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Siemens to supply eight 500MW coal gasifiers to China for synthetic gas

Siemens Energy has received an order from China to deliver eight 500 MW thermal coal gasifiers for a coal gasification plant in Yili City (Xinjiang province, earlier post) that will convert locally mined subbituminous coal into synthetic natural gas (SNG) with the aim of reducing imports of natural gas for power and heat generation.

The SFG-500 gasifier is developed by Siemens Fuel Gasification Technology in Freiberg. Five Siemens 500-MW gasifiers are already in operation in China. Click to enlarge.

In its first stage of completion, the plant is to produce around two billion cubic meters of synthetic natural gas per year. The customer is the power provider CPI Xinjiang Energy Co. Ltd, a subsidiary of China Power Investment Corporation, one of the five biggest power generators in China. The coal gasification plant is scheduled to go on line by the end of 2014.

With a length of 18 meters, an inside diameter of 3 meters and weighing more than 200 tons, Siemens coal gasifiers are among the largest and most powerful currently in large-scale industrial applications anywhere in the world. They can process up to 2,000 tons of coal per day.

In this project, locally mined subbituminous coal is used to generate a synthesis gas which is then cleaned, de-sulfurized and converted into natural gas in a downstream methanization stage.

Comments

HarveyD

Many of our cities had coal generated gas distribution 50+ years ago. It was dropped in favor of abundant lower cost NG for obvious reasons.

Engineer-Poet

Piping for syngas (town gas) would eliminate the methanation step and cut cost. Using the gas to replace solid coal for heating and industry would slash air pollution in the cities.

Henry Gibson

At one time all of natural gas was flared off and the energy wasted. At the low, pre speculation, energy prices it was not worth making use of. Liquid fuels, including crude oil could be stored and transported far more easily and cost effectively. Now that there is a grid of pipes to move natural gas to customers, and people like the ease and simplicity of natural gas use, it makes sense to make methane, natural gas, from coal of any kind and sell it to consumers. If hydrogen had been found in nature in wells, it would have also resulted in a hydrogen gas network perhaps; in spite of the higher cost of transporting hydrogen energy rather than methane.

Dakota Gasification has been making methane natural gas for many years now and has been selling much of the the CO2 produced as a byproduct to enhance and increase oil production hundreds of miles away.

This factory should also produce methanol, a liquid that can be conveniently stored and transported and used as a cooking and heating fuel as well as a motor vehicle fuel. It can be burned directly in engines with very high efficiency or converted to gasoline. It can also be converted to DME to burn in efficient diesel engines. Stoves that are even simpler than natural gas ones can be used for cooking with methanol. ..HG..

3PeaceSweet

There is plenty of waste products from food processing as well as animal and human waste that can be converted into biomethane. You could be clever and use a gasifier, thermal storage, gas engine CHP and AD.

I would think pipeline distribution of syngas with insitu or onsite gasfication would be a better way to access out of the way coal reserves without the need for a normal coal moving infrastructure.

Engineer-Poet

Sadly, long-distance pipeline transport of syngas is a non-starter. The losses for pumping methane are quite high, and syngas has about 1/3 of the energy content per volume but (I expect) similar viscous losses. Methanation (or GTL) would be a requirement.

Reel$$

Better than using the coal to run a turbine? In both instances you need to scrub the particulate heavily. A liquid state seems a better way to transport and use these coal resources.

China keeps building energy from old imported resources - when will the political CCP see a need to fastrack (not HSR) the development of alternatives? Wind, solar, geothermal? This is China's only hope to avoid crippling medical costs from human and industrial smoking.

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