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Carbon Dioxide Emission Management

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Carbon Dioxide Emission Management in
Power Generation
Carbon Dioxide Emission Management in
Power Generation

Lars O. Nord
Olav Bolland
Authors All books published by Wiley-VCH
Prof. Lars O. Nord are carefully produced. Nevertheless,
NTNU - Norwegian University of authors, editors, and publisher do not
Science and Technology warrant the information contained in
Department of Energy and Process these books, including this book, to
Engineering be free of errors. Readers are advised
Kolbjørn Hejes vei 1B to keep in mind that statements, data,
NO-7491 Trondheim illustrations, procedural details or other
Norway items may inadvertently be inaccurate.

Prof. Olav Bolland Library of Congress Card No.:


NTNU - Norwegian University of applied for
Science and Technology
Faculty of Engineering British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication
Høgskoleringen 6 Data
NO-7491 Trondheim A catalogue record for this book is
Norway available from the British Library.

Cover Image: © zhongguo/Getty Images Bibliographic information published by


the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists
this publication in the Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie; detailed
bibliographic data are available on the
Internet at <http://dnb.d-nb.de>.

© 2020 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH &


Co. KGaA, Boschstr. 12, 69469
Weinheim, Germany

All rights reserved (including those of


translation into other languages). No
part of this book may be reproduced in
any form – by photoprinting,
microfilm, or any other means – nor
transmitted or translated into a
machine language without written
permission from the publishers.
Registered names, trademarks, etc. used
in this book, even when not specifically
marked as such, are not to be
considered unprotected by law.

Print ISBN: 978-3-527-34753-7


ePDF ISBN: 978-3-527-82664-3
ePub ISBN: 978-3-527-82665-0
oBook ISBN: 978-3-527-82666-7

Typesetting SPi Global, Chennai, India


Printing and Binding

Printed on acid-free paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
v

Preface

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report


(IPCC-WG1 2013) states that it is extremely likely (≥95% probability) that human
activities caused more than half of the observed increase in global average surface
temperature from 1951 to 2010. In order to reduce the man-made warming,
concerted action to mitigate emissions of greenhouse gases is now needed. The
main greenhouse gas generated by human activities is carbon dioxide (CO2 ).
Other important greenhouse gases produced from human activities are methane
(CH4 ) and nitrous oxide (N2 O). CO2 is produced mainly by the combustion of
fossil fuels in the power sector, manufacturing industry, and in the transport
sector and also in the production of energy carriers and services. Projections by
the International Energy Agency indicate that fossil fuels will be the dominant
source of energy until 2030 and most likely beyond. It is, therefore, becoming
increasingly important that we develop and deploy mitigation technologies that
can make significant reductions in CO2 emissions in all sectors.
This book covers both CO2 capture technologies as well as power generation
technologies. These are strongly coupled when capturing CO2 from power plants.
CO2 capture technologies have many of the same components found in various
chemical plants, while power generation technologies is a different world where
power engineering and mechanical engineering rule the ground. CO2 capture
makes it necessary to deal with these areas simultaneously, with a communica-
tion between a more diversified group of engineers and scientists that is common
today. It is even more complex than that because CO2 capture is also strongly cou-
pled to transport and storage of the CO2 , which brings geologists and reservoir
engineers into the game. Another aspect of this is that if CO2 capture and storage
make sense, it needs to be done on a very large scale – with big implications to
not only the energy industry but also to the society in general. This makes it nec-
essary to have the economists and social sciences taking part in the development
of CO2 capture and storage technologies.
Note that biomass as fuel and Bio-CO2 capture and storage (CCS) are not
included in the book. Although many of the same aspects on power plant
technologies and CO2 capture as for fossil fuels also apply to biomass, we believe
that this subject deserves a separate treatment together with other potential
negative CO2 emission technologies.
vi Preface

Both authors have a mechanical engineering background. Olav Bolland was


active in the CCS field from the late 1980s until 2017 and has led and partici-
pated in many national and European projects within CCS. Lars Nord worked in
the power generation industry for seven years before returning to academia in
2006 to pursue a PhD degree within CCS under Bolland’s supervision. This work
has continued until now. Both Bolland and Nord are working at NTNU – The
Norwegian University of Science and Technology in the Faculty of Engineering.
Some notes on terminology in the book are as follows:
• The commonly used term oxy-fuel (or oxyfuel) is not used in this book because
of the misconception of having an oxidised fuel, like nitromethane (CH3 NO2 ).
Instead, the term oxy-combustion is used, which the authors believe describes
the combustion in an oxygen-enriched environment more accurately. The term
oxy-fuel combustion has also been extensively used in the literature.
• The off-gas coming from a power plant, engine, or any other type of combus-
tion device is sometimes referred to as flue gas and other times as exhaust gas.
The latter is mostly used for gas turbines and other types of engines, while the
former is mostly used for combustion plants like a coal-fired power plant or any
type of furnace. Flue gas is the term used in this book with a few exceptions.
With hopes of a good read for you!

8 November 2019 Lars O. Nord and Olav Bolland


Trondheim, Norway
vii

Contents

Acknowledgements xiii
Nomenclature xv
Organisation and Use of Book xxiii

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Greenhouse Effect 1
1.2 Atmospheric CO2 3
1.3 Natural Accumulations and Emissions of CO2 4
1.4 Man-made Emissions of CO2 7
1.5 Climate Change 9
1.6 Fossil Fuel Resources 9
1.7 Definition and Rationale of CO2 Capture and Storage (CCS) 10
1.8 Magnitude of CCS 12
1.9 Public Acceptance of CCS 13
1.10 Show-stoppers for CCS Deployment? 15
1.11 History of CCS 16

2 Long-Term Storage of CO2 19


2.1 Storage Time and Volume 19
2.2 Underground Storage 20
2.2.1 Aquifer 20
2.2.2 Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) with CO2 22
2.2.3 Enhanced Gas Recovery (EGR) 28
2.2.4 Enhanced Coal Bed Methane Recovery (ECBM) 29
2.3 Ocean Storage 29
2.4 Mineral Carbonation 30
2.5 Industrial Use – Products 31
2.6 Requirements for CO2 Purity and Transportation 32
2.7 CO2 Compression and Conditioning 35
2.8 Transportation Hazards of CO2 38
2.9 Monitoring of CO2 Storage 39
viii Contents

3 Fuels 41
3.1 Coal 41
3.2 Liquid Fuels 46
3.2.1 Diesel 46
3.2.2 Methanol 48
3.2.3 Ethanol 48
3.2.4 Kerosene 49
3.2.5 Ammonia 49
3.3 Gaseous Fuels 49
3.4 Fuel Usage 51

4 CO2 Generation, Usage, and Properties 53


4.1 Short on CO2 53
4.2 CO2 Chemistry and Energy Conversion 53
4.3 Combustion 57
4.4 Analogy Between CO2 Capture and Desulfurisation 58
4.5 Industrial Processes 60
4.5.1 Ammonia Production 60
4.5.2 Cement Production 60
4.5.3 Aluminium Production 61
4.6 How Do We Use CO2 ? 61
4.6.1 Chemicals and Petroleum 62
4.6.2 Metals 62
4.6.3 Manufacturing and Construction 62
4.6.4 Food and Beverages 62
4.6.5 Greenhouses 63
4.6.6 Health Care 63
4.6.7 Environmental 63
4.6.8 Electronics 63
4.6.9 Refrigerant 64
4.6.10 CO2 Laser 64
4.6.11 Miscellaneous 64
4.7 CO2 and Humans 65
4.8 Properties of CO2 67
4.8.1 Density and Compressibility 69
4.8.2 Specific Heat Capacity 70
4.8.3 Ratio of Specific Heats 71
4.8.4 Thermal Conductivity 72
4.8.5 Viscosity 73
4.8.6 Solubility in Water 74

5 Power Plant Technologies 77


5.1 Coal-Fired Power Plants 77
5.1.1 Steam Cycle in a Coal Power Plant 77
5.1.2 Pulverised Coal Combustion (PCC) 80
5.1.3 Circulating Fluidised Bed Combustion (CFBC) 82
5.1.4 Pressurised Fluidised Bed Combustion (PFBC) 84
Contents ix

5.1.5 Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) 86


5.1.5.1 Process Design 86
5.1.5.2 IGCC Availability 87
5.1.5.3 IGCC Efficiency 88
5.2 Gas Turbine Power Plants 88
5.2.1 Gas Turbines 88
5.2.2 Classification of Gas Turbines 93
5.2.3 Gas Turbines and Fuel Quality 94
5.2.4 Gas Turbine Performance Model 95
5.2.4.1 Compressor 97
5.2.4.2 Air Filter 97
5.2.4.3 Turbine 98
5.2.5 Part-load Performance of a Gas Turbine in a Combined Cycle 98
5.2.6 Diluted Hydrogen as Gas Turbine Fuel 99
5.3 Combined Cycles 105
5.3.1 Combined Gas Turbine and Steam Turbine Cycles 105
5.3.2 Cycle Configurations 106
5.4 Heat Recovery Steam Generators 109
5.4.1 Introduction 109
5.4.2 Properties of Water/Steam 110
5.4.3 Dew Point of Flue Gas – Possible Corrosion 110
5.4.4 TQ Diagram for Steam Generation 111
5.5 Steam Cycle Cooling Systems 113
5.5.1 Direct Water Cooling of the Condenser (A) 113
5.5.2 Water Cooling with Wet Cooling Tower (B) 115
5.5.3 Air-Cooled Condenser (C) 116
5.5.4 Water-cooling with Dry Cooling Tower (D) 116
5.6 Internal Combustion Engines 118
5.7 Flue Gas Cleaning Technologies in Power Plants 118
5.7.1 Particle Removal from Flue Gas 119
5.7.2 Flue Gas Desulfurisation (FGD) 119
5.7.2.1 Wet Scrubbers 120
5.7.2.2 Spray Dry Scrubbers 120
5.7.2.3 Sorbent Injection Processes 121
5.7.2.4 Dry Scrubbers 121
5.7.2.5 Seawater Scrubbing 121
5.7.3 NOx Reduction 121
5.7.3.1 Dry Low NOx Burners 122
5.7.3.2 Fuel Staging 122
5.7.3.3 Reburning 122
5.7.3.4 Flue Gas Recirculation 122
5.7.3.5 Water and Steam Injection 122
5.7.3.6 Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) 123
5.7.3.7 Selective Non-catalytic Reduction (SNCR) 123
5.7.3.8 Mercury Control 124
x Contents

