FGD and DeNOx NEWSLETTER

· China Has Nearly 250 Gigawatts (GW) of Coal-fired Power Under Development

· CO₂ Capture and Sequestration is an Important Route to Reducing CO₂ Levels

· GE Integrating AI to Enable Performance-Informed Gas Turbine Inverse Design

· Downwind States Vote to Push Pennsylvania Coal Plants to Run Air Pollution Controls

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Doosan Lentjes is pleased to announce that it has signed a contract to supply a fabric filter for the power station in Chvaletice, Czech Republic. It is the second contract for the supply of filters for this plant that Doosan Lentjes has received from the owner, Sev.en Energy, which will act as the main contractor for the new project. The current order includes the retrofit of boiler 2 of the 4×205 MWe power plant with a new low-pressure pulse-jet bag house filter.

Doosan Lentjes’ scope of work in the project will include the engineering, the delivery of key filter internals and the flyash transport system. Completion is expected in the second half of 2021. An extended scope including plate work for a filter, bypass heating system and a complete flue gas duct system is currently under discussion and will be awarded separately.

The new filter systems will remove solid particles from the flue gases and ensure full compliance with the relevant emissions legislation. The plant will thus help to reduce drastically the effects of dust emissions on human health. In addition, the retrofit measures will enable a more efficient flyash transport, which will reduce the operation costs of the conveyors.

“The so far fruitful cooperation with Sev.en Energy is reflected in the second order we have now received from them in the last 12 months”, says Daniel Borke, Product Manager AQCS at Doosan Lentjes. “With this current project, we have further demonstrated our capabilities as a reliable and experienced partner for filter technology and further strengthened our position as a competent partner for large power plant projects in Eastern Europe.”

Frank Oberheid, Product Director AQCS at Doosan Lentjes, adds, “Decisive for our performance in Eastern Europe is our cooperation with our colleagues at Doosan Lentjes Czech. This not only strengthens our local presence, but also enables us to generate cost advantages that allow us to realize projects of this kind in an economically attractive framework.”

In August last year, Doosan Lentjes had received the order to equip boilers 3&4 of the Chvaletice power plant with fabric filters. The project is currently under execution and expected to be completed and handed over to Sev.en Energy at the end of this year.

The board of KEPCO, the publicly owned South Korean utility, decided at a special June 30 board meeting to proceed with its plan to invest in the proposed 2000-MW Jawa 9 & 10 coal project in Indonesia. Opposition to the project by Indonesian civil society groups has spurred opposition to South Korean agencies’ support for new coal-fired power plants in Asia. At its June 26 board meeting, KEPCO deferred making a decision. The Korea Development Institute, an agency tasked with reviewing proposed investments by government agencies, found KEPCO would lose US$7 million on its proposed $51 million investment in the project. KEPCO’s decision has been criticized by civil society groups and prompted a protest in front of the South Korean embassy in Jakarta.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 patients surpassed the 150,000-mark in Bangladesh on Thursday, 117^th day of the coronavirus outbreak in the country. Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) reported 4,019 new cases, highest single-day spike, taking the number of such cases in the country to 153,277.

On June 18, the number of confirmed COVID-19 patients surpassed 100,000 in the country. It took just 14 days to cross the level of the next 50,000.

State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid has said mega projects having 3840-MW power generation capacity are being implemented at Payra, Maheshkhali and Matarbari areas aimed at ensuring power and energy security in the country.

“Considering land availability, fuel transportation facilities and load centers, the government has been developing Payra, Maheshkhali and Matarbari areas as ‘Power Hubs’ by establishing mega projects.”

The state minister said the construction work for setting up coal-fired Rampal 1320-MW Maitri Super Thermal Project, Matarbari 1200-MW Ultra Supercritical Coal Project and the Payra 1320-MW project are going in full swing.

“The power and energy section will be more secured due to the interest and awareness of the young generation. Of course, awareness will ensure efficiency and economical use of electricity and energy,” Nasrul Hamid said.

Referring to the past, present and future condition of the power and energy sector, he said Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) formulated the Power System Master Plan (PSMP)-2010 on the basis of people’s income, environment, growth and use of energy.

