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Carbon Sequestration and Fuels Decarbonization-Workshop

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Carbon Sequestration and Fuels Decarbonization-Workshop report
(Received today on the aesp e-mail list)

The Center for Energy and Environmental Studies (CEES) at Princeton University issued a report on September 29 entitled “Fuels Decarbonization and Carbon Sequestration: Report of a Workshop.” The workshop was held in Washington, D.C., on July 28-29, 1997, and was sponsored by the U.S. Department of energy.

The core idea of the report is a “safer fossil” concept that requires the traditional industries of oil, gas, and coal to assume a lead role in future environmentally sensitive energy use. The goal of safer fossil is to separate the energy function from the carbon content of fossil fuels. Fuels would be “decarbonized” to hydrogen and used efficiently. The removed carbon would be deliberately “sequestered,” that is, disposed of at a high concentration in such a way that the carbon does not reach the atmosphere for centuries or longer. Among the potential sequestration sites are deep saline aquifers and the deep ocean.

The energy-environment-economy challenge demands parallel work along many tracks at once. The idea of “safer fossil” is new and exciting and deserves thoughtful attention. This report provides sufficient detail for all those interested in energy policy to develop their independent views.

The report is available as a hard copy document from CEES, or on the World Wide Web (http://www.princeton.edu/~ceesdoe) in three formats: 1) an on-line (HTML) document; 2) a downloadable Microsoft Word Version 6.0 file; and, 3) an Adobe Acrobat PDF (Portable Document Format) file.
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An excerpt from the report:

Seven principal findings emerged from the workshop:

A. Several of the key enabling technologies for fuels decarbonization and carbon sequestration are already commercialized or close to commercialization.
B. At the scale of deployment in industry today, fuel decarbonization and carbon sequestration are well matched; they might be combined effectively in pilot programs.
C. Matching the distributed character of transportation energy use with the more centralized character of sequestration poses significant challenges.
D. There is a rich array of prospective technological routes both to fuels decarbonization and to carbon sequestration.
E. Environment, health, and safety are compelling concerns and appropriate subjects for research.
F. The necessary work cannot be done without new partnerships.
G. What is proposed here is not a panacea.

E-Beam Water Mist for Fire Fighting

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Subject: UFTO NOTE — E-Beam Water Mist for Fire Fighting
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997
From: Ed Beardsworth <edbeards@ufto.com>

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| ** UFTO ** Edward Beardsworth ** Consultant
| 951 Lincoln Ave. tel 415-328-5670
| Palo Alto CA 94301-3041 fax 415-328-5675
| http://www.ufto.com edbeards@ufto.com
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E-Beam Water Mist for Fire Fighting–Possible Halon Replacement

Misting sprays have been shown to be particularly effective in quenching fires. Considerably less water is required to put out a fire when it is in mist form as opposed to the larger droplet sprays generated by typical sprinkler nozzles. While effective in suppressing fires with little water damage, mist nozzles suffer from an inability to convey droplets to cloistered areas where all to often fires can take hold. This failing is shared by all uncharged sprays, whose droplets follow ballistic or aerodynamically influenced trajectories.

This is not true of charged sprays. Charged droplet trajectories are controlled by mutually induced electrical forces that automatically drive them to grounded surfaces no matter how distant these surfaces are from the nozzle. These forces literally force charged spray droplets to wrap around grounded objects in their path. For instance, charged spray droplets will flow to a fire under a bench that would not be contacted by uncharged droplets. In addition, since flames are grounded and conductive, they are attractive to charged droplet sprays, which will preferentially flow toward them.

Such a technique could potentially provide a replacement for Halon, which is being phased out as a greenhouse gas.

Charged Injection Corporation (CIC) is currently working under Navy sponsorship on the development of an electrostatic nozzle for dispersal of fire fighting water mists. CIC has developed a number of nozzles that are capable of providing high flow rate charged sprays. The Plasma Physics Lab at Princeton is working closely with CIC, providing important modeling and theoretical support.

All of CIC’s nozzles involve the same concept, the driving of free charge (electrons) into a passing fluid. Once charged, the fluid predictably atomizes and self-disperses. Non-conductive fluids, such “clean extinguishing agents” of the type produced by 3-M, and fuels and oils, are easily charge-injected by simply immersing an electrode in the fluid upstream of an orifice. These SPRAY TRIODE atomizers are compact, require very low power for operation, and can be operated at arbitrarily high flow rates.

While SPRAY TRIODE devices will short out when used with water, charge injection can be obtained by a second means. CIC is under Navy contract to develop an electrostatic water mist nozzle using an electron gun to drive charge directly into water streams. This patented technology uses a peanut sized electron gun as the source (the SPRAYTRON is similar to what’s in a TV picture tube). The electrons pass through a thin window to the exterior.

This technique opens the way to the development of nozzles that are capable of operating at any flow rate of interest. Most importantly, since droplet size is solely a function of the amount of charge imparted to the fluid, the SPRAYTRON source permits direct electronic control of spray droplet size.

Many other applications are also possible with CIC’s devices, such as dispersing insecticides or herbicides, spray coating and painting, fuel injection, drug delivery, desalination, and even size separation of microparticles.

Contact: Dr. Arnold. J. Kelly, Chief Engineer.
Charged Injection Corporation
Monmouth Junction, NJ 08852
(908) 274-1470, fax (908) 274-1454, spraytron@aol.com