Friday, April 13, 2018

                              BUT WHAT ABOUT PHLOGISTON ?

"COAL IS NOW AN ESSENTIAL COMPONENT OF OUR  ZERO CARBON FUTURE"
The Right Hon. Malcolm Turnbull
Prime Minister of Australia             


Aussie  PM: Coal to Hydrogen Plant 

Part of the Seamless Transition to Clean Energy

h/t Geoff Sherrington – Coal is being rehabilitated as an essential component of the clean energy future.
World-first coal to hydrogen plant trial launched in Victoria
ABC Gippsland By Kellie Lazzaro
A world-first trial to use brown coal to make hydrogen has been launched in Victoria’s east as a pilot ‘clean energy’ project...
A demonstration plant will be built in the Latrobe Valley as part of the $496 million project to develop technology to produce hydrogen from the region’s vast reserves of coal.
The hydrogen would be shipped from the Port of Hastings to Japan...
(Hydrogen test vessel shown is an earlier prototype, last seen headed for Lakehurst, New Jersey ) 
Speaking from the launch at Loy Yang mine, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said hydrogen was a fuel of the future.
It is critically important that we invest in energy sources of the future and that we affect the transition from older forms of [energy] generation to new forms of generation and we do so seamlessly.”
“This is about new technology, partnering with the Japanese to come up with not only carbon capture and storage, but a way of converting this into hydrogen and making it a fuel of the future,” Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison said.

Coal to hydrogen is not a new idea, the Water-gas shift reaction was discovered in 1780 by Italian Chemist Felice Fontana.
There are still some kinks to be worked out. The process to generate hydrogen from coal produces a monstrous amount of CO2 –... the assurance of an ongoing market demand for this potentially zero carbon product, which may spur the development of supply chain solutions like sequestration of the vast clouds of CO2 emitted when the hydrogen is produced.
I’m sure we all look forward to joining hands with and celebrating with our new green friends that coal is no longer the enemy; coal is now an essential component of our zero carbon future.