Eco-nightmare or valid alternative? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/automobiles/04COAL.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
It probably depends on exactly "how clean" you could make the powder. CO2 is CO2, from whatever source. Can you get rid of all the sulfur, etc during processing ? Maybe. But if not - forget it! On the Plus side: Given that Government could collect more tax $$, and still come out ahead of imported Arab oil (which will go sky-high again as soon as the recession is over) then this actually could makes some sense for the economy - THAT IS: if there were no environmental penalty to pay - and most of all - if there were NO other good alternative. The PHEV is NOT a better alternative unless it comes with increase wind, solar and nuclear grid sources. Less I be misunderstood, there are likely to be much better alternatives, but they may take extended time to develop. As an interim solution - and if the net efficiency were the same, then this kind of turbine could probably end up being preferable ecologically - i.e. to burn clean powdered coal in a car rather then to burn dirty coal in a grid plant, where the pollution becomes "someone else's problem" -- and then to incur all the electrical line and transformer losses to charge PHEV batteries. IOW shifting a greater pollution problem to someone else, in order to justify PHEVs is NOT a valid solution to an energy crisis. It will only encourage more dirty coal burning. Plus - if the EEStor battery (or similar) does come out soon, then an onboard "small" turbine, powered by clean powdered coal, could be used for the best of both partial interim solutions. Jones