6 Theory of Gas Separation 125


6.1 Gas Separation in CO2 Capture 125
6.2 Theory of Compression and Expansion 126
6.2.1 Closed Systems 126
6.2.2 Open Flow Systems 127
6.2.3 Isothermal Compression 130
6.2.4 Compression and Expansion with Irreversibilities 130
6.3 Theory of Separation 131
6.4 Minimum Work Requirement for Separation – Examples 135

7 Power Plant Efficiency Calculations 141


7.1 General Definition of Efficiency 141
7.2 Definition of the Term ‘Efficiency’ 142
7.3 Fuel Energy 142
7.4 Efficiency Calculations 146
7.5 Heat Rate Versus Efficiency 148
7.6 Additional Consumption of Fuel for CO2 Capture 149
7.7 Relating Work Requirement for CO2 Capture and Efficiency 150
7.8 Terms Related to CO2 Accounting 153

8 Classification of CO2 Capture Methods 159


8.1 Following the CO2 Path 159
8.2 Principles for Combining Power Plants and CO2 Capture 162
8.2.1 Post-combustion CO2 Capture 163
8.2.2 Pre-combustion CO2 Capture 163
8.2.3 Oxy-combustion CO2 Capture 163
8.3 Dilution of CO2 163

9 CO2 Capture by Gas Absorption 167


9.1 Theory of Absorption 167
9.2 Absorption Process 170
9.3 Solvents for Absorption 173
9.3.1 Chemical – Organic 174
9.3.2 Chemical – Inorganic 178
9.3.3 Physical Solvents 181
9.3.4 Ionic Liquids 183
9.4 Solvent Contaminants 185
9.5 Solvent Loading 187
9.6 Energy Use in Absorption Processes 187

10 CO2 Capture by Other Gas Separation Methods 189


10.1 Membranes 189
10.1.1 General Information About Membranes 189
10.1.2 Inorganic Membranes for H2 , O2 , and CO2 Separation 191
10.1.2.1 Dense Pd-Based Membranes for Hydrogen Separation 192
10.1.2.2 Dense Electrolytes and Mixed Conducting Membranes 192
Contents xi

10.1.2.3 Microporous Membranes for Hydrogen or CO2 Separation 195


10.1.3 Polymeric Membranes for CO2 Separation 196
10.1.3.1 Dense Polymeric Membranes 196
10.1.3.2 Polymeric Membranes with Fixed-site-carrier (FSC) 197
10.1.3.3 Polymeric Membranes Supported Liquid Membrane (SLM) 197
10.1.4 Membrane Absorber 197
10.1.5 Flux Through Membranes 199
10.1.6 Challenges Facing Membrane Technology 200
10.2 Adsorption 201
10.2.1 General About Adsorption 201
10.2.2 Adsorbent Material 202
10.2.3 Adsorption–Desorption 205
10.3 Calcium Looping 206
10.4 Anti-sublimation 207
10.5 Distillation 208
10.6 CO2 Hydrate Formation 209
10.7 Electrochemical Separation Processes 209

11 Removing Carbon from the Fuel – Pre-combustion CO2


Capture 211
11.1 Principle 211
11.2 Hydrogenator and Desulfuriser 212
11.3 Pre-reforming 212
11.4 Reformers 214
11.4.1 Steam Reforming (SR) 215
11.4.2 Partial Oxidation Reforming (POX) 215
11.4.3 Autothermal Reforming (ATR) 216
11.4.4 Combined Reforming 217
11.5 Gasification Theory and Principles 218
11.6 Gasifiers 221
11.6.1 Sasol–Lurgi Dry-ash Gasifier 223
11.6.2 BGL Gasifier 223
11.6.3 High-temperature Winkler (HTW) 225
11.6.4 General Electric Gasifier 226
11.6.5 Shell Gasifier 226
11.6.6 ConocoPhillips E-Gas Gasifier 227
11.6.7 Siemens SFG Gasifier 227
11.6.8 Selection of Gasifiers 227
11.7 Syngas Quenching 229
11.8 Syngas Coolers 230
11.9 COS Hydrolysis 230
11.10 Water—Gas Shift (WGS) 231
11.11 Integrated Pre-combustion Approaches 233
11.11.1 Membrane-Enhanced Water–gas Shift 233
11.11.2 Sorption-Enhanced Water-gas Shift 234
11.11.3 Membrane-Enhanced Reforming 235
11.11.4 Sorption-Enhanced Reforming 238
xii Contents

12 Pre-combustion CO2 Capture in Power Cycles 239


12.1 Classification 239
12.2 IGCC with CO2 Capture 239
12.2.1 Process Design 239
12.2.2 IGCC with CO2 Capture – Efficiency 242
12.3 IRCC – Integrated Reforming Combined Cycle 243

13 Post-combustion CO2 Capture in Power Cycles 247


13.1 Classification 247
13.2 Power Plant with Absorption of CO2 from the Flue Gas 249
13.3 Post-combustion Efficiency Penalty – Absorption 251
13.4 Steam Turbine Steam Extraction 251
13.5 Flue Gas Pressure Drop 253
13.6 Post-combustion CO2 Capture at Atmospheric Pressure with Flue Gas
Recirculation (FGR) 255
13.7 Post-combustion CO2 Capture at Elevated Pressure 256
13.7.1 High-Pressure CO2 Absorption Cycle 256
13.7.2 Sargas Cycle 258
13.7.3 Combicap Cycle 259

14 Oxy-combustion CO2 Capture in Power Cycles 261


14.1 Classification 261
14.2 Air Separation for Production of Oxygen 264
14.2.1 Methods and Applications 264
14.2.2 Air Separation by Cryogenic Distillation 266
14.2.3 Mixed Conducting Membrane 271
14.2.4 Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC) 272
14.3 Oxy-combustion with Coal 274
14.3.1 Pulverised Coal Oxy-combustion 274
14.3.2 Circulating Fluidised Bed Oxy-combustion 276
14.4 Oxy-combustion with Natural Gas 277
14.4.1 Water Cycle 277
14.4.2 S-Graz Cycle 278
14.4.3 MATIANT Cycle 279
14.4.4 Allam Cycle 279
14.4.5 SCOC-CC 279
14.4.6 AZEP – Advanced Zero Emission Power Plant 280
14.4.7 Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) with CO2 Capture 280
14.4.8 Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC) with Natural Gas 284

References 285
Glossary 307
Index 311
xiii

Acknowledgements

We convey our thanks to many persons that in one way or another have been
involved in the book.
Thanks to Olav Kaarstad for inputs to CO2 storage, Kjell Erik Rian for gas com-
pression and separation, Ivar Ertesvåg for efficiency definitions and separation
work, and Tord Ursin for efficiency calculations and definitions.
Multiple experts have provided inputs and feedback on the CO2 capture meth-
ods including Hallvard Svendsen for gas absorption, Konrad Eichhorn Colombo
for inputs on membranes and the AZEP, May-Britt Hägg on membranes, Gior-
gia Mondino on adsorption, Ed Blekkan on gas reforming, Ola Maurstad on coal
gasification, and Peter Koch on combustion. Thank you all!
For proofreading, we thank Zeinab Amrollahi, Aldo Bischi, and Rahul Anan-
tharaman.
Many thanks to Konstantinos Kyprianidis and the SOFIA research group at
Mälardalen University for hosting Lars Nord during his sabbatical under which
the book was finalized.
And of course, last but not the least, we thank our wives Synnøve (Olav) and
Nataša (Lars) for the patience and having to hear more than you probably have
liked to about this book.
xv

Nomenclature

Latin Symbols

a effective interfacial area per unit m2 /m3


volume of packing
A cross-sectional area m2
Am membrane surface area m2
cp specific heat capacity at constant kJ/(kg K)
pressure
cv specific heat capacity at constant kJ/(kg K)
volume
dg abundance of gas component g kg
F Faraday constant —
h specific enthalpy on mass basis kJ/kg
h specific enthalpy on molar basis kJ/kmol
0
h specific enthalpy of formation on kJ/kmol
molar basis
H enthalpy kJ
H0 enthalpy of formation kJ
He Henry’s law constant Pa/kmol fraction
gas in liquid

He Henry’s law constant (Pa m3 )/kmol gas
in liquid
HHV higher heating value kJ/kg
HR heat rate kJ/kWh
Ji flux through a membrane m/s
LHV lower heating value kJ/kg
xvi Nomenclature

m mass kg or t
ṁ mass flow rate kg/s
MW molecular weight kg/kmol
n polytropic coefficient —
ni number of moles for specie i mol
Nu Nusselt number
p absolute pressure Pa, bar
pf partial pressure of the permeated gas Pa, bar
at the feed side of a membrane
pi partial pressure of component i Pa, bar
pp partial pressure of the permeated gas Pa, bar
at the permeate side of a membrane
P membrane permeability m3 (STP)/(m h bar)
Pr Prandtl number
qi gas adsorbed per unit mass of mol gas/kg adsorbent
adsorbent
qp,i volumetric flow rate through m3 (STP)/h
membrane
Q heat kJ
Q̇ heat transfer rate kW
r radiative forcing W/(kg m2 )
R specific gas constant kJ/(kg K)
Ru universal gas constant kJ/(kmol K)
Re Reynolds number
s specific entropy on mass basis kJ/(kg K)
S entropy kJ/K
Sads adsorption selectivity —
t time s or h
tm membrane thickness m
T temperature ∘ C or K
u absolute velocity m/s
U internal energy kJ
v specific volume on mass basis m3 /kg
V volume m3
Nomenclature xvii

V̇ volumetric flow rate m3 /s


w specific work on mass basis kJ/kg
w specific work on molar basis kJ/kmol
W work kJ
Ẇ power kW
x vapour quality kgvapour /kgvapour+liquid
xi mole fraction in liquid phase for —
component i
yi mole fraction in gas phase for —
component i
Z compressibility factor —