Later, the PSMP-2016 was adopted after review of the PSMP-2010 to cope with the present situation. What will be the power generation capacity, fuel mixing, distribution and transmission system, power saving and economical use have been elaborately stated in the PSMP-2016, Nasrul added.

He said the power generation capacity reached 23,436 MW, including captive and renewable energy, and that access to electricity has increased to 97 percent. Electricity facilities have been provided to people in off-grid areas through installation of 58 lakh solar home systems, the state minister said.

Emphasizing rooftop solar power, he said the government formulated net metering guidelines to ensure the country’s energy security and sustainability and increase renewable energy to 10 percent out of the total generation.

At present, 1160-MW of electricity is being imported from India. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed with Nepal and negotiation is finalized to import 500-MW from an IPP, Nasrul said.

He mentioned that there are 27 gas fields in the country, of which 20 are currently in production. In January 2009, the daily gas production was 1,744 million cubic feet per day, which has increased to about 2750 MMCFD. Side by side, 600 MMCFD imported LNG is being added to the national grid, he said.

Maintaining harmony among the Eighth Fifth Year Plan, the Second Perspective and the Delta Plan, the government has also undertaken steps to conduct offshore and onshore seismic survey aimed at supplying uninterrupted, affordable and quality energy, the state minister said.

Besides, initiatives have been taken for oil/gas exploration activities through unconventional methods using new technology. On the other hand, LNG terminal is being constructed to meet the growing demand of fuel, reports BSS.

The Payra power plant is a 1320-MW coal-fired thermal power plant (TPP) under construction at Dhankhali, in the Patuakhali district of Bangladesh.

The plant is being developed by Bangladesh China Power Co. (BCPCL), a 50/50 joint venture between China National Machinery Import and Export (CMC) and Bangladesh’s state-owned North-West Power Generation Company (NWPGCL).

Estimated to cost £1.5 billion ($2 billion), the Payra power plant will consist of two 660-MW ultra-supercritical coal-fired power generating units.

Construction on the project started in late December 2017. The first unit was synchronized with Bangladesh’s national grid and commenced test production in January 2020, while the second unit was scheduled for commissioning by June 2020. The plant is being equipped with electrostatic precipitators, flue gas desulfurization, and low NO_x combustion technology for emissions control.

The Matarbari coal-fired power plant is being developed in Maheshkhali in the Cox’s Bazar district of Bangladesh.

Coal Power Generation Company Bangladesh (CPGCBL), a state-owned enterprise of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, is developing the 1.2-GW project with an estimated investment of $4.5 billion.

The Matarbari power plant was proposed in September 2011 and granted environmental approval in October 2013. Ground-breaking ceremony for the project took place in January 2018, while operations are expected to begin by 2024.

The plant is expected to account for 10 percent of the total generation capacity of Bangladesh.

The Matarbari thermal power plant will be developed on a 1500-acre site. It will consist of two thermal units based on ultra-supercritical coal-fired technology, with an installed capacity of 600-MW each.

Each of the two units will consist of a steam-based pulverized coal-fired boiler unit, a 600-MW steam turbine and a 750-MVA steam generator. The plant will feature a 275m-high flue gas stack and an electrostatic precipitator, which will limit the particulate emissions to 100 mg/Nm³.

The power plant will require 180,000 m³/h of water, which will be provided by a reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plant. The RO plant will draw water from the Bay of Bengal, which is located on the western side of the project site.

A new deep-sea port facility named Matarbari Port will be developed for importing the coal required for the power plant. The port will include a 760 m-long container and a multi-purpose terminal.

The port terminal will include a fuel berth, a fuel transportation facility, and two coal-handling jetties. The channel length will be 1- km, width will be 250-m and maximum depth will be approximately 18.5-m.

A new 400-kV transmission line will be developed to transmit the electricity generated by the power plant to the national grid.

The power plant is expected to require 3.73 million tons (Mt) of coal a year, which will be imported from Indonesia, Australia and South Africa through the Matarbari Port.

A coal unloading system equipped with rail-mounted continuous bucket type unloaders will transport the imported coal to the power plant.

