Ammonia fertilizer from coal

Years ago Terre Haute had a Nitrogen plant on the north side of town. They used NG to make fertilizer. Closed because the cost of NG shot up. Now on the west side of the river, Duke's coal gasification plant is being taken out of production and it's going to be converted into a fertilizer plant. They are going to use coal. That was news to me that coal can be used to make fertilizer, but after researching the topic, I discovered the technology goes back to WWII.

Once fertilizer was made using NG, now coal. Electricity was made using coal, now NG. Just wondering if the new fertilizer plant coming to Terre Haute will be able to use Indiana coal, or will they have to use coal with less sulfur? Relatively speaking, If all fertilizer plants in the US used coal, how would compare to the amount of coal used to make electricity? Will coal reduce the cost of fertilizer?

While researching, I also discovered that the EPA approves fly ash as a fertilizer too. I find it ironic that fly ash can't be buried, it could cause water to be contaminated, but an old 2009 article says there isn't enough toxic materials, so it too can be used as a fertilizer. Not sure if EPA has reversed it opinion of fly ash.

http://www.rightinginjustice.com/news/2009/12/24/epa-says-coal-ash-is-safe-to-use-as-fertilizer-on-crops/


I found it funny that the same materials in fly ash were once in the ground, but they couldn't be put back in the ground but you can spread it on the fields. Also heard that some concrete companies will put fly ash in there mix. Some say that causes the concrete to chip easier. Not sure of this, call it hear say. Others tell me you have to request your concrete not have fly ash. Again hear say, not sure.

geo.
Linkcoal to fertilizer

George, your link is to a 37 year old document. Not sure why you'd think that's relevant.

According to <a href="http://www.courant.com/business/hc-ammonia-fertilizer-plant-20160518-story.html">this article</a>, your new plant will use petroleum coke, not coal. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_coke">Pet coke</a> is nasty stuff; dirtier even than coal. As Canadian tar sand production ramps up, refining the stuff will generate a lot of pet coke byproduct. A few years back, the Koch brothers thought Detroit was an appropriate place to store their pet coke. State EPA made them move it; I guess it's found a new home in Indiana.

If you stop and think about it, every material comes from the ground or air. I once took an Environmental Science class (needed a science class for my CISS degree), and the instructor told us that there is really no water shortage, and aside from water that we send to outer space, the same amount of water that was on this earth many years ago is still here, but simply changes form (all of it is either a liquid, solid or vapor and is constantly changing form). Makes a whole lot of sense. When you stop and think about it, one can say this about most everything. I still say that the earth can take about anything we humans dish out, and the earth will be here when we are long gone, and given enough time, all that fly ash is like a lot of other materials we re-deposit back to the earth. We spend/waste huge amount of effort on things that really do not matter in the grand scheme of things (coal burning, proper disposal of fly ash, mixing ethanol with our fuels, Bruce Jenner to name a few). May take a while, but it will all return to where it came from, but I doubt we are here to see it. Something to ponder.

>...May take a while, but it will all return to where it came from...

Ron, if you'd taken a thermodynamics course you would have learned about entropy. Entropy is a one-way street. Boulders don't roll back to the top of a mountain, for example. And although there's plenty of water on the planet, all but a very small fraction is unusable seawater. Water in a mountain glacier is far more valuable than seawater; not only is it drinkable, it's also a an elevation where it can feed rivers. When a glacier disappears, it doesn't matter one iota that a vast amount of water is sitting in the earth's oceans.

Humans are increasing our planet's entropy at an exponential rate. Jeremy Rifkin wrote about it in the eighties and his predictions have been spot-on.

True, you cannot drink sea water, however it evaporates, returns as rain water, and the cycle continues. I know I have a different viewpoint. All materials are natural, and return back to the earth (perhaps not in the form we would like). I simply do not believe all the EPA regulations, or green movement will have much impact in the end, and I do not really believe we need to worry so much about saving the planet. The planet will survive, but we are not going to get out of it alive one way or the other. Just one opinion.

>True, you cannot drink sea water, however it evaporates, returns as rain water, and the cycle continues.

The cycle continues until it doesn't. We've upset the environmental balance to the point that it doesn't rain where it used to rain and it doesn't snow where it used to snow. If the "end" you're talking about is the end of your life, you're right: environmental regulations won't have much of an effect over the next 20-30 years. But if you have any grandchildren, you might want to think about the sort of earth they and their children will live in.

