Essent and Shell to Study Feasibility of 1 MW Hydrogen-Fired Power Plant with CCS
08 December 2008
Essent Business Development B.V. (Essent) and Shell Gas & Power Developments B.V. agreed to study the feasibility of a 1,000 MW, low-CO2 power plant combing a high-efficiency gasifier, a power generation plant and equipment to capture and store CO2. Most of the CO2 produced by the plant would be captured and stored underground. Essent and Shell signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the feasibility study.
Coal and solid biomass would be gasified to produce synthesis gas which, in turn,is used to produce hydrogen. The hydrogen would then be used to generate electricity in turbines. Gasification technology makes it simpler and cheaper to capture CO2 than conventional coal and biomass firing, the companies said.
The study will assess which depleted oil and gas fields would be suitable for CO2 storage. Because of the volume of CO2 involved, the study will consider both onshore and offshore fields.
The companies are evaluating possible sites for the plant in the south-west part of the Netherlands.
fed algae with those CO2` algae will love it~
Posted by: zard | 08 December 2008 at 10:47 AM
Headline says 1 mw, body of text says 1000 mw.
Call me old fashioned, call me a pedant, do you mean 1 GW?
Posted by: tony | 08 December 2008 at 10:49 AM
Ya, I think he does mean 1 GW. It is a big difference actually. This article is describing a commercial scale 1 GW plant. A 1 MW plant would only power a small town.
Posted by: Stephen Agneta | 08 December 2008 at 10:59 AM
Two (2) Kg out of 1500 Kg = 0.13%. How much difference (if any) would that make at the fuel pump?
If Ford was to multiply this effort by 100 or 200 or even 300, it may make a noticeable difference and offset the weight of the batteries for PHEV-40 version.
Will Ford do it?
Posted by: HarveyD | 08 December 2008 at 12:42 PM
If synthesis gas is being made, It also should be made into methanol for a liquid fuel that can be stored for a long while. Any waste heat from the gasification process can be used also to generate electricity.
It may be that methane also ought to be produced. Methane can be made from coal at a relatively cheap price. The methane can be transported by existing pipes. At one time oil energy was twenty times the price of coal energy.
If hydrogen is produced, it may be the time to start the hydrogen economy and put pipelines for hydrogen into various places perhaps eventually even into homes. At least there should enough pipelines so that cogeneration is available for district heating combined with power generation. Except for not using energy, cogeneration is the cheapest and fastest way of of reducing CO2 emissions. Nuclear may be cheaper but not as fast.
Home cogeneration systems are available from Honda, Whispergen and others including the steam piston German Lion. Business cogeneration systems are available from Capstone, UTC and many others. They are far more cost effective at reducing CO2 release than Solar cells.
A Capstone air bearing turbine unit at a dutch swimming pool has one of the highest energy recovery rates from the turbines exhaust. In thinking about such cogeneration units, It is quite accurate to state that the electricity costs money because of the fuel used, but the heat is free because at central generating plants it is just wasted.
Cogeneration units can actually supply heat at fuel efficiencies higher than two hundred percent with the use of heat pumps. There was once and there may be again a Japanese engine driven heat pump. One free piston Stirling engine maker has proposed a Stirling refrigerator that runs on heat as a combination engine-refrigerator.
The ENATEC free piston Stirling home cogeneration system is only about five years behind shedule of public sale.
Except for nuclear power plants, all generating plants should be small local units from now on and supply hot water for neighborhood heating. These can be relatively small units that are connected to the grid. They should almost always be engines because of their higher efficiency, but electrical generating efficiency is not as important in cogeneration. All natural gas now used by central power plants should be diverted to cogeneration units. Prices for natural gas for cogeneration units can even be almost as low as the price that was charged the central power plant. A meter in the cogeneration unit can show how much gas was used for it alone. Internet communications allow the automatic reading of such meters, or cellphone technology can be used. It costs no more to bill for twice as much gas and very little more to push it through the pipes. The admininistrative costs for a natural gas selling company are more than the gas costs at times.
..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 08 December 2008 at 07:05 PM
Note with biomass
The entire system could be
Carbon negative.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 08 December 2008 at 07:59 PM
They are implying that the CO2 is being removed at the gasification stage and prior to use in the generator presumably this is an easier task than would post combustion.
The new reforming fuel cell technologies should be one step easier still, but of course they aren't GWatt.
The same would apply to the capstone, as long as the fuel is carbon free then the emissions are down, but with small dispersed power units, there are still the H2 'transport piping, pumping ' issues or - If it is transported as a carbon fuel, (this would appear a major advantage) for reforming, why not do it in a (non precious or new design) fuel cell, there is still a heat bonus at site and the emissions are separated, concentrated and removed from the input side . This also (in part) ensures the efficacy up to that point.
Posted by: arnold | 09 December 2008 at 01:11 AM
Deftly 1MW with u/ground CCS
Posted by: arnold | 09 December 2008 at 01:14 AM
slip up .....1 GW....sorry
Posted by: arnold | 09 December 2008 at 01:16 AM
E-P:
You should be familiar with this:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3374
Posted by: Andrey levin | 09 December 2008 at 09:09 PM
Very much, Andrey.
I didn't mean the whole thing;
Just make up losses.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 10 December 2008 at 07:31 AM