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) provided an Official Development Assistance (ODA) loan of ¥10.74 billion ($90-m) for the project, in June 2014. The ODA loan has a repayment period of 30 years and grace period of ten years.

A consortium of Sumitomo, Toshiba and IHI was awarded the engineering, procurement and construction contract for the project, in August 2017.

Sumitomo subcontracted Toshiba Plant Systems and Services for constructing the port and providing other plant equipment and associated civil work, while Penta-Ocean Construction was awarded a $1.4-billion worth subcontract for the construction works related to Matarbari port.

Toshiba will supply the steam turbines and generators for the power plant, while IHI will provide the boilers.

Sumitomo awarded the civil engineering contract worth $840-millon to Posco E&C, a company based in Korea.

In April 2014, Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) signed a deal with China Huadian Hong Kong Limited to build a 1320 MW coal-fired power plant at Maheshkhali Island in Cox’s Bazar district.

The plan for the Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) to invest in two coal-fired power plants in Indonesia has been finalized. The state-run power company’s board of directors approved an investment of US$3.46 billion to build the two coal-fired power plants in Java, Indonesia, despite controversy over environmental concerns. Construction is expected to begin as early as next month.

Within the development of a new thermal power plant project in central Serbia, the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure published the draft spatial plan for the special purpose area and the strategic environmental impact assessment report. The government has revived the Kolubara B project, abandoned three decades ago, and hired PowerChina to install a 3500-MW unit by year-end 2024.

The documents are available for public consultation until July 3 and the discussion was scheduled for July 15 in Lazarevac. The plan includes a power plant utilizing coal of “up to 400 MW,” the electricity transmission line, a substation in Konatice, access roads, an ash and slag dump and a water pipeline with a substation.

Authors said the coal-fired thermal power plant Kolubara B, planned to be built just 40 kilometers southwest of the center of the capital Belgrade, would comply with very strict domestic and international environmental rules. However, experts are wondering whether the developers can make it profitable.

Drax Group and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering, part of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Group (MHI), have agreed on new bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) pilot project at Drax Power Station, which will get underway this autumn.

Implementing BECCS at Drax could deliver 16 million tons of negative emissions every year — a third of the negative emissions the UK needs from BECCS to reach its zero-carbon targets by 2050.

MHI’s 12-month pilot will capture around 300 kg of carbon dioxide every day to ensure its technology is suitable for use with biomass gases at Drax.

The pilot project aims also to help Drax accelerate its ambition to become a carbon negative company by 2030.

The pilot will test MHI's carbon capture technology - marking another step on Drax's journey towards achieving its world-leading ambition to be a carbon-negative company by 2030.

MHI's 12-month pilot will capture around 300kg of CO₂ a day for the purpose of confirming its technology's suitability for use with biomass flue gases at Drax.

Will Gardiner, Drax Group CEO, said, "Our plans to develop ground-breaking BECCS at the power station in North Yorkshire will help to boost the UK's economy following the COVID crisis and support the development of a zero-carbon industrial cluster in the Humber region — delivering clean growth and protecting thousands of jobs. "We're very pleased to be working with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries on this exciting pilot which will further our understanding of the potential for deploying BECCS at scale at Drax — taking us closer to achieving our world-leading ambition to be a carbon negative company by 2030."

Two of MHI's proprietary solvents will be tested, one of which - KS-1TM Solvent - is already being used at 13 commercial plants delivered by MHI, including Petra Nova in Texas, USA, the world's largest post combustion carbon capture facility, capturing 1.4 million tonnes of CO₂ a year. The other is the newly developed KS-21TM Solvent, designed to achieve significant performance improvements and cost savings.

Kenji Terasawa, President & CEO, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering, said, "We are very proud to be a part of the BECCS pilot project with Drax. We firmly believe that our carbon capture technology would be able to contribute to the UK's zero carbon targets in a material way."

Implementing BECCS at Drax could deliver 16 million tons of negative emissions a year - a third of the negative emissions the UK needs from BECCS to reach its zero carbon targets by 2050 and anchor a zero-carbon industrial cluster in the Humber region, delivering clean growth while protecting 55,000 jobs.

