http://ens-news.com/ens/may2001/2001L-05-24-09.html
Rocket Technology Could Produce Pollution Free Electricity LIVERMORE, California, May 24, 2001 (ENS) - Researchers from a Sacramento energy firm and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) believe a rocket technology may have a down to earth application - producing electricity. Clean Energy Systems Inc. officials - mostly retired rocket scientists - have developed a technology they think can generate low cost, pollution free electricity from fossil fuels. But, since utility companies require five or six years of demonstrated operation for a new technology before purchasing it, Clean Energy officials approached LLNL about building a research facility there. "Utilities are known for wanting to buy the second or third plant, never the first," said Ray Smith, LLNL's Applied Energy Technology Program leader. "We think the government should reduce the scientific and economic risk by building the first plant." Lab officials plan to submit a proposal this year to the Department of Energy to build a 10 megawatt, $70 million facility at the Laboratory based on Clean Energy's technology. "Clean Energy's technology represents a whole new approach to producing steam and electricity cleanly. It replaces six story high steam boilers with a generator that is seven to eight feet long and one foot in diameter," Smith said. A variety of fossil fuels - natural gas, synthetic gas from coal, petroleum and biomass - are among the possible sources that could power the Clean Energy system. The firm's gas generator burns the fuel, along with oxygen and water at high temperatures, and produces a gas mixture of steam and carbon dioxide. Like a rocket engine, the generator burns pure oxygen to produce steam and avoids producing nitrogen oxides. The steam, in turn, powers the turbines that drive an electric generator and produces electricity without pollutants. A condenser cools the steam into water and separates it from the carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide (CO2) from the system could be injected into aging oil fields, where it can help retrieve up to two barrels of oil per barrel of CO2. "A key part of the research we want to do is for the sequestration of carbon dioxide - how much of the gas stays in the oil field and whether it can also be sequestered in deep saline aquifers," Smith said. Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