Greek Symbols

𝛼 heat-to-power ratio kWh /kWe


𝛼 i,j membrane selectivity —
of components i and j
for gas mixture
0
ΔHreaction heat of reaction kJ
𝜂 cap,e CO2 capture efficiency —, %
𝜂 efficiency —, %
𝜂 cap CO2 capture ratio —, %
𝜂 is isentropic efficiency —, %
𝜂p polytropic efficiency —, %
𝜅 ratio of specific heats, —
cp /cv
𝜆 excess air ratio —
𝜉 friction factor —
𝜌 density kg/m3
𝜎 ionic conductivity S/m
𝜎 inj CO2 formation by t CO2 by combustion/t
combustion per tonne CO2 injected
of CO2 injected
𝜎 store CO2 formation by t CO2 by combustion/t
combustion per tonne CO2 stored
of CO2 stored
xviii Nomenclature

𝜑 equivalence ratio (1/𝜆) —


𝜙 ratio of additional oil t fuel/t CO2
or gas to CO2 injected
𝜒 CO2 generated per kg CO2 /MJ
lower heating value of
fuel
𝜓 CO2 formation by t CO2 /t fuel
combustion per tonne
of CO2
𝜔 ratio of recycled CO2 t CO2 recycled/t CO2
to stored CO2 stored

Abbreviations
ACGIH American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists
AEPD 2-amino-2-ethyl-1,3-propandiol
AMP 2-amino-2-methyle-1-propanol
AMPD 2-amino-2-methyl-1,3-propandiol
Ar Argon
ASHRAE American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air
Conditioning Engineers
ASU air separation unit
ATR autothermal reforming
AZEP advanced zero emission power plant
BGL British Gas Lurgi
BoA Braunkohlekraftwerk mit optimierter Anlagentechnik
(lignite-fired or Brown coal-fired power station with optimised
plant engineering)
BOD biological oxygen demand
CA carbonic anhydrase
CAR ceramic autothermal recovery
CC combined cycle
CCS carbon dioxide (CO2 ) capture and storage
CF correction factor (considers real gas effects)
CFB circulating fluidised bed
CFBC circulating fluidised bed combustion
CH4 methane
CHP combined heat and power
CLC chemical looping combustion
CLM contained liquid membrane
CO carbon monoxide
CO2 carbon dioxide
COS carbonyl sulfide
CPO catalytic partial oxidation
Nomenclature xix

DCC direct contact cooler


DEA diethanolamine
DEG diethylene glycol
DGA diglycolamine
DIPA diisopropylamine
DRA drag reducing agent
ECBM enhanced coal bed methane
ECO economiser
EDTA ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid
EG ethylene glycol
EGR enhanced gas recovery
EMC electrochemically modulated complexation
ENCAP ENhanced CAPture project
EOR enhanced oil recovery
ESA electric swing adsorption
ESP ElectroStatic Precipitator
EU European Union
EVA evaporator
EXH exhaust (gas)
FBHE fluidised bed heat exchanger
FGD flue gas desulfurisation
GDP gross domestic product
GE General Electric Company
GHG GreenHouse Gas
GWP global warming potential
H2 hydrogen
H2 O water
H2 S hydrogen sulfide
HCN hydrogen cyanide
HEED hydroxyethylethylenediamine
HEEU hydroxyethylethyleneurea
Hg mercury
HHV higher heating value
HP high pressure
HR heat rate
HRSG heat recovery steam generator
HSE health, safety, and environment
HPT high-pressure turbine
HT high temperature
HTC hydrotalcite
HTS high-temperature water-gas shift
HTW high-temperature Winkler
HV heating value (?)
ICE Internal combustion engines
IEA International Energy Agency
IEA GHG International Energy Agency Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme
xx Nomenclature

IGCC integrated gasification combined cycle


IL ionic liquid
IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
IP intermediate pressure
IPT intermediate pressure turbine
IRCC integrated reforming combined cycle
ISO International Organization for Standardization
ITM ion transport membrane
IUPAC International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
LHV lower heating value
LIDAR light detection and ranging
LNG liquefied natural gas
LP low pressure
LPT low-pressure turbine
LT low temperature
LTS low-temperature water-gas shift
MCM mixed conductive membrane
MDEA methyl diethanolamine
MEA monoethanolamine
MHI Mitsubishi heavy industries
MIX mixer
MOFs metal–organic frameworks
MMV measurement, monitoring, and verification
MP medium pressure
MWGS membrane water-gas shift
N/A not available
N2 nitrogen
N2 O nitrous oxide
NB nota bene (Latin for pay attention, take notice)
NETL National Energy Technology Laboratory
NG natural gas
NGCC natural gas combined cycle
NH3 ammonia
NIOSH US National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health
NIMBY not in my backyard
NO nitric oxide
NOx term for mono-nitrogen oxides – NO and NO2
NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology
NTP normal temperature (298.15 K or 25 ∘ C) and pressure (1 atm)
O2 oxygen
OSHA US Occupational Safety and Health Administration
OSPAR name of both, a commission and convention for the protection
of the marine environment of the north east Atlantic
PCC pulverised coal combustion
PE polyethylene
PEI polyethyleneimine
Nomenclature xxi

PFBC pressurised fluidised bed combustion


pH measure of the acidity or basicity of a solution
PI polyimide
PLONOR pose little or no risk to the environment (a list of
substances/preparations used and discharged offshore, which
are considered to pose little or no risk to the environment; it is
prepared and released by OPAR)
POX partial oxidation
PP polypropylene
PRE pre-reformer
PS polysulfone
PSA pressure swing adsorption
PTFE polytetrafluoroethylene
PVDF polyvinylidene fluoride
PTFE polytetrafluoroethylene, also known by the DuPont brand name
Teflon
RTI Research Triangle Institute
RTIL room temperature ionic liquids
SACS saline aquifer CO2 storage programme, monitoring the sleipner
CO2 injection project
SCOC semi-closed oxy-combustion
SCR selective catalytic reactor (for the removal of NO and NO2 )
SE sorption-enhanced
SERP sorption-enhanced reaction process
SEWGS sorption-enhanced water-gas shift
SF supplementary firing
SFGD seawater flue gas desulfurisation
SMR steam methane reforming
SNCR selective non-catalytic reduction
SO2 sulfur dioxide
SOFC solid oxide fuel cell
SPECC specific energy penalty
SR steam reforming
ST steam turbine
STP standard conditions for gases; standard temperature (273.15 K
or 0 ∘ C) and pressure (105 Pa) as defined by IUPAC (McNaught
1997)
SUP super-heater
TEA triethanolamine
TEG triethylene glycol
THAM tri(hydroxymethyl) aminomethane
THF tetrahydrofuran
ThOD theoretical oxygen demand
TIT turbine inlet temperature
TSA temperature swing adsorption
TSIL task-specific ionic liquid
xxii Nomenclature

US United States (refers to USA)


USA United States of America
VPSA vacuum pressure swing adsorption
VSA vacuum swing adsorption
WGS water-gas shift
YSZ yttria-stabilised zirconia
xxiii

Organisation and Use of Book

The first chapter gives a general introduction on CO2 emissions and CO2
capture and storage (CCS). CCS also involves both CO2 transport and storage,
and although not the focus of the book, Chapter 2 gives an overview related to
long-term storage of CO2 .
Before covering thermal power plant technologies in Chapter 5, both the fuels
used in the power plants, and CO2 and its properties are covered in Chapters 3
and 4, respectively. Chapters 6 and 7 deal with fundamentals of gas separation
and plant efficiencies, important topics related to CO2 capture.
The CO2 capture methods are covered from Chapter 8 and onwards, both
in terms of gas separation methods, Chapters 9–11, and capture processes
integrated in power plants, Chapters 12–14, dealing with pre-combustion,
post-combustion, and oxy-combustion capture methods. Absorption is the most
commonly used method to separate CO2 from gas mixtures. This method is
discussed in separately in Chapter 9, while other methods, such as membranes
and adsorption, are lumped together in Chapter 10.
This text was designed to bridge the gap between the many disciplines involved
in CO2 capture and is fit for undergraduate students, graduate students, practic-
ing process engineers, and others interested in an understanding and overview of
CO2 capture from thermal power plants in particular and of CCS in general. The
research in the field is evolving and it is not the purpose of the book to cover all
the latest developments and research within CCS. If this was the goal, the book
would be outdated already at the time of publishing. For the latest in research,
the reader is referred to review and research journal articles.
1

Introduction

1.1 Greenhouse Effect


The temperature in the Earth’s atmosphere and at ground level is a result of a
complex energy balance between incoming solar radiation energy and outgoing
radiation energy from the Earth’s surface and atmosphere. This balance varies
naturally in daily and annual cycles. There are also variations with long-term
cycles, such as the Milankovitch cycles, which are related to the Earth’s orbital
patterns (Milankovitch 1941). The heat balance is the basis for the temperatures
that we have in the atmosphere and at ground level.
In general, the gases present in the atmosphere convert radiation energy into
thermal energy – by absorption1 of electromagnetic radiation, and vice versa – by
radiation. The mechanism for absorption of radiation in a gas is that the gas
molecules absorb the radiation energy by increasing its kinetic energy through
molecular translation, rotation, and vibration, as well as electron translation and
spin and nuclear spin. The increase in thermal energy of a gas translates into
increased temperature. The longer the radiation travels through a gas, the more
energy is converted. The radiation is at various wavelengths. The solar radiation
is at rather low wavelengths (0.2–3 μm), either in the visible (0.4–0.8 μm) or in the
near-visible (e.g. ultraviolet <0.4 μm) range. Radiation from the ground and from
the atmospheric gases is at higher wavelengths (0.7–300 μm), which is known as
infrared radiation.
The incoming solar radiation is about 342 W/m2 (IPCC-WG1 2007). Some of
this is reflected back into space by clouds, aerosols2 , and atmospheric gases, and
some is reflected by the Earth’s surface. About 240 W/m2 is absorbed by the
Earth’s surface and atmospheric gases. In order to have a heat balance with con-
stant temperature, the radiation from the Earth must be the same. Most of the
outgoing radiation energy is at wavelengths in the range of 7–15 μm. Radiation
from a surface is temperature dependent (∝T 4 ), and a radiation of 240 W/m2
would require an average surface temperature of −19 ∘ C, which is much lower
1 Absorption of electromagnetic radiation is the process by which the energy of a photon is taken
up by an atom. The photon is destroyed in the process. The term ‘absorption’ is also used within
chemical engineering as uptake of a gas in a liquid or solid material, as described in Section 9.1. The
term is also used in a number of other areas.
2 Aerosol refers here to liquid droplets or solid particles in the atmosphere, such as sulfate aerosols
from fossil fuel combustion or particles from volcano eruptions.

