These could be among the first full-scale power plants in the nation to turn powdered coal into a synthetic natural gas that is burned in a gas turbine whose exhaust gas powers a steam turbine.
There's nothing new about turning coal into gas--19th-century street lamps burned "town gas, " a dangerous mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, produced by blasting coal with steam.
When coal and natural gas are burned to produce the same amount of heat the natural gas produces only 44% of the CO2 that coal does.
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Consider that for every BTU of coal or natural gas burned in a combustion turbine only 35 percent of that is converted into useful power.
The un-burned, leaked gas is 72 times more potent than carbon dioxide -- a greenhouse gas -- making it more damaging to the environment, Krupp said.
In fact, the EIA figures that gas burned to make electricity will actually fall from a record 25 bcfd in 2012 to 23.1 bcfd in 2013.
Depending on the economics of the location, the process can produce gas that can be burned for heat and power, or purified and sold as natural gas, or, perhaps in the future, used as a feedstock for chemicals or plastics.
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In the holy Shiite city of Karbala, drivers burned tires in front of gas stations in protest.
The amount of shale gas now being burned is responsible (along with our economic miasma) for the record reduction in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions in 2009.
The plant would slowly heat material to produce a gas that could be burned to create electricity.
Impurities are removed from the gas before it is burned, which results in lower emissions of sulfur dioxide, particulates and mercury.
Eventually the Kims burned tires at night when the gas ran out.
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At a high temperature and pressure, gasification converts coal, or other carbon fuels, into synthesis gas that is either burned in a turbine to produce electricity, as in Summit's case, or turned into other products, like diesel oil, fertilizer and pipeline-quality natural gas.
We have in the last few centuries burned an immense amount of coal, natural gas, oil and nuclear fuel to produce the electricity that we require for our daily lives.
Whether or not hybrids or cleaner-fuel vehicles are available, choosing a vehicle that gets good gas mileage helps reduce the amount of burned fossil fuels.
Even though the power surplus is happening in the northwest, the effect on the gas market will be felt across the country as gas that would have ended up being burned in California instead gets pushed east into Texas and up into the northeast.
It could, of course, be burned in the US to make power - but shale gas is so cheap that it's not worthwhile.
In 2009, Formosa Plastics Corporation (FPC) burned a whopping 40, 739, 225 Mcf of natural gas at its 1, 600 acre petrochemical complex in Point Comfort, Texas.
In IGCC, the coal is not burned directly as it is in normal coal-fired power plants, but is converted into synthesis gas.
Last August a gas leak at the Amuay refinery in western Venezuela led to an explosion and fire that burned for days and killed more than 40.
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