The process to produce this gas involves passing thousand degree steam over coal. The oxygen from the water oxidizes (burns) the coal into carbon monoxide and, as a by-product of this reaction, the water releases it's hydrogen. The by products of burning this combination of gases (CO and H2)as a fuel are carbon dioxide and water.

These are the same products as are produced by burning hydrocarbon fuels except that, in this case, the water vapor produced came from water and not from hydrocarbons and oxygen (from the atmosphere). Is it cleaner than just burning coal? I suppose and is a step toward the hydrogen economy.

On the other hand, carbon sequestration will fix nothing except that it will sweep carbon dioxide under the rug in a sense. Carbon dioxide is just one product of burning hydrocarbon fuels (or coal). But carbon sequestration will do nothing to stop the production of water from hydrocarbon fuel and oxygen.

Water is a greenhouse gas which is said to account for 64% of global warming right now. Every time we burn a gallon of gasoline we produce roughly one gallon of water. This adds "new" water to the environment and depletes oxygen from the atmosphere and so carbon sequestration is really not a "solution" at all just a cover up.

Mike Johnston

Thanks in advance for the explanation.

-Christopher

The costs are high because the power plant is small for an IGCC.  I find it amusing that Grist posters worry about costs and economics.  Since whenn has that stopped them when promoting PV solar or plug-in hybrids?  If economies of scale will help these technologies, it will also help carbon capture.  

Water vapor? Huh? Water vapor in the air is a function of temperature. The atmosphere reaches equilibrium with surface water.  Burning a small amount of gasoline won't make any difference on the balance of water in the air.
Relative to the energy in the earth's weather systems, our use of fossil fuels is totally insignificant.

That statement just doesn't fly anymore.  There is not even a debate to be had about it at this stage.  Billions of people, doing many small things, can have a huge impact

And this is really really old now but you and I both know that things like heat, CO2, water vapor, ect. can take turns influencing each other.  It goes both ways.  The 650,000 year ice core samples prove that it goes both ways.  Its a dance between heat and greenhouse gasses.

- Christopher

On the other hand, if the hydrogen is produced from water using green energy sources then the water produced as exhaust would have no environmental impact because it started out as water.

2H2O ---electrolysis--> 2H2 + O2

This is the reaction that produces the hydrogen fuel and also just enough oxygen to completely oxidize that fuel.

2H2 + O2 -----combustion---> 2H2O

In this reaction the two products of the first reaction are reunited and we end up with the water we started with. No net gain or loss to the environment.

Mike Johnston

World consumption of oil as a fuel is roughly 1.2 trillion gallons a year. For each gallon of fuel burned roughly a gallon of water is produced. This water is injected directly into the air as water vapor. Jet aircraft inject a great deal of manufactured water vapor into the upper atmosphere.

An increase in water vapor in the atmosphere will allow the atmosphere to become warmer (especially water at high altitudes). Warmer air can hold more water vapor. This becomes a cycle of warming. 1.2 trillion gallons of manufactured water a year would seem to be a significant amount.

Mike Johnston

Christopher,
It might be true that relative to the earth weather system, the burning of gasoline may be insignificant.  I don't know what the other author meant, but it's the accumulation of CO2 that changes climate and the weather, not the water vapor from fossil fuels.  

"This becomes a cycle of warming. 1.2 trillion gallons of manufactured water a year would seem to be a significant amount."

Are you serious? 1/2 the earth is bathed in 1 kW/m2 of solar radiation.  This amounts to thousands of times the energy released by fossil fuels. Water? Do the math.  My wife and I use about 800 gallons a year of gasoline. So what if I generate 800 gallons of water vapor. Compared to our domestic water use, this is NOTHING!  I use more water than this in one day watering the lawn.  

You really need to go take a science class.  You probably wasted your time studying global warming and watching "Captain Planet" or some other nonsense.  Compared to the energy in even one small hurricane, the energy we use is totally insignificant.

