Zero Emissions Natural Gas Plant Using Solid Oxide Fuel Cells?

[altenergygeek]

A recent news item discussed the concept of using solid oxide fuel cells in natural gas fired power plants to make a zero emissions plant.

MIT Postdoctoral associate Thomas Adams and Chemical Engineering Professor Paul I. Barton have proposed a system which produces power from natural gas without burning it, and produces a stream of clean water, and almost pure carbon dioxide, making it easy to harness for sale to cement manufacturers now developing a use for it, or pre-separating it cheaply for Carbon Capture and Storage. More on this from this blog post on the [URL="http://powerplantccs.com/blog/2010/03/zero-emissions-natural-gas-plant-using-solid-oxide-fuel-cells.html"]power plant - fuel cell combination[/URL].

At the heart of this is obviously the fuel cell technology. This is an interesting intersection, in my opinion - the intersection of fuel cells and power plants for CCS. Are you aware of other ideas that work similar to this? And what do you feel could be the challenges in ideas such as this?