Nigel Adams MP, Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Dept. for International Development, said, "This is an exciting collaboration between Drax and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries which has the potential to further the development of technology which could help the UK achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and contribute to the post-COVID economic recovery."

MHI aims to continue reducing greenhouse gases globally by providing reliable and economically feasible carbon capture technology, supported by research and development activity over 30 years and commercial records around the world.

EShell’s carbon dioxide capture technology has been approved for use at Fortum’s waste-to-energy plant in Oslo, the risk management and quality assurance firm DNV GL said on Thursday.

Fortum plans to build a full-scale CO₂ capture facility at the plant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 400,000 tons per year, the equivalent of emissions from 200,000 cars.

The pilot project showed that Shell’s CONSOLV CO₂ technology could capture more than 90 percent of CO₂ from the flue gas, DNV GL, which certifies that technology is as described and meets existing standards, said in a statement.

“The third-party technology qualification by DNV GL gave us confidence that the project risk related to implementing the Shell technology was low,” said Jannicke Gerner Bjerkas, the head of the project at the plant.

Fortum’s plant is a part of a larger carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in Norway, which aims to capture emissions from industrial sites and inject them into offshore storage.

In April, DNV GL approved the use of carbon capture technology developed by Norway’ Aker Solutions at Norcem’s cement plant in Brevik, Norway.

The two projects, if built, are expected to reduce emissions by a total of 800,000 tons per year.

The Norwegian government is still deciding whether to support the CCS project, which could cost around 25 billion crowns ($2.65 billion), including two carbon capture installations, storage and operating costs for ten years.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) says CCS technology is crucial to limiting global warming, helping to decarbonize industries such as cement production, but opponents say it could prolong the use of fossil fuels. ($1 = 9.4516 Norwegian crowns)

China has nearly 250 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power under development, more than the entire coal power capacity of the United States, according to a study released this week, casting doubt on the country's commitments to cutting fossil fuel use.

Beijing has vowed to replace coal with cleaner energy forms, but new coal project approvals have accelerated this year, according to the study by Global Energy Monitor (GEM) and the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea).

"While much of the world is moving away from coal, China continues to make it a central part of its energy mix," said Ms. Christine Shearer, Coal Program Director at GEM.

The study said China has already proposed another 40.80-GW of new coal-fired power plants this year, after Beijing eased restrictions on new plants. It now has 97.8-GW of coal-fired power under construction and another 151.8-GW at the planning stage. Plants accounting for some 17-GW were allowed to start construction this year, more than the total amount approved during the previous two years.

China's energy regulator said last week that it would shut small and inefficient mines and eliminate "backward" coal power plants this year. But it aims to cut the share of coal in its total energy mix by just 0.2 percentage point, compared with 1.5 percentage points last year.

China also said it would cap total coal-fired power capacity at 1,100-GW this year, but that would still allow it to build an estimated 60-GW of new plants this year.

India’s Supreme Court has rejected an application from the Association of Power Producers for a two-year extension to the December 2022 deadline for the installation of flue gas desulfurization (FGD) units to cut sulfur dioxide emissions. The requirement for FGD units was first notified in late 2015 to come into effect in December 2017 and then, after lobbying by power utilities, the deadline changed to December 2019 and then December 2022. Sunil Dahiya from the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air said the court should take the next step and shut down the non-compliant plants.

We are in the midst of the worst economic crisis in more than 80 years and unless countries stop ignoring mask and other COVID mitigation opportunities we could face a worse situation that we did in the 1919-35 period.

For those involved in the air treatment industry there are two initiatives which are now relevant. One involves masks and filters to combat COVID and the other has to do with climate change.

The magnitude of the problem was conveyed in the latest International Monetary fund forecasts that World GDP will fall by nearly 5 percent this year. This will be in part due to an 8 percent decline in the U.S.

Country	GDP Decline in 2010
World	4.9
U.S.	8
Mexico	10
Brazil	9
South Africa	8

The global economy will contract the most since World War II this year and emerging nations’ output will shrink for the first time in at least six decades due to the Covid-19 pandemic, reducing incomes and sending millions of people into poverty, the World Bank said.

