Using a hybrid system combining fuel cells with coal gasification, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers say they can achieve a 50 percent reduction in CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants. The system works by increasing the efficacy of the plant to reach as much as twice the fuel-to-electricity efficiency of current conventional coal plants. “If we’re going to cut down on carbon dioxide emissions in the near term, the only way to realistically do that is to increase the efficiency of our fossil fuel plants,” MIT doctoral student Katherine Ong said of the research in a press release.
The greatest advantage of the new system is that it requires no new technologies. Both fuel cells and gasification are well understood. The researchers will now attempt to build a small, pilot-scale plant to assess the performance of the hybrid system in real-world conditions.
