5-23-08

CO₂ Hot Topic Hour provided Options and Timelines

A lot is being done to address potential carbon reduction for power plants. The Hot Topic Hour May 22 provided lots of insights into the technologies, costs and challenges. Biographies and pictures of the presenters are displayed at

Speakers, Bios and Photos for May 22

Grant Grothen of Burns & McDonnell explained that some of the proposed regulations would reduce the present seven billion tons of greenhouse gases down to as low as 1.25 billion tons or one half of 1949 levels. Power generators could be required to reduce emissions from 2.5 billion tons to less than 500 million tons.

The volumes are daunting. U.S. CO₂ emissions in one year would create a blanket across the U.S. which is 13.5 inches high. Even if this were compressed to a few inches it would be a huge amount to try to sequester. If fully implemented, enhanced oil recovery (EOR) would accommodate only 10-20 percent of the CO₂ worldwide. Sequestration of the remaining amount would face difficult permitting including NUMBY (not under my back yard). Grant told the participants that capture will be commercial by 2020 and EOR is commercial now, but geologic storage is not likely to be commercial until 2030. Public acceptance and investors willing to take the financial risk are two significant hurdles.

John Paoluccio of Paoluccio Consulting explained the advantages of torrefaction. It processes wood or other energy crops and results in pellets with a 10,000 Btu/lb fuel value. This high density overcomes the transportation problem of untreated biomass.

John Wheeldon of EPRI says that in order to keep electricity affordable it will be necessary to keep burning coal and to solve the CO₂ capture and storage problems. EPRI has proposed Ultragen with use of 1400°F supercritical boiler technology.

The regeneration heat for the solvent used for capture is important. MEA requires 4.2 GJ/tonne of CO₂ compared to ammonia technologies which would be as low as 2.5 GJ/tonne.

David St. Angelo of Skyonic says the Skymine technology was developed at LCRA Fayette in 2006 and (TXU) Luminant Big Brown in 2007. Salt is the major purchase. Salt is electrolytically converted to sodium hydroxide, chlorine and hydrogen. The end products are sodium bicarbonate, HCl and hydrogen. One participant stated that their calculation showed that one plant could generate all the chlorine needed in the country. David answered by explaining that hydrochloric acid has wider use and can be used in oil fields to help penetrate high calcium structures.

David Ball of Battelle talked about actual sequestration projects. At the RE Burger plant of First Energy an 8000 foot test well has been drilled. At a Michigan site 10,000 tons of CO₂ was injected in March 2008. Important performance criteria will be monitored. At the 1,300 MW Mountaineer plant of AEP, CO₂ capture and sequestration will be undertaken. A test well of 9,000 ft. depth was drilled in 2003 and work is progressing.

Wilf Olson of SaskPower described the Boundary Dam CO₂ capture and sequestration project. The RFQ for the CO₂ capture scrubber will be issued in four to six weeks. The RFQ for the FGD scrubber will be issued by the end of the summer. The CO₂ scrubber requirements will determine some of the criteria for both the FGD system and a new turbine. SaskPower has nearby enhanced oil recovery potential. The 100 MW plant is calculated to increase oil recovery by three million tons/yr. This would result in $300 million in additional revenues. The gross generation will be 139 MW but steam for solvent regeneration and electricity for CO₂ compression will reduce output to 100 MW.

The power point presentations can be viewed directly through the following links.

CO₂ Decision Tree

Decision Process for Needs

Replace Retire Reduce Capture

Supercritical Oxy Combustion Co-firing Sequestration Other

Biocoal Fuel CO2 Capture Skymonic Sequestration Challenge

Needs → Co-firing → Sources → BioCoal

John Paoluccio – BioCoal Fuel

John Paoluccio - BioCoalFuel.pdf

Needs → Capture → CO2 Capture

John Wheeldon - EPRI

Wheeldon_Hot_Topic_Hour_May_22,_2008.pdf