The air treatment industry can be proactive with mask and filter programs, which will allow return to near normal life without viral spread. Filtration experts have heretofore not been influential. The first government advice was that masks were not necessary. Now the advice is that the masks are necessary but without appreciation of the differences between masks. When both the transmitter and recipient wear masks there is a huge difference in virus particles inhaled. When both wear a 30 percent efficient mask 49 percent of the viruses are inhaled. When both wear a 95 percent efficient mask the percentage is only 0.25 percent. So, with inefficient masks the viral inhalation is 396 times greater than with efficient masks.

We now know that small aerosols are the main transmission route for COVID. So, wearing masks, which virtually eliminate aerosol transmission, will go a long way solve the problem. This situation is analyzed on a daily basis in Coronavirus Technology Solutions Click here for more information.

Relative to climate change there is pressure being exerted on developing countries, e.g., Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, India and others to abandon coal-fired power projects. Many lenders are refusing to fund them. These projects are a quick route to electrification, which will, in turn lead to better living conditions for citizens of these countries.

Masks to combat COVID will cost hundreds of dollars per year per person. Upgrading hospitals with more isolation units and ventilators is costly. Expanded hospital capability also means expanded electricity requirements. Reliability needs to increase. For a hospital with many patients in critical condition 12 hours without electricity can be a death sentence.

Delaying electricity supply for a few years until wind and solar can be implemented will result in deaths and disabilities. In a country such as India the resources to fight COVID need to be prioritized.

The basis for abandoning coal-fired projects is the tipping point theory. This theory states that there is a tipping point for CO₂ levels and once that level is reached all sorts of dire events will occur. This would not be the case if there were a way to actually remove CO₂ from the air. Fortunately that is now the case Opportunistic Biomass - CCS Program is the Route chosen by the UK and Japan. Developing countries can build coal-fired power plants with the potential to switch to biomass and sequestration in twenty years and remove as much CO₂ in each of the following 20 years as they emitted in the first twenty years. Details on this program are provided in Utility Tracking System http://home.mcilvainecompany.com/index.php/databases/42ei-utility-tracking-system

These two air treatment initiatives can be instrumental in dealing with COVID. Bob McIlvaine is available to answer your questions at 847 226 2391 or rmcilvaine@mcilvainecompany.com.

The Times covers a new report by the climate analysts Ember (formerly Sandbag), which shows that the “government has committed £13 billion to support wood-burning power stations but [Ember] has found that it is relying on an outdated assumption that they help to combat climate change”. The Times adds: “Supporters say that the wood pellets burnt by the plants, mostly imported from the US, are carbon-neutral because trees are replanted. Wood-burning stations initially release more CO₂from their stacks, per unit of electricity, than the coal equivalents. The growth of new forest should eventually absorb as much carbon as was emitted. However, today’s report says that this process can take centuries, too long to prevent climate change over the coming decades. ‘The periods during which atmospheric CO₂ levels are raised before forest regrowth can reabsorb the excess emissions are incompatible with the urgency of reducing emissions to comply with the objectives enshrined in the Paris Agreement,’ the authors write.” The Daily Telegraph also covers the story, adding, “The Telegraph found Drax, which runs the UK’s biggest biomass operation, is sourcing some of its wood pellets from forests in Russia that could take up to 150 years to regrow, five times longer than we have to meet our net-zero target.”

The facts are that most wood pellets are coming from U.S. forests where the purpose is growth for fuel. Pine is considered mature enough for wood harvest at around 25 to 30 years. The various CO₂ reduction scenarios use 2050 as a target date. The big attraction of burning biomass is the ability to sequester the CO₂ and create CO₂ reductions instead of just zero emissions.

Active Energy is in the process of establishing its first industrial plant in Lumberton, North Carolina, which will serve as the new base for all AEG CoalSwitch operations in the U.S. It will initially operate a five ton per hour plant. CoalSwitch™ is a biomass-based fuel that utilizes low-value forestry, and agricultural residues and energy crops. It has several advantages compared with other biomass fuels such as torrefied or white pellet alternatives. The company is undertaking engineering analysis for the CoalSwitch plant, with its management teams said to be working to secure offtake agreements both in the United States and internationally.

