Hybrid energy?

More on the coal carbon sequestration or carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say a shorter-term solution, with cheaper start-up costs, could help spread the use of carbon capture and storage at coal plants and still clean up a large amount of carbon dioxide. While not capturing the entire carbon, it does a partial job and reduces emissions to that from natural gas, said the study.

The technology took a big step forward in September when Sweden’s Vattenfall started operating a coal-fired power plant equipped with CCS technology in Germany. The 30-megawatt Schwarze Pumpe pilot plant can produce 10 tons of highly concentrated CO2 per hour. The CO2 is then loaded into tankers and shipped to a nearby gas field for sequestration.

What kinds of rock can store the carbon, how stable the process, the geodynamics, etc are still debated.

Meanwhile, California’s Electric Power Research Institute announced that it would study a potential system that could combine solar thermal with fossil fuel where the steam generated by the solar system could be fed to the other, reducing the need for coal.

An interesting option, we think would be to have an algae farm nearby so that the carbon dioxide recovered could be fed to the algae which then grow at a rapid scale and can be harvested as biofuel. We have covered experiments in this area, earlier in our blog.

It is a time for innovative thinking. To try out new ideas and to mix and match old ones. If you have any out-of-the-box ideas, let us know. We will feature them here and discuss it.