That statement implies that anthropogenic CO2 cannot have an effect either.  And that just doesnt fly.

-Christopher

Relatively, yes, but the statement is meant to dissuade concern from CO2 and the significant impact that it does have.

-Christopher

-Christopher

Burning fossil fuels increases CO2 concentration in the atmosphere by only 1-2 ppm per year. The debate is over how much of the warming over the last 150 years is caused by man-made CO2 and how much is due to natural variation in climate.  

The argument over FutureGen is the cost of sequestration and whether there are better or cheaper ways to reduce CO2.

The author and commentators were explaining to me the possibilities of NEW water vapor being introduced.  I'm just learning about that and appreciate your input.  But your statement was a general knock on being concerned about human activity at all when compared to world wide weather, and I had to comment on it because the attitude is out of sync with reality.

"Burning fossil fuels increases CO2 concentration in the atmosphere by only 1-2 ppm per year. The debate is over how much of the warming over the last 150 years is caused by man-made CO2 and how much is due to natural variation in climate."

The IPCC consensus, which is historically conservative, says that it is a 90% chance that a very significant amount of the warming and increased CO2 are anthropogenic and directly related to us.  

"The argument over FutureGen is the cost of sequestration and whether there are better or cheaper ways to reduce CO2."

Yeah, dont build the damn coal plant to begin with.  Tax carbon and reduce my income tax.  Give tax and loan breaks to alt energy start-ups and home improvements. Set high goals by Federal Law and watch the market go that direction with enthusiasm.

- Christopher

So what if I generate 800 gallons of water vapor. Compared to our domestic water use, this is NOTHING!  I use more water than this in one day watering the lawn.

First of all, the water you use domestically for your house (showers, washers, etc.) doesn't end up as water vapor, most of it goes down the drain, through a series of pipes, and into a treatment plant.  Not directly into the atmosphere.

Secondly, if you seriously use more than 800 gallons of water a day just to water your lawn, then you are wasting valuable water resources at a significant rate (unless you use a rainwater system, which I doubt you do).  

Also, unless you use an underground or drip irrigation system, the chances are that much of that water will be lost to evaporation and, if everyone in your neighborhood uses similar amounts of water on their lawns on a daily basis (and I hope they don't), you may be creating a change in your neighborhood's microclimate.  Now, imagine a similar thing happening on a world-wide scale, and that's similar(but not exactly the same) as to what's being discussed here, only that consumption of fossil fuels is more of a culprit than excessive lawn watering.

And I wouldn't waste time or energy arguing with someone who's trying to convince people that the Earth is flat, er, I mean that burning fossil fuels is not causing global warming.

My point was that normal evaporation puts thousands of times as much water into the air as the water generated by burning fuel. There is no "new" water. Any water from combustion will just displace water that might have evaporated normally.  But the change is so insignificant you probably couldn't measure it. The water I USE came from evaporation.  I return it as liquid water back into the ocean, from which it came.  

I didn't say one way or the other anything about AGW other than say what the debate is. AGW is one possible explanation - the one which most of the climate modelers believe.  Predicting the future is much less certain.  

Coal is dirty might make a nice bumper sticker, but it really depends on how it is mined and how close the mine is to the power source.  If FutureGen uses Illinois coal it may not be as dirty.  Most of the heavy metals contamination goes out with the slag, which is safe enough to use as paving materials.  

I'm trying to figure out how I could use 200 gallons today.  I'm out of ideas.  I literally cannot figure out how to do it.

Oh and about new water vapor that didn't exist before:
The author was definitely saying that.  It was being made with atoms of hydrogen that have not been paired with oxygen in millions of years.  So there would necessarily be more new water after the reaction.  thats my understanding of the article and comments above.

-Christopher

We have 20 irrigation heads at 12 gpm. running 30 minutes per week (120 per month). So that is 28,800 gallons per month.  For a total household use of 45,000 gallons.

Now if I was pulling water from the Ogallala aquifer to grow soy beans for biodiesel or corn for ethanol - then you might have a point.

