Discoveries are clearing the path for clean energy

Americans have faced monumental challenges many times over the course of our history. We now are facing a challenge to our world in the form of climate change. I liken the challenges that we face to those challenges that we faced at the start of World War II.

I am an energy researcher based at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Energy researchers now know the three or four technologies that are needed to develop that would expand energy abundance and as well as reduce carbon release. The first major discovery was a system that extracts carbon from fossil fuel power plant exhaust by passing it through a non-thermal plasma field. This will allow global energy systems to dramatically reduce carbon release while managing the existing fleet of plants until other cleaner forms of power can be fully developed.

Our war on energy poverty and climate change centers around such technologies as carbon extraction, energy storage, hydrogen and wave energy. The reality of this war is that the United States may contribute the technologies but really cannot impact carbon release without the involvement of countries like China and India. In the next few decades, the combined carbon release in India and China will far outstrip the release from the European Union and United States. So any solution must recognize the reality of the fact that both India and China rely on coal for 80 percent of their electricity generation.

The President of China has already announced that he will have coal at the center of their energy network. So the development of carbon extraction technologies for coal fired power plant exhaust is critical to the survival of the planet. With the regular carbon reduction capture technologies, a 100 MW plant would have to devote up to 50 MW of energy just to run the pollution equipment. The breakthrough of this non-thermal plasma system is that it uses only 5 percent of the 'mother plant” power or 'parasitic draw” to power the carbon extraction process. Air-quality testing is showing a 50 to 70 percent reduction in CO2, CO, SO2 and N02. Oftentimes, the treated effluent can be returned to the cold air intake to increase engine or power plant efficiency by 8 to 12 percent.

Financial investment calculations indicate a three- to five year payback period. So if the non-thermal plasma carbon conversion technology can be ramped up and be retrofitted on major power plants around the world, the world will have a great chance to reduce carbon release while still using coal as a main fuel source in places like India and China.

The President of China has already announced that country will go to the carbon cap and trade system in 2017. The leaders in China will not allow that country to have its economic growth hampered by trying to convert to a major fuel source other than coal. China has announced that it will build 200 new coal fired power plants in the next five years. India has announced that it will build 150 coal-fired power plants. The only way to address air pollution and carbon contamination of the atmosphere is to install carbon conversion technology that will reduce the carbon release but allow coal to be used in both China and India.

The future for energy abundance is very bright. Yet the really good news is that carbon can be reduced to halt climate change in the nick of time and for the benefit of our children and their children.

' Michael Garvin, of North Liberty, is the former Technology Transfer Specialist for the University of Iowa and developer of several start-up companies in Iowa, Wisconsin and Texas. Comments: Michael@renais.org