article thumbnail

Converting Coal Power Plants to Nuclear Gains Steam

Cars That Think

On a planet aspiring to become carbon neutral, the once-stalwart coal power plant is an emerging anachronism. It is true that, in much of the developing world, coal-fired capacity continues to grow. But in every corner of the globe, political and financial pressures are mounting to bury coal in the past.

Coal 145
article thumbnail

New 3-step process for conversion of kraft lignin from black liquor into green diesel

Green Car Congress

Researchers in Sweden and Spain have devised a three-step process for the conversion of precipitated kraft lignin from black liquor into green diesel. This makes black liquor the fifth most important fuel in the world, next to coal, oil, natural gas, and gasoline. Their paper appears in the journal ChemSusChem. Globally over 1.3

article thumbnail

Sandia progressing to demo stage with supercritical CO2 Brayton-cycle turbines; up to 50% increase in efficiency of thermal-to-electric conversion

Green Car Congress

MPa enable the system to operate with very high thermal efficiency, exceeding even those of a large coal-generated power plant and nearly twice as efficient as that of a gasoline engine (about 25%). Sienicki (2009) Investigation of alternative layouts for the supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton cycle for a sodium-cooled fast reactor.

article thumbnail

Researchers develop new catalysts for a direct Fischer-Tropsch to olefins (FTO) process

Green Car Congress

Researchers in the Netherlands have demonstrated the direct conversion of synthesis gas through a Fischer-Tropsch process to C 2 through C 4 light olefins with selectivity up to 60 wt.% using catalysts that constitute iron nanoparticles (promoted by sulfur plus sodium) homogeneously dispersed on weakly interactive ?-alumina

article thumbnail

ARPA-E Awards $151M to 37 Projects for Transformative Energy Research

Green Car Congress

Eagle Picher, in partnership with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will develop a new generation of high energy, low cost planar liquid sodium beta batteries for grid scale electrical power storage applications. Energy Efficient Capture of CO 2 from Coal Flue Gas. DOE grant: $7,200,000). DOE grant: $3,111,693).

Energy 231