Carbon Dioxide Emission Management in Power Generation,


First Edition. Lars O. Nord and Olav Bolland.
© 2020 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA. Published 2020 by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.
2 1 Introduction

than the actual average Earth surface temperature of +14 ∘ C. Because some of
the outgoing radiation is absorbed by clouds or gases in the atmosphere, the tem-
perature at which radiation takes place is forced from −19 ∘ C to +14 ∘ C to main-
tain the average flux of 240 W/m2 . This absorption of radiation and the related
increase in temperature is known as the atmospheric greenhouse effect. This is dif-
ferent from the effect observed in greenhouses, where the temperature increase
is caused by suppression of convection.
A key issue is that the gases in the atmosphere have different properties with
respect to absorption of radiation and radiation from the gases themselves. The
absorption of radiation in a gas depends on the wavelength. Ozone (O3 ) is a
gas that absorbs ultraviolet radiation very well, whereas CO2 absorbs at wave-
lengths around 3–5, and 12–20 μm. Water vapour absorbs at various wavelength
ranges, including that of 7–15 μm. Visible light from the sun is absorbed by atmo-
spheric gases only to a minor extent. The main bulk of infrared radiation, at wave-
length 7–15 μm, is absorbed only to some extent. For some wavelength ranges,
the absorption is about 100%.
The most important gases for the absorption of infrared radiation are water
vapour (H2 O), carbon dioxide (CO2 ), methane (CH4 ), nitrous oxide (N2 O), halo-
carbons (gases containing fluorine, chlorine, and bromine), and ozone (O3 ).
Water vapour is the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere,
accounting for about 60% of the natural greenhouse effect for clear skies. Human
activities influence the atmospheric water vapour content to only a small extent;
it depends much more on the temperature. The relation between temperature
and water vapour content in the atmosphere is approximately a constant relative
to humidity. The greenhouse effect of water vapour is much stronger in humid
areas around the equator compared to that in polar areas where the air humidity
is very low. Consequently, the importance of CO2 as a greenhouse gas is more
evident in polar regions, and changes in the concentration of CO2 have a larger
impact on the temperature in these regions.
The two most abundant gases in the atmosphere – nitrogen and oxygen –
contribute almost nothing to the greenhouse effect. Homonuclear diatomic
molecules such as N2 , O2 , and H2 neither absorb nor emit infrared radiation.
The greenhouse effect was discovered by Joseph Fourier (1768–1830) in 1824.
He was followed by John Tyndall (1820–1893), who did important work on the
radiative properties of gases by verifying, through experiments, the absorption
of radiation in gases and that emissions vary with wavelength and type of gas.
In 1896, Svante Arrhenius (1859–1927) was the first to publish work on a quan-
titative investigation of the greenhouse effect, which he believed could explain
the ice ages. At that time, the link between man-made emission of CO2 and cli-
mate change was already established. Even though the calculations by Arrhenius
were shown to be erroneous, he cleverly managed to collect information from a
large number of sources and to make predictions not so very different from those
recently made by the IPCC. Guy Stewart Callendar (1898–1964) made a very
important contribution with a publication (Callendar 1938) presenting a com-
prehensive global temperature time series and a model, linking greenhouse gases
and climate change (Fleming 2007). He found that a doubling of atmospheric CO2
1.2 Atmospheric CO2 3

concentration resulted in an increase in the mean global temperature of 2 ∘ C, with


considerably more warming at the poles.
The effect of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere can be quantified on two dif-
ferent scales. One is the atmospheric lifetime, which describes how long it takes
to restore the atmospheric system to equilibrium following a small increase in
the concentration of the gas in the atmosphere. Individual molecules may inter-
change with the soil, oceans, and biological systems, but the mean lifetime refers
to the net concentration change towards equilibrium by all sources and sinks.
The other scale is the global warming potential (GWP), which is defined as the
ratio of the time-integrated radiative forcing from a sudden release of 1 kg of a
substance g relative to that of 1 kg of a reference gas, CO2 (IPCC-WG1 2007):
t
∫0 x rg •dg (t)dt
GWP(g) = t
(1.1)
∫0 x rCO2 •dCO2 (t)dt
rg is the radiative forcing per unit mass increase in atmospheric abundance of
component g, and dg (t) is the time-dependent abundance of g, and the corre-
sponding quantities for the reference gas (CO2 ) in the denominator. Radiative
forcing is defined as the change in net irradiance at the tropopause. Net irradi-
ance is the difference between the incoming radiation energy and the outgoing
radiation energy in a given climate system and is measured in W/m2 . The GWP
definition is time dependent (t x ), but, for any time horizon, the GWP of CO2 is
unity by definition.
In Table 1.1, a list of some selected greenhouse gases and their GWP and
atmospheric mean lifetime is given. Water vapour is not included in the list
even though it is an important greenhouse gas because the presence of water
vapour in the atmosphere is mainly determined by the temperature. The short
atmospheric lifetime of tropospheric ozone (hours to days) precludes a globally
homogeneous distribution and is consequently not included in Table 1.1. Ozone
concentrations, and associated radiative effects, are highest near their sources.
CO2 has an atmospheric lifetime that is difficult to specify precisely because CO2
is exchanged with reservoirs having a wide range of turnover times: 5–200 years
or even much longer than that.

1.2 Atmospheric CO2


The concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases are
currently increasing over time. The carbon dioxide concentration, measured as
the mole fraction in dry air, on Mauna Loa, Hawaii, constitutes the longest record
of direct measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere. The average Mauna Loa
CO2 level for 2017 was 407 ppmvd (based on the monthly averages) compared
to 316 ppmvd in 1959. The measurements were started by C. David Keeling of
the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in March of 1958 at a facility of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Keeling et al. 1976). NOAA
started its own CO2 measurements in May 1974, and they have run in parallel
with those made by Scripps since then (Thoning et al. 1989).
4 1 Introduction

Table 1.1 Global warming potential (GWP) – relative to CO2 – as well as atmospheric
concentration and lifetime of selected greenhouse gases.

Recent Atmospheric
Chemical tropospheric GWP (100 yr lifetime
Gas formula concentration time horizon) (yr)

Carbon dioxide CO2 ≈386 ppm 1 100


Methane CH4 ≈1800 ppb 25 12
Nitrous oxide N2 O ≈320 ppb 298 114
Ozone O3 ≈34 ppb N/A h/d
CFC-11 CCl3 F ≈240 ppt 4750 45
CFC-12 CCl2 F2 ≈536 ppt 10 900 100
CFC-113 CCl2 FFClF2 ≈76 ppt 6 130 85
HCFC-22 CHClF2 ≈200 ppt 1 810 12
HCFC-141b CH3 CCl2 F ≈20 ppt 725 9
HCFC-142b CH3 CClF2 ≈20 ppt 2 310 18
Halon 1211 CBrCIF2 ≈4 ppt 1 890 16
Halon 1301 CBrCIF3 ≈3 ppt 7 140 65
HFC-134a CH2 FCF3 ≈52 ppt 1 430 14
Carbon tetrachloride CCL4 ≈88 ppt 1 400 26
Methyl chloroform CH3 CCl3 ≈10 ppt 146 5
Sulfur hexafluoride SF6 ≈7 ppt 22 800 3200

Source: Data are based on CDIAC (2010).

For a much longer time frame, data from the Vostok ice core provide an insight
into the variations in CO2 levels for the past four glacial–interglacial cycles. In
January 1998, the collaborative ice-drilling project between Russia, the United
States, and France at the Russian Vostok station in East Antarctica yielded the
deepest ice core ever recovered, reaching a depth of 3623 m (Petit et al. 1999).
Data from this project are displayed in Figure 1.1. One conclusion from the
authors was that present-day atmospheric burdens of CO2 seem to have been
unprecedented during the past 420 000 years. Note that the mean resolution for
the CO2 measurements was about 1500 years.

1.3 Natural Accumulations and Emissions of CO2


There are many examples of natural emissions of CO2 to the atmosphere. Forest
fires and grass fires are natural phenomena, which release large amounts of CO2
to the atmosphere. On the other hand, after such fires, new trees and grass will
grow and eventually bind more or less the same amount of CO2 as was released.
One can say that as long as the total amount of biomass on a global basis is con-
stant over a longer period of time, the combustion, decay, and growth of biomass
is balanced with respect to CO2 . In this respect, the use of biomass for energy pur-
poses can be regarded as CO2 neutral. Consequently, if the amount of biomass is
1.3 Natural Accumulations and Emissions of CO2 5

320

300
CO2 concentration (ppmv)

280

260

240

220

200

180

160
450 000 350 000 250 000 150 000 50 000
Years before present

Figure 1.1 Vostok ice core data for 420 000 years. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations from
trapped gas bubbles. Source: Petit et al. (1999). Reproduced with permission of Springer
Nature.

increasing through an expansion of the area covered by forests, this contributes


to reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. In reality, there is a signifi-
cant ongoing reduction in biomass globally by man-made forest fires and wood
cutting, which contributes to about 20% of the annual increase in greenhouse gas
emissions.
There are also a number of examples of seepage of CO2 from the ground. From
many of the ground seepages, the flux is so small that it is hardly noticeable. Oth-
ers have a high flux so that the ground-level concentration can cause death of
plants through ‘root anoxia’ and even pose risks to human health and safety. At
concentrations above about 2%, CO2 has a strong effect on respiratory physiol-
ogy, and at concentrations above 7–10%, it can cause unconsciousness and death.
Exposure studies have not revealed any adverse health effect from chronic expo-
sure to concentrations below 1% (Fleming et al. 1992).
One important aspect to note about CO2 is that it has a higher molecular weight
than air, meaning that it is denser than air. As a consequence, the release of CO2
at a low point in the terrain, with little or no wind, can cause the concentration
at that point to increase to a very high level, as the CO2 will not be transported
vertically by buoyancy.
Seepage of CO2 from the ground has a relevance to CO2 capture and storage
because stored CO2 may leak out to the atmosphere. The impact on human health
from releases of CO2 can be severe. Some examples are Lake Monoun, Lake Nyos,
and Lake Kivu, which are the only three lakes in the world known to be saturated
with CO2 (Clarke 2001; IEA-GHG 2006). The former two are located quite close
to each other in the Oku Volcanic Field in Cameroon, whereas the latter is in
Rwanda. In these lakes, the content of CO2 per volume of water increases with
depth because the solubility of CO2 in water depends on the pressure, as can be
seen in Figure 4.17.
6 1 Introduction

