After interviewing students and professors this year’s Research Experience in Carbon Sequestration (RECS), we realized that some of the most passionate supporters of clean coal technology (CCT) hailed from Columbia University’s Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering (EEE) in the Henry Crumb School of Mines.
“I’m interested in helping to solve problems on a large scale, and I think that CCS would enable us to do that,” EEE student Miriam told us in an interview.
Tim, another EEE student who is working on a PhD on the storage of sulfur and sulfates, said “we have to keep all our options open, and carbon sequestration is one of them.”
Their enthusiasm encouraged us to learn more about their program. It turns out that CCT is one of the main pillars of EEE’s research and specifically focuses on how clean coal technology can be incorporated into the energy and industrial infrastructure for the 21st century.
According to EEE’s Web site, the program plans to achieve this by “treating the inefficiencies and by-products” of fossil fuels through technologies such as carbon sequestration, zero-emission coal, catalysis and recycling.
Department chair Dr. Klaus Lackner, who also spoke with us at RECS , is also working on cutting-edge clean coal projects. Dr. Lackner and his colleagues at Columbia have partnered with Global Research Technologies to develop a new method of capturing carbon from the air in a process called “air extraction.” It will be the company’s first step toward a commercially viable clean coal technology.
Dr. Lackner and the team of experts at Columbia University are another example of the people who are dedicated to pushing essential clean coal technologies forward. Show your support and appreciation for their work by becoming a fan of Columbia University’s Earth Institute on Facebook.
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