DOE to Award Up to $408M to Two CCS Projects at Coal Power Plants; One for Hydrogen-Fired Power Generation
02 July 2009
The US Department of Energy has selected projects by Basin Electric Power Cooperative and Hydrogen Energy International LLC—a joint venture between BP and Rio Tinto (earlier post)—for up to $408 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The two projects selected—an existing power plant in North Dakota and a new facility in California—will incorporate advanced technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The selection of the two projects is part of the third round of the Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI). The Department of Energy will provide up to $100 million to Basin Electric Power Cooperative and $308 million to Hydrogen Energy International LLC to support the innovative demonstrations.
The CCPI is a cost-shared collaboration between the federal government and private industry to increase investment in low-emission coal technology by demonstrating advanced coal-based, power generation technologies. The goal of CCPI is to accelerate the readiness of advanced coal technologies for commercial deployment.
The selected proposals will employ different technological concepts to achieve a goal of at least 90% CO2 capture efficiency.
Hydrogen Energy California Project: Commercial Demonstration of Advanced IGCC with Full Carbon Capture. Hydrogen Energy International LLC will design, construct, and operate an integrated gasification combined cycle power plant that will take blends of coal and petroleum coke, combined with non-potable water, and convert them into hydrogen and CO2. The CO2 will be separated from the hydrogen using the methanol-based Rectisol process. The hydrogen gas will be used to fuel a power station, and the CO2 will be transported by pipeline to nearby oil reservoirs where it will be injected for storage and used for enhanced oil recovery. The project, which will be located in Kern County, California, will capture more than 2,000,000 tons per year of CO2.
Post Combustion CO2 Capture Project. Basin Electric Power Cooperative will partner with Powerspan and Burns & McDonnell to demonstrate the removal of CO2 from the flue gas of a lignite-based boiler by adding CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS) to Basin Electric’s existing Antelope Valley Station, located near Beulah, N.D. Powerspan’s ECO2 ammonia-based technology will be used to capture CO2 on a 120-megawatt electric-equivalent gas stream from the 450 megawatt Antelope Valley Station Unit 1. The net result will be 90% removal of CO2 from the treated flue gas, yielding 3,000 short tons per day (1,000,000 tons per year) of pipeline-quality CO2. The ammonia based SO2 scrubbing system will also produce a liquid stream of ammonium sulfate that will be processed into a fertilizer by-product.
I specifically love the pre-combustion CCS, because there you need to add water to the carbon-source. Since any wet, dirty waste contains more energy than pure water (because it also contains 'fuel'), this is very suitable to burn wet biomass, sludge, ... and sequester the CO2. Even while burning 70% coal, this may become a carbon-negative energy-source.
Imagine a few hundred of these powerplants burning (and sequestering) gigatons of biomass...
Posted by: Alain | 02 July 2009 at 09:35 AM
"..used for enhanced oil recovery."
Kern County is where California gets a lot of its oil. California supplies 40% of its own oil, so getting more out of those fields is important. Some wells are lucky to get 50% of the oil that they contain out of the ground. If we can store the carbon and extract more oil from those fields it could be a win win.
Posted by: SJC | 02 July 2009 at 10:06 PM
The Kern County project is exactly the sort of syngergy between CO2 production and consumption which is necessary to get us through the tight spot coming. We can't afford to waste resources doing just one thing at a time.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 04 July 2009 at 05:40 AM