On 15 August 1984, Lake Monoun exploded in a limnic eruption probably


caused by an earthquake, which resulted in the release of a large amount of CO2 .
As a direct consequence of the release, 37 people were killed. A gas cloud came
up from a crater in the eastern part of the lake at night. The 37 people who died
were residents in a low-lying area close to the lake. Survivors reported that the
whitish, smoke-like cloud smelled bitter and acidic. The vegetation was flattened
around the eastern part of the lake, probably by a water wave caused by the gas
cloud.
On 21 August 1986, Lake Nyos suddenly emitted a large cloud of CO2 estimated
as over 1 Mt, which travelled more than 10 km and suffocated 1700 people and
3500 livestock in the area near the lake. The lower levels of the deep lake had
become saturated by CO2 coming from a magma chamber beneath the region.
The magma chamber is an abundant source of CO2 , which seeps up through the
lake bed, charging the waters of Lake Nyos with an estimated 90 Mt of CO2 . It is
thought that high rainfall just before the incident, and possibly a landslide, had
displaced the CO2 -rich water at the bottom, releasing a massive bubble of CO2
gas from the lake, in a natural phenomenon now referred to as ‘lake overturn’.
The heavy gas then sank to the ground and rolled in a cloud several tens of metres
deep across the surrounding countryside.
Pipes have now been put in place in Lake Nyos and Lake Monoun to siphon
water from the lower layers up to the surface and allow the CO2 at the bottom
of the lake to slowly bubble out. Events such as those in Lake Monoun and Lake
Nyos can take place only in lakes that do not overturn annually, and where the
water becomes stratified with very high concentrations of CO2 at large depths.
This can happen in deep tropical lakes.
In the Mammoth Mountain area in California, USA, CO2 is leaking out of the
ground at more than 1200 t/d (Farrar et al. 1995; Sorey et al. 1998). The concen-
tration of CO2 near the ground has been measured at over 50%. Three people are
known to have died because of CO2 , and there is an area where the trees are dead.
There exist a few volcanoes with crater lakes. These lakes can be rather deep and
still, with stratification and deep layers containing large amounts of CO2 , similar
to Lake Nyos.
Geysers emit CO2 to the atmosphere. Water charged with CO2 rising from deep
in the ground is released periodically in an explosive manner. Hot springs are sim-
ilar to geysers but release CO2 -rich water at a continuous rate.
In 1979, at the Dieng volcano complex in Indonesia, a release estimated at about
200 kt of CO2 took place in a rather short time before a major eruption. The CO2
flowed from the volcano and down to a plain where 142 people were killed by
suffocation.
There are a number of examples of CO2 emissions from sedimentary basins.
These emissions are characterised by being smaller and more stable over time
compared to those previously given examples from volcanic areas. One example
is the Southeast Basin in France where there are several small CO2 fields in the
ground leaking to the surface. The CO2 is dissolved in the groundwater and comes
out of the ground in springs as carbonated water. This has become the basis for a
mineral water industry, such as Vichy and Perrier.
1.4 Man-made Emissions of CO2 7

At some places, CO2 is leaking from the seabed. Just outside the Aeolian Islands
in the south of Italy, about 25 kt CO2 /yr is leaking over an area covering several
square kilometres. Most of the CO2 is being dissolved in the seawater.
A distinction should be made between natural emissions of CO2 in volcanic
areas and emissions in sedimentary areas. In volcanic areas, the emission of CO2
is often characterised by a sudden release of CO2 , often caused by unstable seis-
mic activities. High temperature and steam are often present, which builds up
high pressure and severe emission with a very high concentration of CO2 . Emis-
sions from sedimentary basins are characterised as more diffuse and definitely
not sudden. Most sedimentary basins are located in tectonically stable regions
with less or no seismic activity. They typically contain porous rocks or sandstone,
which is gas permeable. In some areas, there are also impermeable rock layers
that act as seals so that gas cannot go through and reach the surface. Oil and nat-
ural gas reservoirs in sedimentary basins have proved that such structures can
hold gases locked in the ground for millions of years.
There are also natural accumulations of CO2 in the ground (IPCC-CCS 2005).
One example of such a sedimentary basin is the McElmo Dome in Colorado,
USA. It contains about 1.6 Gt of CO2 (98% purity) and is sealed by a 700 m-thick
impermeable layer. Similar amounts of CO2 are trapped in other fields in the
United States: the St Johns Field in Arizona, the Bravo Dome in New Mexico,
the Sheep Mountain in Colorado, the Jackson Dome, and the Pisgah Anticline in
Mississippi. All fields mentioned above produce commercially traded CO2 , most
of which is used to enhance oil production (refer to Section 2.1.2). The largest
CO2 accumulation known is the Natuna D Alpha field in Indonesia containing
more than 9 Gt CO2 . In the Natuna field, there is also a substantial amount of
natural gas, more than 700 Mt. Similar to the Natuna field, although smaller, is
the La Barge field in Wyoming, USA. In general, there are many natural gas fields
that contain a substantial amount of CO2 and in some cases also some H2 S.
From some of these fields, there is a measurable leakage, whereas others appear
to have no leakage. The mechanisms for these leakages are very well understood,
so that one can tell with high probability which structures can hold CO2 trapped
for a long period of time.

1.4 Man-made Emissions of CO2


Human activities result in emissions of mainly four greenhouse gases: carbon
dioxide (CO2 ), methane (CH4 ), nitrous oxide (N2 O), and the halocarbons (a
group of gases containing fluorine, chlorine, and bromine). These gases accumu-
late in the atmosphere, causing concentrations to increase with time. Significant
increases in all of these gases have occurred in the industrial era.
The emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gases does not only depend on tech-
nology but also depend on other mechanisms in society. The emission of CO2 is
closely linked to energy conversion, and one can depict the relation between the
emission, the energy consumption, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and popula-
tion, as in Eq. (1.2), which is a slightly modified version of that presented originally
by Kaya et al. (1989). This equation is a simplified way of expressing the relation
8 1 Introduction

between these parameters, but it provides a good qualitative illustration of how


CO2 emissions are related to these parameters. One obvious flaw in this equation
is that the highest increase in population comes in areas where the GDP and
energy consumption per capita is below the world average, and consequently, the
equation overestimates contribution from the population factor.

Emission of CO2 Energy consumption GDP


Emission of CO2 = • • • Population
Energy consumption GDP Population
(1) (2) (3) (4) (1.2)

