South Korea's POSCO (005490.KS) plans to eventually halt carbon emissions by switching to a hydrogen-based steelmaking process from 2021, company officials said.

Currently, iron ore is melted in a furnace using super-heated air from burning coal. In addition to this fuel role, coal is also used as a critical component in steel production because the carbon from burning coal captures oxygen from the molten iron ore, emitting carbon dioxide in the process.

POSCO hopes to switch from carbon to hydrogen gas to capture oxygen, a step that results in water produced as a byproduct instead of planet-warming carbon dioxide.

POSCO officials said the steelmaker is considering supplying hydrogen gas from its "SMART" nuclear reactors. It is looking at participating in a consortium for developing small or medium-sized nuclear reactors.

The steelmaker, however, has not yet decided which energy resources they will use instead of coal as fuel to heat the furnace.

Under the mid-term plan through 2020, the steelmaker will introduce breakthrough new process technology for carbon dioxide reduction.

In addition to steelmaking process changes, POSCO is looking for new business opportunities in low-carbon green growth areas, for instance, stationary fuel cells and synthetic natural gas.

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Industrial Research Ltd (IRL) has made a breakthrough that enables the world’s most efficient carbon dioxide capture technology to become commercially viable. IRL Research Scientist Robert Holt is leading the multi-disciplinary team that is investigating the development of a cost-effective enhancement to an existing technique that uses limestone for the capture of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel power combustors. IRL has been awarded $350,000 over three years by the Foundation for Research Science and Technology to further develop its technology.

The process is designed to capture carbon dioxide from coal fired power stations and other industries that emit significant amounts of the greenhouse gas.

The lime cycling process uses limestone, a relatively abundant and inexpensive material. It is heated to around 900 degrees centigrade to become lime, which is a very effective material for absorbing carbon dioxide.

When post-combustion flue gas is passed through the lime in a fluidised bed, the CO2 is captured. The process is then reversed to transform the lime back into limestone, which is then used again to capture more CO2.

The 95 per cent pure CO2 that is produced can be compressed to about 3% of its original volume and can then be stored efficiently or used in another industrial process. This process has been known for many years but until now it has not been efficient enough to be considered commercially applicable.The IRL team confirmed that exposing the lime to steam reopens its pore structure and enables it to absorb CO2 efficiently again.

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One year ago the French company Alstom began a year-long US test of capturing CO2 from the water+carbon-dioxide mix created using their chilled-ammonia technology, in the smokestack of the Pleasant Prairie Power Plant in Wisconsin.

Last week the year’s results were announced. The years average CO2 capture rate was 90%, according to a joint announcement from the EPRI, We Energies and Alstom to the Society of Environmental Journalists.

The 12-month test was just completed after running 24 hours a day on a small sectioned-off portion of the smokestack; working on just 5% of the plants total emissions.

But the test is scalable, and the Electric Power Research Institute, the R&D arm of the utility industry, is optimistic that chilled-ammonia technology will work on a larger scale. It is one of several carbon-capture technologies under consideration as we move to a carbon constrained world.

Next, Alstom will work with AEP in Columbus, Ohio to test a scaled-up version of the technology at the Mountaineer power plant in West Virginia. That test takes the next step as well; not just capturing the carbon dioxide but burying it 8,000 feet beneath the plant site.

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A new machine dubbed the "Black Phantom" can turn biomass into manmade coal. Carbonscape, a New Zealand-based start-up, describes its invention as an industrial-sized microwave that can cook plant waste, wood waste, and "even sewage" into coal. Carbonscape also claims that the machine captures and stores more carbon than the amount of carbon generated by the electricity needed to power it for the process. The invention combines two popular environmental efforts: using biochar for carbon capture and storage (CCS), and developing alternative fuel sources from biomass.

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Thousands of grilling enthusiasts now have more free time following the invention of the FlameDisk, a revolutionary alternative to charcoal. This convenient grilling option, which employs solid ethanol as its fuel source, lights instantaneously with the touch of a match and is ready to cook on in less than one minute, eliminating the time needed to arrange and light coals. From ignition to cooking, the FlameDisk saves roughly a half hour of wait time while giving eco-conscious cooks a green grilling alternative.

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The Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has recently announced the co-invention of two new coal additives which can improve coal efficiency by 7-12%, and also reduce emissions by nearly 30%.The two new coal additives, CHARNA C and CHARNA CO2, co-developed by the Shanghai Institute and Beijing Charna Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals, have been selected by the National Development and Reform Commission as key national promotion products for energy saving and emission reduction.

Twenty tons of such liquid additives have been used to conduct fuel-burning performance tests at more than ten factories and institutes such as Chongqing Titanium Industry and Beijing Research Institute of Coal Chemistry.Test results show that the new additives improve coal efficiency by 7-12%, reduce sulphur dioxide emissions by 24-33%, and nitrogen oxide emissions by 17%.

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North Carolina is about to become the nation's test case for what marketers call "green coal" -- wood that has been baked into charcoal.But the option of locally grown fuel is not without challenges and environmental concerns. Still, advocates of the process believe the technology is on the verge of a breakthrough.

The process is not as simple as collecting dead branches from the forest floor. The wood has to be treated in an industrial oven until it turns to charcoal. It remains to be seen if the experimental ovens can mass-produce charred wood of a uniform quality that won't clog power plants sensitively calibrated to burn coal.When burned, wood releases significantly less sulphur and almost no mercury. And wood doesn't add to the atmospheric greenhouse gases that are believed to cause global warming.

Charred wood, a type of biomass, would be a major breakthrough because it can be pulverized into a fine powder for burning in existing power plants, potentially displacing a third of the coal in some plants, advocates say. By blending wood with coal, Progress wouldn't have to build a separate power plant for incinerating wood chips, thus eliminating a multimillion-dollar expense from the green energy equation.

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