I pray the President nnalert is successful in bring coal back in a big way and that pet coke finds a good home where it can be productively converted to usable energy products.

Environmentalism is, at the end of the trail, an anti-human endeavor designed to make all of humanity as poor as possible. They wouldn't even be happy if we all lived in caves - they would claim our fires were dirty or something.

Relevant to show making fertilizer from coal is old school technology, been around before most of us were born. I didn't know that, but I'm sure everyone else did.

Why are you so critical of others all the time?

Rifkin is the very typical 'environmentalist'. Its not about the environment, its about how he can gain control over his fellow man.

That is all the environmentalists are after. Power and control.

Its not about greenhouse gases, or soot in the air. It is, how can we take control of our fellow man and be on top?

Rifkin is a perfect example of that. A fraud. His books are lies, crafted to shift power to his ilk. Just like al Gore, he jets around the globe from his mansion, telling us common folk how we need to pour money into his private company to save the world..... And some people actually believe that trap.

You and I will see this differently, and that is how it shall be. So I won't bother this forum with more on the topic. Anyone who chooses can look him up and see what he really is for themselves.

Paul

You are living in a fantasy land, every society that did NOT practice environmentalism has failed.

Back on topic:
I would be curious to know the efficiencies of fertilizer production from these two feed-stocks. Efficiency would be as critical as feed-stock price since a really cheap stock might not be the best choice if the alternative has a sufficiently higher production efficiency.

On the issue of fly ash, continuing decreases in emissions over the past few decades has resulted in an increase in concentration of heavy metals and contaminants in the ash. After all, the coal goes in with a given concentration of metals and they have to go somewhere. If not released in the off-gases, then they end up in the solids. Since fly ash has concentrated metals and plants bio-accumulate, I for one will opt not to apply it to my land.

Do you have an article saying fly ash can no longer be used as fertilizer?

Didn't the Sahara used to be forested? Man didn't have a hand in that climate change.

The Sahara has bloomed in the past because of a wobble in the earths rotation which occurs on a cycle of something like every 26,000 years causing the weather patterns to change.

Paul, the question is not whether or not Jeremy Rifkin is an environmentalist. (I would argue he's an economist, not an environmentalist, but that's besides the point.) The question is whether or not his predictions are right. His detractors have had over thirty years to disprove the man, yet his predictions regarding the environment have proven to be disturbingly accurate.

No need to get your hackles up, George. I just didn't understand the relevance of that old paper to the point you were trying to make.

If Sausage Fingers is elected, the only thing you can be sure of is he won't do anything you expect him to do. Aside from stoking his own ego, that is; you can go to bank on that one.

I hear somebody asked Donnie what his pet coke policy is, and he said he's in favor of allowing people to keep them as long as they're licensed and nnalert.

Do you understand now?

After a long regulatory process, the EPA published a final ruling in December 2014, which establishes that coal fly ash is classified as a sub-category of hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Coal Combustion Residuals (CCD's) are listed in the subtitle D, ?Special waste? (rather than the less stringent subtitle C, ?Solid waste?, which was also considered).

I live in what was once the heart of coal country, Anthracite, (hard coal). I burn coal year round and I would never put the ashes or the fly ash in a field where I wanted something to grow. It is high in acid and is corrosive.

No, I do not have anything that says that.

Rollie,
Sulfur is in coal. Sulfur mixing with water makes acid, acid rain. That would explain why it's corrosive. Would need lime to neutralize acid. So if concrete companies are mixing fly ash in with the mix, that would explain why concrete is chipping up. Portland cement has lime in it. Never really thought about that, but it makes perfect sense.

Bethlehem Steel, burns harbor, In. had over 100 cells in their battery of coal ovens. Each would hold a trail car load of coal. They would bake out the sulfur, make coke, which you didn't want to drink or snort, and use the coke as an energy source in the BOF, basic oxygen furnace. Within 6 months, all the copper in the air conditioners was eaten up my the acid. Can't imagine what that does to a person's lungs. I hated working at the coke ovens. The air conditioners were damaged in no time.

So, I guessing to turn coal into fertilizer with out acid, sulfur will have to be removed. They are going to make coke out of the coal. Then the coal industry isn't totally dead. Hope today's coke oven's don't smell like those did 50 years ago or some people in Terre Haute will be screaming.

Be a good idea to ask your ready mix company if they add fly ash, I definitely will next time.

So did the EPA remove fly ash for fertilizer in 2014?
geo