(1) This ratio expresses the CO2 formation related to energy consumption in
society. The value of this ratio is closely related to the technology being used
in terms of efficiency. The type of fuel (coal, oil, natural gas, and biomass) is
also important for this ratio, which is further discussed in Section 4.2. The
switch from coal to natural gas reduces the value, as do efficiency improve-
ments. In some areas of the world, the dependence on coal is stronger than in
others, where natural gas may be more accessible. The potential for reducing
this ratio mainly depends on fuel availability and fuel selection and to some
extent on how far efficiency is pushed when new power plants are built. There
is still a huge potential for improving efficiency in power plants and other
processing industries.
(2) This ratio is the energy intensity, which is calculated as units of energy per
unit of GDP. The ratio says something about the structure of industry, trans-
portation systems, and agriculture. An agricultural country would typically
have low energy intensity, whereas, on the other hand, a country with a lot of
metal production will typically have high energy intensity. In general, one can
say that a high refinement ratio in the industry increases the energy intensity.
One should here be aware that the international trade in products and raw
materials that require a lot of energy (e.g. aluminium) is large. It may be that
a country that is consuming a lot of energy-demanding products is importing
most of them. In such a case, the energy intensity does not express the real
energy intensity caused by the activities in that country. One example is cars,
which are produced only in a few countries. Another example is production
of heavy oil or bitumen, like in Venezuela and Canada, where much energy is
spent on producing oil that is mainly exported.
(3) GDP of a country is defined as the market value of all final goods and services
produced within a country in a given period of time. It is also considered the
sum of value added at every stage of the production of all final goods and ser-
vices produced within a country in a given period of time. One can consider
the GDP as a measure of standard of living, which means consumption of
goods, travel, heating, etc.
(4) According to Eq. (1.2), the population contributes proportionally to the emis-
sion of CO2 . The annual world population growth was about 83 million in
2017, which is about a 1.1% growth rate.
It is indeed a challenge to balance the population growth with technology
improvements (term 1) and energy intensity reductions (term 2) with respect to
CO2 emissions.
Another random document with
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ultimate philosophical questions about the nature either of
matter or of energy. His Natural Philosophy has recently been
translated into English (Holt & Co., 1910). Its Pragmatism lies
in the fact of his looking upon concepts and classification as
“not questions” of the so-called “essence” of the thing, “but
rather as pertaining to purely practical arrangements for an
easier and more successful mastery of scientific problems” (p.
67). He also takes a pragmatist, or “functional,” conception of
the mental life towards the close of this book. Professor
Ostwald lectured some years ago in the United States, and his
lectures were attended by students of philosophy and students
of science. Professor (now President) Hibben has written an
interesting account of his theory in its philosophical bearings in
the Philosophical Review, vol. xii.
69
The philosophy of Avenarius (born in Paris, but died as
Professor of Inductive Philosophy in Zurich) is called “Empirical
Criticism,” which differs from Idealism by taking a more realistic
attitude to ordinary human experience. There is an excellent
elementary account of Avenarius in Mind for 1897 by
Carstanjen of Zurich. Avenarius goes back in some respects to
the teaching of Comte as to the need of interpreting all
philosophical theories in the terms of the social environment
out of which they come.
70
Logic, vol. ii. p. 17. English translation by Miss Dendy. In this
same section of his work, Lotze talks of the demands of our
thought as “postulates” whose claims rest in the end upon our
will—auf unserm Wollen.
71
To be traced to Fichte’s well-known initial interpretation of Kant
from the standpoint of the Practical Reason of the second
“Critique,” and to Schelling’s late “positive” philosophy, and to
Schopenhauer, the will philosopher par excellence. See my
Schopenhauer’s System in its Philosophical Significance.
72
As an illustration of this “conceptual shorthand,” I take the
following lines from Professor Needham’s book upon General
Biology (p. 222) in respect of “classification” and its relative
and changing character. “Whatever our views of relationship,
the series in which we arrange organisms are based upon the
likenesses and differences we find to exist among them. This
is classification. We associate organisms together under group
names because, being so numerous and so diverse, it is only
thus that our minds can deal with them. Classification furnishes
the handles by which we move all our intellectual luggage. We
base our groupings on what we know of the organisms. Our
system of classification is therefore liable to change with every
advance of knowledge.”
73
Professor Jerusalem (the translator of James’s Pragmatism
into German) is known as one of the German discoverers of
Pragmatism. His Introduction to Philosophy (translated by
Professor Sanders, Macmillan & Co., N.Y., 1910) is an
admirable, easy, and instructive introduction to philosophy from
a pragmatist point of view. It has gone through four editions in
Germany. It is quite free from any taint of irrationalism and has
sections upon the “theory of knowledge” and the “theory of
being.” Its spirit may be inferred from the following quotations.
“My philosophy is characterized by the empirical view point,
the genetic method, and the biological and the social methods
of interpreting the human mind” (the Preface). “Philosophy is
the intellectual effort which is undertaken with a view to
combining the common experiences of life and the results of
scientific investigation into a harmonious and consistent world
theory; a world theory, moreover, which is adapted to satisfy
the requirements of the understanding and the demands of the
heart. There was a time when men believed that such a theory
could be constructed from the pure forms of thought, without
much concern for the results of detailed investigation. But that
time is for ever past” (pp. 1 and 2).
74
Author of a work on Philosophy and Social Economy
(Philosophie und Wirthschaft), in which the fundamental idea is
that philosophy is essentially nothing more or less than a
“conception of life” or a view of the world in general, and that
the older rationalistic philosophy will therefore have to be
modified in view of modern discoveries and modern ways of
looking at things. It has, of course, the limitations of such a
point of view, in so far as its author seems to forget that
philosophy must lead human life and not merely follow it. My
present point is merely to mention of the existence and work of
this man as one of the continental thinkers who have
anticipated the essentially social conception of philosophy
taken by the pragmatists.
75
It is easy to see the influence of Fichte’s will philosophy and
practical idealism in Schellwien’s books (Philosophie und
Leben, Wille und Erkenntniss, Der Geist der neuern
Philosophie). He speaks of the primacy of the will (in point of
time only, of course), or of the “unconscious” in the life of man,
allowing, however, that man gradually transforms this natural
life in the life of “creative activity” that is his proper life. He
states (in the Spirit of the New Philosophy) the pragmatist idea
that “belief” (p. 32) or the “feeling” that we have of the ultimate
“unity” of “subject and object,” precedes (also in point of “time”)
knowledge, pointing out, however, in the same place the
limitations of belief. These latter, he supposes, to be overcome
in the higher knowledge that we have in creative activity—an
idea which, I think, may be associated to some extent with the
position of Blondel.
76
In the Phil. Rev. (xvi. p. 250) Dr. Ewald speaks of this work of
this psychologizing school as existing alongside of the
renewed interest in Fichte and Schelling and Hegel. It is an
attempt to revive the teaching of Fries, a Kantian (at Jena) who
attempted to establish the Critique of Pure Reason upon a
psychological basis, believing that psychology, “based on
internal experience,” must form the basis of all philosophy. It
stands squarely upon the fact that all logical laws and
“categories,” even the highest and most abstract, in order to
“come to consciousness in man,” must be given to him as
“psychological processes”—a position which is certainly true
as far as it goes, and which supports, say, the genetic
psychological attitude of Professor Dewey. Its attitude has
been sharply criticized in some of his books by Dr. Ernst
Cassirer of Berlin, a well-known upholder of a more
rationalistic form of Neo-Kantianism.
77
Dr. Simmel of Berlin (like Stein) is a prominent representative
of this school (even in a recent striking book that he wrote
upon the philosophy of Kant). He has written, for example, a
most erudite work upon the Philosophy of Money, and this at
the same time with all his university work as a fascinating and
learned lecturer upon both ancient and modern philosophy.
78
Without attempting to enter upon the matter of Harnack’s
philosophy as a Neo-Kantian of the school of Ritschl, I am
thinking simply of things like the following from his book on the
Essence of Christianity. “It is to man that religion pertains, to
man, as one who in the midst of all change and progress
himself never changes” (p. 8). “The point of view of the
philosophical theorists in the strict sense of the word will find
no place in these lectures. Had they been delivered sixty years
ago it would have been our endeavour to try to arrive by
speculative reasoning at some general conception of religion,
and then to define the Christian religion accordingly. But we
have rightly become sceptical about the value of this
procedure. Latet dolus in generalibus. We know to-day that life
cannot be spanned by general conceptions” (p. 9). See also
his protest (on p. 220) against the substitution of a “Hellenistic”
view of religion for religion itself—a protest that is, according to
Pfleiderer in his Development of Theology (p. 298), a marked
characteristic of Harnack’s whole History of Dogma.
79
I am thinking of Ritschl’s sharp distinction between “theoretical
knowledge” and “religious faith” (which rises to judgments of
value about the world that transcend even moral values), and
of his idea that the “truth” of faith is practical, and must be
“lived.” Pfleiderer says (in his Development of Theology, p.
184) that Ritschl’s “conception of religion is occupied with
judgments of value [Werturtheile], i.e. with conceptions of our
relation to the world which are of moment solely according to
their value in awakening feelings of pleasure and pain, as our
dominion over the world is furthered or checked.” His
“acceptance of the idea of God as [with Kant] a practical
‘belief,’ and not an act of speculative cognition,” is also to
some extent a pragmatist idea in the sense in which, in this
book, I reject pragmatist ideas. Ritschl seems to have in the
main only a strongly practical interest in dogmatics holding that
“only the things vital are to be made vital in the actual service
of the church.” He goes the length of holding that “a merely
philosophical view of the world has no place in Christian
theology,” holding that “metaphysical inquiry” applied to
“nature” and to “spirit,” as “things to be analysed, for the
purpose of finding out what they are in themselves, can from
the nature of the case have no great value for Christian
theology.” Of course he is right in holding that the “proofs for
the existence of God, conducted by the purely metaphysical
method, do not lead to the forces whose representation is
given in Christianity, but merely to conceptions of a world-unity,
which conceptions are neutral as regards all religion” (The
Theology of Albrecht Ritschl, Swing. Longmans, Green & Co.,
1901). I think this last quotation from Ritschl may be used as
an expression of the idea of the pragmatists, that a true and
complete philosophy must serve as a “dynamic” to human
endeavour and to human motive.
80
See the reference to Windelband in the footnote upon p. 150.
81
I am thinking of Münsterberg’s contention in his Grundzüge
and his other books, that the life of actual persons can never
be adequately described by the objective sciences, by psycho-
physics, and so on, and of his apparent acceptance of the
distinction of Rickert between the “descriptive” and the
“normative” sciences (logic, ethics, aesthetics, and so on).
82
The leaders of this school are the two influential thinkers and
teachers Cohen and Natorp, the former the author of a well-
known book upon Kant’s Theory of Experience (1871),
formerly much used by English and American students, and
the latter the author of an equally famous book upon Plato’s
Theory of Ideas, which makes an interesting attempt to
connect Plato’s “Ideas” with the modern notion of the law of a
phenomenon. Cohen has given forth recently an important