Supplementary analysis on the development of ancillary products, where CoalSwitch is blended with waste materials to produce a biomass-based black pellet fuel, was also ongoing.

“This is the first occasion where the CoalSwitch production process has been analyzed by relevant environmental authorities,” said Chief Executive Officer Michael Rowan.

“I am pleased with the initial conclusions of the Dept. of Air Quality in North Carolina.

“Active Energy welcomes the opportunity to present its plans for the Lumberton site at a public meeting to demonstrate not only the environmental advantages AEG's black pellets have against existing white pellet production, but also the sustainable production processes that Active Energy intends to introduce at Lumberton.”

CoalSwitch™ is a biomass-based fuel that utilizes low-value forestry, and agricultural residues and energy crops. It has several advantages compared with other biomass fuels such as torrefied or white pellet alternatives.

Originally installed in Utah. Working with partners, including Andritz, Lumberton plans to increase to a total production capacity of 50 tons per hour or 400,000 tons of CoalSwitch™ per annum.

There were once six trillion trees on the planet, now there are only three trillion and we’re still losing ten billion trees per year. That leads to a changing climate, a shrinking habitat for wildlife, and harder lives for billions of people. The scale of the problem calls for radical action according to the Trillion Tree partnership.

One trillion trees protected and restored can reverse these trends and create a world where forests are expanding, not shrinking. This is essential to delivering on the Paris Agreement to avoid dangerous climate change, to restoring nature and the biodiversity we depend on and to securing a prosperous future for us all.

BirdLife International, WCS and WWF are three of the world’s largest conservation organizations and have a presence in over 100 countries. Together, they have a huge reach, resources and decades of experience and expertise in tackling deforestation and restoring forests. The partnership is founded on a commitment to a shared vision and gives them a platform to be more persuasive and powerful than they could individually.

The Trillion Tree program has backing from many countries including the U.S. and from the U.N. It can be complementary to the biomass combustion and sequestration program. The Trillion Tree campaign can focus on trees, which will grow for more than 100 years whereas the biomass combustion can focus on plantations where trees are harvested.

After more than a decade in the works, a new carbon capture project in Alberta is now operational with lofty goals of sequestering large amounts of emissions, while also helping to revitalize the oil industry in the central part of the province.

The Alberta Carbon Trunk Line (ACTL) was awarded provincial and federal funding back in 2009 and startup was expected in 2012, but the project has faced several delays including one caused by the oil price crash in 2014.

The system is described as the world's largest capacity pipeline for CO₂ from human activity and its capacity represents about 20 percent of all current oilsands emissions, according to officials with the project.

The $1.2-billion project will take emissions from the Redwater Fertilizer factory and the Sturgeon refinery near Edmonton to aging oil reservoirs in central and southern Alberta.

The project will change how business is done in Alberta, according to Kevin Jabusch, CEO of Enhance Energy, in a statement as part of the project's announcement.

Enhance Energy is part of a consortium of companies that own and operate the ACTL system. The company is injecting the CO₂ from the pipeline into its oilfields near Clive, Alberta. Jabusch said the project will help produce low-carbon energy, while also reinvigorating a part of the province's rural economy.

"We went through a few business cycles, we went through a few political cycles, but like all good projects, it's one that had to be done, and it's an amazing feeling to have worked so hard to get something done and feel better as a result," he said in an interview.

The CO₂ travels down a 240-kilometre pipeline to an area near Red Deer, where it is injected into the ground to produce more oil and natural gas.

The pipeline has excess capacity, so in the future, more facilities and storage reservoirs can be added to the system.

"This is an industrial-scale solution, which is what we need if we are going to make a dent in carbon [emissions]. I feel very good about the outlook for the growth of this business," said Jeff Pearson, with Wolf Midstream, which operates the pipeline.

The project initially gained publicity when it was promised $63 million from the federal government under then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and $495 million from the provincial government under former Conservative premier Ed Stelmach.

