Here Is The Fossil Fuel Power Plant That Doesn’t Produce Carbon Emissions

For the longest time, the world has lived with a simple truth; power plants using fossil fuels contribute to carbon emissions, period. However, a trio of trailblazers decided that this didn’t have to be the case and that fossil fuel can be used to provide energy without polluting the air. Enter NET Power, the newest fossil fuel power plant in the world that doesn’t produce carbon emissions.

The fight against climate change has always been closely tied to fighting carbon emissions, and this meant being against power plants that used coal, oil, or natural gas. Developed countries are making wonderful strides in switching to renewable resources, but there is still much to do. In the effort to reduce the presence of greenhouse gasses, NET Power might just be an unlikely ally, Futurism reports.

The new power plant was actually created by the partnership between three odd members. One is a lawyer and the other two are a chemist and a chemical engineer. The trio has made it their mission to help with the fight against carbon emissions but are doing it in a different way than what the energy industry has gotten used to.

Instead of following current models for carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities, they had to start from scratch. As chemical engineer Rodney Allam told Science, this was the only way to make the use of fossil fuels to produce energy completely carbon-emission free.

“The only way you could proceed was to develop a totally new power system,” Allam said.

As to the nature of the system that the power plant is using, the startup’s website describes it as a new kind of thermodynamic cycle. The system was actually named after Allam, which is why it’s called the Allam Cycle.

“Regarded as a breakthrough in power generation technology, the Allam Cycle uses a high-pressure, highly recuperative, oxyfuel, supercritical CO2 cycle that makes carbon capture part of the core power generation process, rather than an afterthought,” the website reads. “The result is high-efficiency power generation that inherently produces a pipeline-quality CO2 byproduct at no cost to the system’s performance.”