too small and too slow while our energy demand is huge. Battery technology is only a storage technology and without a base load power generation all other forms of technologies will not meet our current challenges. I am not discounting the potential of renewable energy and its critical role in the future energy mix but that alone will not solve the current crisis. Hydrogen is a weak and unstable atom and it requires a backbone such as Carbon. That is why Hydrogen do not exist in a free state in Nature, but it exists in the form of water or natural gas. Therefore, it is only logical to convert renewable hydrogen into renewable natural gas so that it can be used as a fuel as we have been using for decades. It does not require to create a special type of infrastructure such as required for Hydrogen or any storage technologies. Our focus should be to achieve Zero Carbon emission in the shortest time scale possible while generating a base load power of 24 x7 using a renewable energy source. It looks like a daunting task but, it is not too big a challenge to overcome. In fact, the technologies are already available, and we are almost there to achieve the above, but governments should understand the challenge and its gravity and extend all the support it requires. Government around the world should implement the following with great urgency to achieve the above objectives. 1.Tax Carbon with immediate effect and minimum tax should be $500/ Mt of CO2 emitted. It should be centrally monitored by government agencies with appropriate technology implementations. 2. Encourage Oxy combustion technologies for coal, oil and gas-based power plants with incentives to eliminate emissions pollution and reduce the cost of Carbon capture. 3. Encourage large scale deployment of super critical Carbon dioxide power generation technologies with liberal grants and low interest loans for research and development of super critical CO2 technologies using Brayton cycle using fossil fuels with Zero Carbon emission. 4.Encourage large scale deployment of SNG plants using CO2 and renewable Hydrogen. By using the above steps all fossil fuel-based power plants existing and operating can be converted and continue to generate base load power 24 x7 with Zero Carbon Emission within a time frame. Simultaneously it will generate large scale renewable hydrogen and renewable synthetic natural gas which can generate base load power with Zero Carbon emission. Such Zero emission power plants can then power all electric and fuel cell cars and eliminate Carbon pollution completely from our roads. The above implementation will create millions of jobs worldwide! The greatest advantage of these technologies is to recycle Carbon indefinitely while generating power using renewable natural gas with Zero Carbon emission and fresh fossil fuel usage will be gradually eliminated from our planet earth.