development of the Kantian philosophy in his two remarkable
books upon the Logic of Pure Knowledge and the Ethic of the
Pure Will. These works exercise a great influence upon the
entire liberal (Protestant and Jewish) thought of the time in
Germany. They teach a lofty spiritualism and idealism in the
realm of ethics, which transcends altogether anything as yet
attempted in this direction by Pragmatism.
83
See the instructive reports to the Philosophical Review by Dr.
Ewald of Vienna upon Contemporary Philosophy in Germany.
In the 1907 volume he speaks of this renewed interest, “on a
new basis,” in the work of the great founders of
transcendentalism as an “important movement partly within
and partly outside of Neo-Kantianism,” as “a movement
heralded by some and derided by others as a reaction,” as the
“fulfilment of a prophecy by von Hartmann that after Kant we
should have Fichte, and after Fichte, Schelling and Hegel.”
The renewed interest in Schelling, and with it the revival of an
interest in university courses in the subject of the Philosophy of
Nature (see the recent work of Driesch upon the Science and
Philosophy of the Organism) is all part of the recent reaction in
Germany against Positivism.
84
We may associate, I suppose, the new German journal Logos,
an international periodical for the “Philosophie der Kultur,” with
the same movement.
85
See Chapter VII. upon “Pragmatism as Americanism.”
86
See an article in the Critical Review (edited by the late
Professor Salmond, of Aberdeen), by the author upon “Recent
Tendencies in American Philosophy.” The year, I think, was
either 1904 or 1905.
87
See p. 180.
88
Without pretending to anything like a representative or an
exhaustive statement in the case of this magazine literature, I
may mention the following: Professor Perry of Harvard, in his
valuable articles for the Journal of Philosophy and Psychology,
1907, vol. iv., upon “A Review of Pragmatism as a
Philosophical Generalization,” and a “Review of Pragmatism
as a Theory of Knowledge”; Professor Armstrong in vol. v. of
the same journal upon the “Evolution of Pragmatism”; and
Professor Lovejoy in the 1908 vol. upon the “Thirteen
Pragmatisms.” These are but a few out of the many that might
be mentioned. The reader who is interested in looking for more
such must simply consult for himself the Philosophical Review,
and Mind, and the Journal of Philosophy and Psychology, for
some years after, say, 1903. There is a good list of such
articles in a German Doctor Thesis by Professor MacEachran
of the University of Alberta, entitled Pragmatismus eine neue
Richtung der Philosophie, Leipzig, 1910. There is also a
history of pragmatist articles in the 1907 (January) number of
the Revue des Sciences, Philosophiques et Theologiques.
89
That this has really taken place can be clearly seen, I think, if
we inspect the official programmes of the Proceedings of the
American Philosophical Association for the last year or two.
90
P. 144.
91
See p. 149.
92
See Chapter VI., p. 149, upon the doctrine and the fact of
“Meaning.”
93
Professor Pratt, What is Pragmatism? (Macmillan & Co.,
1909); H. H. Bawden, The Principles of Pragmatism, a
Philosophical Interpretation of Experience, Boston, 1910 (a
useful book presenting what may be called a
“phenomenological” account of Pragmatism); Moore,
Pragmatism and Its Critics.
94
In Pragmatism and Its Critics (Univ. of Chicago Press).
95
The manifesto has now become a book. The New Realism
(Macmillan). For a useful account of the New Realism and the
Old see Professor Perry, Present Philosophical Tendencies,
Part V.
96
The following are my reasons for saying that the “New
Realism” was already to some extent lurking in the “radical
empiricism” of James. (1) Although teaching unmistakably the
“activity” of mind, James seemed to think this activity
“selective” rather than “creative” (falling in this idea behind his
much-admired Bergson). (2) Despite this belief in the activity of
the mind, he had the way of regarding consciousness as (to
some extent) the mind’s “content”—an attitude common to all
empirical psychologists since Hume and the English
associationists. And from this position (legitimate so far from
the psychological point of view) he went on to the idea
(expressed in a troublesome form in the article, “Does
Consciousness exist?”) that consciousness is not an entity or
substance—of course it is not in the ordinary sense of “entity.”
(3) Then from this he seemed to develop the idea that the
various “elements” that enter into consciousness to be
transformed into various “relationships” do not suffer any
substantial change in this quasi-subjective “activity.” Therefore,
as Professor Perry puts it (Present Tendencies, p. 353), “the
elements or terms which enter into consciousness and become
its content may now be regarded as the same elements which,
in so far as otherwise related, compose physical nature [italics
mine]. The elements themselves, the ‘materia prima,’ or stuff of
pure experience, are neither psychical nor physical.” It is in this
last absurd sentence [simply a piece of quasi-scientific
analysis, the error of which Critical Idealism would expose in a
moment] that the roots, I think, of “new realism” are to be found
—a doctrine whose unmitigated externalism is the negation of
all philosophy.
97
See p. 164 and p. 230.
98
I refer to his Aberdeen “Gifford Lectures” on “The World and
The Individual,” and to a well-known address of his upon “The
Eternal and the Practical” in the Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Association. In this latter pamphlet he shows that
Pragmatism and the philosophy of Consequences are
impossible without “the Eternal” and without Idealism.
99
The criticisms of which I am thinking are (to select but a few
from memory) Green’s well-known admission in respect of
Hegelianism, that it would have “to be done all over again”; Mr.
Bradley’s admission that he is “not a Hegelian” and (recently)
that he has “seen too much of metaphysics” to place any
serious weight upon its reasonings; Jowett’s complaint (in the
“life” by Campbell) that the Oxford Hegelianism of his day was
teaching students to place an undue reliance upon “words” and
“concepts” in the place of facts and things; Dr. Bosanquet’s
admission (many years ago) that, of course, “gods and men”
were more than “bloodless categories”; Professor Pringle
Pattison’s criticism of Hegel in his Hegelianism and
Personality; Professor Baillie’s criticisms at the end of his Logic
of Hegel; Mr. Sturt’s criticism of Neo-Hegelianism in his Idola
Theatri, etc.
100
See the following, for example, from Professor Stout: “Every
agreeable or disagreeable sensation has a conative or quasi-
conative aspect” (Manual of Psychology, p. 233). Also:
“Perception is never merely cognitive” (ibid. p. 242); it has a
“conative character and a feeling tone,” etc.
101
A. Sidgwick’s “Applied Axioms” (Mind, N.S. xiv. p. 42). This is
extremely useful, connecting the recent pragmatist movement
with the work of the English logicians. See in the same
connexion the articles of Captain Knox in the Quarterly Review
(April 1909) on “Pragmatism.”
102
During the last ten years Mind has contained articles on the
pragmatist controversy by nearly all our prominent academic
authorities: Dr. Bradley, Dr. McTaggart, Professor Taylor,
Professor Hoernle, Dr. Schiller, Dr. Mellone, Dr. Boyce-Gibson,
Mr. Hobhouse, and so on.
103
Particularly in his valuable book on Truth in which the
weakness of the Hegelian conception of truth is set forth along
with that of other views.
104
In Idealism as a Practical Creed, in his Browning as a
Religious and Philosophical Teacher, and elsewhere.
105
In his Elements of Metaphysic, and in many of his recent
reviews; in his review, for example, of Professor Bosanquet’s
Individuality and Value, in the Review of Theology and
Philosophy, and in his Mind (July 1912) review of Professor
Ward’s Realm of Ends.
106
In his book upon the Philosophy of Eucken, in God With Us,
and elsewhere.
107
In Idola Theatri (an important criticism of Neo-Hegelian
writers), and elsewhere.
108
In Essays in Philosophical Construction, and in his book upon
Logic.
109
In his Introduction to Logic.
110
See p. 154.
111
“If God has this perfect authority and perfect knowledge, His
authority cannot rule us, nor His knowledge know us, or any
human thing; just as our authority does not extend to the gods,
nor our knowledge know anything which is divine; so by parity
of reason they, being gods, are not our masters, neither do
they know the things of men” (Parmenides, 134, Jowett’s
Plato, vol. iv.).
112
This is, of course, a very old difficulty, involved in the problem
of the supposed pre-knowledge of God. Bradley deals with it in
the Mind (July 1911) article upon “Some Aspects of Truth.” His
solution (as Professor Dawes Hicks notices in the Hibbert
Journal, January 1912) is the familiar Neo-Hegelian finding,
that as a “particular judgment” with a “unique context” my truth
is “new,” but “as an element in an eternal reality” it was “waiting
for me.” Readers of Green’s Prolegomena are quite ready for
this finding. Pragmatists, of course, while insisting on the man-
made character of truth, have not as yet come in sight of the
difficulties of the divine foreknowledge—in relation to the free
purposes and the free discoveries of mortals.
113
There is, it seems to me, a suggestion of this rationalist
position in the fact, for example, that Mr. Bertrana Russell
begins his recent booklet upon The Problems of Philosophy
with the following inquiry about knowledge: “Is there any
knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable
man could doubt it?” I mean that the initial and paramount
importance attached here to this question conveys the
impression that the supreme reality for philosophy is still some
independently certain piece of knowledge. I prefer, with the
pragmatists and the humanists, to think of knowledge as
concerned with the purposes of persons as intelligent beings,
or with the realities revealed in the knowing process. Although
there are passages in his book that show Mr. Russell to be
aware of the selves and the psychical elements and processes
that enter into knowing, they do not affect his prevailingly
rationalistic and impersonal conception of knowledge and
philosophy.
114
In his sympathetic and characteristic review of James’s
“Pragmatism” in the Journ. of Philos., 1908.
115
See p. 203 (the note), and p. 263, where I suggest that no
philosophy can exist, or can possibly begin, without some
direct contact with reality, without the experience of some
person or persons, without assumptions of one kind or another.
116
See p. 162.
117
In this attitude Pragmatism is manifestly in a state of rebellion
against “Platonism,” if we allow ourselves to think of
Pragmatism as capable of confronting Plato. Plato, as we
know, definitely subordinates “belief” to “knowledge” and
“truth.” “As being is to becoming,” he says, “so is truth to belief”
(Timaeus, Jowett’s translation). To Plato belief is a conjectural,
or imaginative, estimate of reality; it deals rather with
“appearance” or “becoming” than with “reality.” “True being” he
thinks of as revealed in the Ideas, or the rational entities that
are his development and transformation of the “definition” of
Socrates. Against all this rationalism Pragmatism (it is enough
meantime merely to indicate the fact) would have us return to
the common-sense, or the religious, position that it is invariably
what we believe in that determines our notion of reality.
118
Cf. p. 159.
119
From Dr. Schiller’s Humanism.
120
Pragmatism, p. 207.
121
It is this dissatisfaction at once with the abstractions of science
and of rationalism and with the contradictions that seem to
exist between them all and the facts of life and experience as
we feel them that constitutes the great dualism, or the great
opposition of modern times. I do not wish to emphasize this
dualism, nor do I wish to set forth faith or belief in opposition to
reason when I extract from both Pragmatism and Idealism the
position that it is belief rather than knowledge that is our
fundamental estimate of reality. I do not believe, as I indicate in
the text above, that this dualism is ultimate. It has come about
only from an unfortunate setting of some parts of our nature, or
of our experience in opposition to the whole of our nature, or
the whole of our experience. That the opposition, however,
between reason and faith still exists in many quarters, and that
it is and has been the opposition of modern times, and that the
great want of our times is a rational faith that shall recall the
world of to-day out of its endless “distraction” (the word is Dr.
Bosanquet’s), I am certainly inclined to maintain. In proof of
this statement it is enough to recall things like the words of
Goethe about the conflict of belief and unbelief as the unique
theme of the history of the world, or the “ethical headache
which was literally a splitting headache,” that Mr. Chesterton
finds in the minds of many of our great Victorian writers. I shall
take leave of it here with three references to its existence
taken from the words or the work of living writers. The first
shall be the opposition which Mr. Bertrand Russell finds in his
Philosophical Essays (in the “Free Man’s Worship”) between
the “world which science presents for our belief” and the “lofty
thoughts that ennoble his little day.” The second shall be the