Since then, governing parties in the province have varied in their support for carbon capture projects:

· In 2011, Alison Redford said Alberta should find "better initiatives and opportunities" to reduce emissions than expensive gambles with CCS.

· In 2015, Rachel Notley said she would continue funding the projects only because the government was trapped in contracts In 2019, Environment Minister Jason Nixon described CCS as an example of "innovative, game-changing technology."

Critics of carbon capture projects argue the funding would be better spent on renewable energy to tackle climate change, while others say such projects may make people and industry complacent about reducing emissions.

Lehigh Cement in Edmonton has launched a feasibility study to see if carbon capture and storage can help reduce the high levels of carbon dioxide created in the manufacturing of cement. (Sarah Xenos/Radio-Canada)

· Boundary Dam, a coal-fired power plant operated by SaskPower that started capturing carbon in 2014.

There are some other projects in development, including Carbon Engineering's direct air capture plant in Squamish, B.C., and the Alberta Carbon Conversion Technology Center in Calgary, where five of the XPrize finalists will be testing their ideas.

In addition, some smaller scale projects also exist such as Canadian Natural Resources' sequestering of CO₂ to treat tailings ponds in the oilsands.

CO₂ Capture and Sequestration is an Important Route to Reducing CO₂ Levels

The capture and storage of carbon dioxide (CO₂) underground is one of the key components of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) reports keeping global warming to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) would be used alongside other interventions such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, and electrification of the transportation sector.

The IPCC study shows that if climate change targets are not met by 2100, it won’t be for a lack of carbon capture and storage space.

The IPCC used models to create around 1200 technology scenarios whereby climate change targets are met using a mix of these interventions, most of which require the use of CCS.

Now a new analysis from Imperial College London suggests that just 2700 Gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon dioxide (CO₂) would be sufficient to meet the IPCC’s global warming targets. This is far less than leading estimates by academic and industry groups of what is available, which suggest there is more than 10,000 Gt of CO₂ storage space globally.

It also found that that the current rate of growth in the installed capacity of CCS is on track to meet some of the targets identified in IPCC reports, and that research and commercial efforts should focus on maintaining this growth while identifying enough underground space to store this much CO₂.

CCS involves trapping CO₂ at its emission source, such as fossil-fuel power stations, and storing it underground to keep it from entering the atmosphere. Together, with other climate change mitigation strategies, CCS could help the world reach the climate change mitigation goals set out by the IPCC.

Even the most ambitious scenarios are unlikely to need more than 2700 Gt of CO₂ storage resource globally, much less than the 10,000 Gt of storage resource that leading reports suggest is possible. However, until now the amount of storage needed has not been specifically quantified.

The research team, led by Dr. Christopher Zahasky at Imperial’s Dept. of Earth Science and Engineering, found that worldwide, there has been 8.6 percent growth in CCS capacity over the past 20 years, putting us on a trajectory to meet many climate change mitigation scenarios that include CCS as part of the mix.

Dr. Zahasky, who is now an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison but conducted the work at Imperial, said, “Nearly all IPCC pathways to limit warming to 2°C require tens of Gts of CO₂ stored per year by mid-century. However, until now, we didn’t know if these targets were achievable given historic data, or how these targets related to subsurface storage space requirements.”

“We found that even the most ambitious scenarios are unlikely to need more than 2700 Gt of CO₂ storage resource globally, much less than the 10,000 Gt of storage resource that leading reports suggest is possible. Our study shows that if climate change targets are not met by 2100, it won’t be for a lack of carbon capture and storage space.”

Study co-author Dr. Samuel Krevor, also from the Dept. of Earth Science and Engineering, said: “Rather than focus our attention on looking at how much storage space is available, we decided for the first time to evaluate how much subsurface storage resource is actually needed, and how quickly it must be developed, to meet climate change mitigation targets.”

The study has shown for the first time that the maximum storage space needed is only around 2,700 Gt, but that this amount will grow if CCS deployment is delayed. The researchers worked this out by combining data on the past 20 years of growth in CCS, information on historical rates of growth in energy infrastructure, and models commonly used to monitor the depletion of natural resources.