As for new water. I'll concede the point. But again, it is not significant. All the oil produced since its discovery wouldn't even fill Lake Tahoe, let alone even the smallest of the Great Lakes.  So relax, the new water isn't going to harm the environment.

However, I just learned something that might be of general interest here.  We all know that raindrops and snowflakes require a little bit of something in the atmosphere around which the H2O molecules coalesce before falling to Earth.  

Aircraft and air liners fly around the world and high enough their exhaust provides a lot of particles for H2O to join.  Which helps explain the strange change in the weather patterns over the past number of years.  But over the past 10 years, air liners have greatly improved their emissions which are changing the weather patterns again, resulting in much more sleet and freezing rain as of now.

This does not explain "Global Warming" away but does indicate that human beings always tend to look for just one reason for a phenomenon when we should be prepared for finding multiple reasons for our problems.  People who point to the extra snow as an indication that we are going into Global Freezing need to recognize that there are indeed "more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio."

Des Emery

This is also true of the water produced by jet engines burning hydrocarbon fuel. The air is much thinner at 30 - 45k feet where jets fly. This is the worst place to inject both CO2 and water vapor as they are the two primary greenhouse gases. Also consider that we are taking the oxygen out of the Troposphere and replacing (displacing) it with CO2. It is speculated that the CO2 may stay i the atmosphere at that altitude for many years and there is only room for so high a concentration of gases at that altitude so if CO2 displaces the oxygen then that oxygen probably won't be replaced. Here is a link to a paper which covers this topic (among others) i great detail:

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-document& ...(1998)011%3C2686%3AWVSTAT%3E2.0.CO%3B2&ct=1

Atmospheric oxygen depletion is something that you hear very little about but it is a real phenomenon. Since the beginning of the industrial age the oxygen concentration i the atmosphere has decreased by .095%. Ok that is only a tenth of a percent but consider that oxygen makes up 20% of the atmosphere ad OSHA says that any oxygen concentration below 19.5% can "lead to unconsciousness and death". SO we seem to only have .5% to play around with. And we already have lost .095%... Here is a story on oxygen depletion:

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/12/14/205855.php

Mike Johnston

We live in an area that gets about 40" of rain a year, and our water comes from a man-made reservoir. So I'm not depriving anyone of any water.

If ya live in an area with 40 inches of rain a year, there shouldn't be much need to water your lawn in the first place.  I live in an area that gets almost as much, and we hardly ever need to water.  When we do, the water from the rainbarrels is usually more than enough.  

And just because the water comes from a man-made reservoir, that doesn't mean that there's no reason to conserve it.  Man-made lakes can dry up if too much is used.  Plus, if too much water is used, then municipalities may advocate for buildin' more lakes, which isn't always a very good thing.

On a more related note, looks like FutureGen may be in some trouble.  Amid rising costs the DOE is takin' a second look at it's investment.  Looks like there are gonna be delays at the very least.

Also, apparently the DOE didn't want 'em to release the location of the plant to the public yet.  Why?...the Environmental Impact Assessment for the site hasn't been completed yet.  Opps.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/5389216.html ...

No. Burning one gallon of gasoline produces eight gallons of water.

http://www.terrapass.com/blog/posts/how-to-turn-8-p

But it takes 3,000 gallons of water to grow the corn for one gallon of ethanol.


Things Everybody Should Know About Energy

Further, the CO2 we emit stays in the atmosphere for an average of a hundred years, with a longer 'tail' lasting for centuries.  It will add extra energy all those years.  In contrast, the average time to cycle evaporated water from the atmosphere as precipitation is only 10 -14 days.  

Aircraft emissions.  There are ongoing US and EU studies to pin down the effects of these emissions, present and projected, on the atmosphere and global warming.  The chairman of the US group looking at this thinks the case is still open.  The exhaust clearly effects clouds, but whether the net influence is cooling or warming is not certain.  For example -

http://transportation.northwestern.edu/seminars/06-07/Wue ...