inconsistency that exists in Mr. Hugh S. R. Elliot’s book upon
Modern Science and the Illusions of Professor Bergson,
between his initial acceptance of the mechanical, evolutionary
system of modern science and his closing acceptance of
feeling and poetry and love as the “deepest forms of
happiness.” The third shall be the declaration of Professor Sir
Henry Jones of Glasgow (in the Hibbert Journal, 1903) that
“one of the characteristics of our time is the contradiction that
exists between its practical faith in morality and its theoretical
distrust of the conceptions on which they rest.”
122
See p. 203 (note).
123
See p. 7.
124
From Pragmatism and its Misunderstanders.
125
See p. 173.
126
“You will be surprised to learn, then, that Messrs. Schiller’s and
Dewey’s theories have suffered a hailstorm of contempt and
ridicule. All rationalism has risen up against them. In influential
quarters, Mr. Schiller in particular has been treated like an
impudent school-boy who deserves a spanking. I should not
mention this but for the fact that it throws so much light upon
that rationalist temper to which I have opposed the temper of
pragmatism. Pragmatism is uncomfortable away from facts.
Rationalism is comfortable only in the presence of
abstractions. This pragmatist talk about truths in the plural,
about their utility and satisfactoriness, about the success with
which they ‘work,’ etc., suggests to the typical intellectualist
mind a sort of coarse, lame, second-rate makeshift article of
truth” (James, Pragmatism, pp. 66–67; italics mine). The words
about Rationalism being comfortable only in the world of
abstractions are substantiated by the procedure of Bosanquet,
to whom I refer in Chapter VIII., or by the procedure of Mr.
Bertrand Russell, referred to on p. 169.
127
See p. 235 in the Bergson chapter where it is suggested that
perception is limited to what interests us for vital or for practical
purposes.
128
Cf. p. 92.
129
See p. 65.
130
See p. 234 upon the “anti-intellectualism” in the philosophy of
Bergson.
131
See p. 4 and p. 237.
132
From “Truth and Copying,” Mind, No. 62.
133
From “Truth and Practice,” in Mind. Cf. “This denial of
transcendence, this insistence that all ideas, and more
especially such ideas as those of God, are true and real just so
far as they work, is to myself most welcome” (Bradley, in Mind,
1908, p. 227, “Ambiguity of Pragmatism”). Mr. Bradley has of
recent years made so many such concessions, and has
philosophized with such an admirable degree of
independence, and has (also admirably) attached so much
weight to his own experience of “metaphysics,” and of other
things besides, that many thinkers like Knox and Dewey and
Schiller have been discussing whether he can any longer be
regarded as a rationalist. One could certainly study, profitably,
the whole evolution of philosophy in England during the last
forty years by studying Mr. Bradley’s development. He never
was, of course, a Hegelian in the complete sense (who ever
was?), and he has now certainly abandoned an abstract,
formalistic Rationalism.
By way of an additional quotation or two from Mr. Bradley,
typical of his advance in the direction of the practical
philosophy for which Pragmatism stands, we may append the
following: “I long ago pointed out that theory takes its origin
from practical collision [the main contention of Professor
Dewey and his associates]. If Pragmatism means this, I am a
pragmatist” (from an article in Mind on the “Ambiguity of
Pragmatism”—italics mine). “We may reject the limitation of
knowledge to the mere world of events which happen, and
may deny the claim of this world to be taken as an ultimate
foundation. Reality or the Good will be the satisfaction of all the
wants of our nature, and theoretical truth will be the perception
of ideas which directly satisfy one of those wants, and so
invariably make part of the general satisfaction. This is a
doctrine which, to my mind, commends itself as true, though it
naturally would call for a great deal of explanation” (from Mind,
July 1904, p. 325). And, as typical of the kind of final
philosophy to which the philosophical reconstruction of the
future must somehow attain out of the present quarrel between
Pragmatism and Rationalism, the following: “If there were no
force in the world but the vested love of God, if the wills in the
past were one in effort and in substance with the one Will, if in
that Will they are living still and still are so loving, and if again
by faith, suffering, and love my will is made really one with
theirs, here indeed we should have found at once our answer
and our refuge. But with this we should pass surely beyond the
limits of any personal individualism” (from Mind, July 1904, p.
316). Dr. Schiller, by the way, has a list of such concessions to
Pragmatism on the part of Mr. Bradley in Mind, 1910, p. 35.
134
Cf. the saying of Herbert Spencer (Autobiography, i. 253) that
a “belief in the unqualified supremacy of reason [is] the
superstition of philosophers.”
135
See p. 147.
136
“Truth and Practice,” Mind, No. 51.
137
It would be easy to quote to the same effect from other
Hegelian students, or, for that part of it, from Hegel himself.
138
Elements of Metaphysics, p. 411.
139
Ibid. p. 414.
140
Cf. p. 14.
141
See the well-known volume Personal Idealism, edited by Mr.
Sturt.
142
Cf. pp. 147 and 193.
143
By this notion is meant the common-sense idea that truth in all
cases “corresponds” to fact, my perception of the sunset to the
real sunset, my “idea” of a “true” friend to a real person whose
outward acts “correspond to” or “faithfully reflect” his inner
feelings. See the first chapter of Mr. Joachim’s book upon The
Nature of Truth, where this notion is examined and found
wanting. It is probably the oldest notion of truth, and yet one
that takes us readily into philosophy from whatever point of
view we examine it. It was held by nearly all the Greek
philosophers before the time of the Sophists, who first began
to teach that truth is what it “appears to be”—the “relativity”
position that is upheld, for example, by Goethe, who said that
“When I know my relation to myself and to the outer world I call
this truth. And thus every man can have his own truth, and yet
truth is always the same.” The common-sense view was held
also by St. Augustine in the words, “That is true what is really
what it seems to be (verum est quod ita est, ut videtur),” by
Thomas Aquinas as the “adequacy of the intellect to the thing,”
in so far as the intellect says that that is which really is, or that
that is not which is not (adaequatio intellectus et rei), by
Suarez, by Goclen, who made it a conformity of the judgment
with the thing. Its technical difficulties begin to appear, say in
Hobbes, who held that truth consists in the fact of the subject
and the predicate being a name of the same thing, or even in
Locke, who says: “Truth then seems to me in the proper import
of the word to signify nothing but the joining or separating of
signs, as the things signified by them, do agree, or disagree,
one with another” (Essay, iv. 5. 2). How can things “agree” or
“disagree” with one another? And an “idea” of course is,
anyhow, not a “thing” with a shape and with dimensions that
“correspond” to “things,” any more than is a “judgment” a
relation of two “ideas” “corresponding” to the “relations” of two
“things.”
144
“The mind is not a ‘mirror’ which passively reflects what it
chances to come upon. It initiates and tries; and its
correspondence with the ‘outer world’ means that its effort
successfully meets the environment in behalf of the organic
interest from which it sprang. The mind, like an antenna, feels
the way for the organism. It gropes about, advances and
recoils, making many random efforts and many failures; but it
is always urged into taking the initiative by the pressure of
interest, and doomed to success or failure in some hour of trial
when it meets and engages the environment. Such is mind,
and such, according to James, are all its operations” (Perry,
Present Philosophical Tendencies, p. 351). Or the following: “I
hope that,” said James in the “lectures” embodied in
Pragmatism (New York, 1908) ... “the concreteness and
closeness to facts of pragmatism ... may be what approves
itself to you as its most satisfactory peculiarity. It only follows
here the example of the sister sciences, interpreting the
unobserved by the observed. It brings old and new
harmoniously together. It converts the absolutely empty notion
of a static relation of ‘correspondence’ between our minds and
reality, into that of a rich and active commerce (that any one
may follow in detail and understand) between particular
thoughts of ours and the great universe of other experiences in
which they play their parts and have their uses” (p. 68; italics
mine).
145
“On any view like mine to speak of truth as in the end copying
reality, would be senseless” (Bradley in Mind, July 1911, “On
some Aspects of Truth”).
146
See p. 143 and p. 265.
147
See p. 127 and p. 133.
148
See pp. 148–9.
149
See p. 162.
150
What is Pragmatism? (Pratt), p. 21.
151
Principles of Pragmatism, Houghton Mifflin, 1910.
152
Ibid., Preface. This last sentence, by the way, may be taken as
one of the many illustrations that may be given of the crudities
and difficulties of some of the literature of Pragmatism. It
shows that Pragmatism may sometimes be as guilty of
abstractionism as is Rationalism itself. It is not “experience”
that becomes “self-conscious,” but only “persons.” And,
similarly, it is only “persons” who pursue “ends” and “satisfy”
desires, and who may be said to have a “method.” Professor
Bawden, of course, means that it is to the credit of Pragmatism
that it approaches experience just as it finds it, and that its
chief method is the interpretation of the same experience—an
easy thing, doubtless, to profess, but somewhat difficult to
carry out.
153
Principles of Pragmatism, Houghton Mifflin, 1910, pp. 44–45.
154
P. 253.
155
P. 256.
156
See p. 146.
157
See p. 240 et ff.
158
Wallace’s Logic of Hegel, p. 304.
159
There is a sentence in one of Hawthorne’s stories to the effect
that man’s work is always illusory to some extent, while God is
the only worker of realities. I would not go as far as this,
believing, as I do, with the pragmatists, that man is at least a
fellow-worker with God. But I do find Pragmatism lacking, as 1
indicate elsewhere, in any adequate recognition of the work of
God, or the Absolute in the universe.
160
I am thinking of such considerations as are suggested in the
following sentences from Maeterlinck: “As we advance through
life, it is more and more brought home to us that nothing takes
place that is not in accord with some curious, preconceived
design; and of this we never breathe a word, we scarcely let
our minds dwell upon it, but of its existence, somewhere above
our heads, we are absolutely convinced” (The Treasure of the
Humble, p. 17). “But this much at least is abundantly proved to
us, that in the work-a-day lives of the very humblest of men
spiritual phenomena manifest themselves—mysterious, direct
workings, that bring soul nearer to soul” (ibid. 33). “Is it to-day
or to-morrow that moulds us? Do we not all spend the greater
part of our lives under the shadow of an event that has not yet
come to pass?” (ibid. 51). I do not of course for one moment
imply that the facts of experience referred to in such sentences
as these should be received at any higher value than their face
value, for there are indeed many considerations to be thought
of in connexion with this matter of the realization of our plans
and our destiny as individuals. But I do mean that the beliefs to
which men cling in this respect are just as much part of the
subject-matter of philosophy as other beliefs, say the belief in
truth as a whole, or the beliefs investigated by the Society for
Psychical Research. And there may conceivably be a view of
human nature upon which the beliefs in question are both
natural and rational.
161
See p. 101.
162
See p. 198 on Dr. Bosanquet’s dismissal of the problem of
teleology from the sphere of reasoned philosophy.
163
Appearance and Reality, p. 561.
164
See p. 155.
165
I think that I have taken this phrase from Some Dogmas of
Religion.
166
From “Truth and Copying,” Mind, No. 62.
167
By action in this chapter and elsewhere in this book, I do not
mean the mere exhibition or expenditure of physical energy. I
mean human activity in general, inclusive of the highest
manifestations of this activity, such as the search for truth,
contemplation, belief, creative activity of one kind or another,
and so on. There is no belief and no contemplation that is not
practical as well as theoretical, no truth that fails to shape and
to mould the life of the person who entertains it. I quite agree
with Maeterlinck, and with Bergson and others, that the soul is
to some extent limited by the demands of action and speech,
and by the duties and the conventions of social life, but I still
believe in the action test for contemplations and thoughts and
beliefs and ideas, however lofty. It is only the thoughts that we
can act out, that we can consciously act upon in our present
human life, and that we can persuade others to act upon, that
are valuable to ourselves and to humanity. It is to their discredit
that so many men and so many thinkers entertain, and give
expression to, views about the universe which renders their

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