The researchers say that the rate at which CO₂ is stored is important in its success in climate change mitigation. The faster CO₂ is stored, the less total subsurface storage resource is needed to meet storage targets. This is because it becomes harder to find new reservoirs or make further use of existing reservoirs as they become full.

They found that storing faster and sooner than current deployment might be needed to help governments meet the most ambitious climate change mitigation scenarios identified by the IPCC.

The study also demonstrates how using growth models, a common tool in resource assessment, can help industry and governments to monitor short-term CCS deployment progress and long-term resource requirements.

However, the researchers point out that meeting CCS storage requirements will not be sufficient on its own to meet the IPCC climate change mitigation targets.

Dr. Krevor said, “Our analysis shows good news for CCS if we keep up with this trajectory - but there are many other factors in mitigating climate change and its catastrophic effects, like using cleaner energy and transport as well as significantly increasing the efficiency of energy use.”

Aiming to let new performance metrics be the principal driver in the design of cleaner, more efficient aerodynamic energy systems, GE Research, the technology development arm for GE, has been awarded Phase I of a two -year, $2.1 million project through ARPA-E’s DIFFERENTIATE (Design Intelligence Fostering Formidable Energy Reduction and Enabling Novel Totally Impactful Advanced Technology Enhancements) program to build an AI-driven invertible neural network that can direct translate these metrics into optimized designs.

Today, complex aerodynamic energy components such as gas turbine blades have extremely long design cycle times of more than a year that require compromise between cost, performance and reliability. GE researchers, together with GE’s Gas Power business and the University of Notre Dame, are aiming to develop and demonstrate a new AI and ML- enabled design framework that takes half the time and is dictated almost entirely by the desired performance metrics to take the design of aerodynamic energy components to a whole new level.

Sayan Ghosh, a Lead Engineer in Probabilistic Design and project leader, explained the team is building a probabilistic inverse design machine learning framework — Pro-ML IDeAS — which uses an AI-driven invertible neural network to overcome multiple design iterations and challenges that typically require engineering expertise across many complex functional spaces to solve. “This will essentially create a paradigm shift in gas turbine design by enabling us to explore and discover new learning curves not previously possible,” Ghosh says. “We believe that the Pro-ML IDeAS, powered by AI and ML, will allow us to break free from the traditional design constraints and let us achieve more optimal designs in significantly less time versus the current state-of-the-art.”

Ghosh added, “One of the chief reasons GE Gas Power has set world records in combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) efficiency, is the design of more efficient aerodynamic parts and components. With the integration of new AI-powered digital solutions like our invertible neural network being supported through ARPA-E’s DIFFERENTIATE program, we will be well on the path to achieving 65 percent efficiency and beyond.”

GE’s HA gas turbine technology, which includes some of the most highly advanced parts and components, has helped to deliver two world records - one for powering the world’s most efficient combined cycle power plant, based on achieving 63.08 percent gross efficiency at Chubu Electric Nishi-Nagoya Power Plant Block-1 in Japan and another for helping EDF’s Bouchain Power Plant achieve 62.22 percent net combined cycle efficiency in France.

Together with the GE Research and Gas Power teams, a team of researchers from the University of Notre Dame team led by Prof. Nicholas Zabaras will bring more than 30 years of experience solving tough inverse/design problems. Prof. Zabaras’s pioneering work in the area of regularization techniques, high-dimensional Bayesian inverse methods, Gaussian process models for inversion, and most recently the integration of deep learning and inversion tasks will further accelerate learnings on this project.

The end goal of the two- year project is to create an inverse design process to optimize the design of a gas turbine blade component and reduce the design cycle time. In future, the framework will also be extended to other applications such as aviation turbine engines, aeroderivative engines, wind turbines, and hydro turbines.

Downwind States Vote to Push Pennsylvania Coal Plants to Run Air Pollution Controls

A 13-state commission that cooperates to curtail regional air pollution is petitioning federal regulators to make Pennsylvania’s coal-fired power plants run their existing pollution control equipment every day during warm months when smog pollution is the worst.

The commission voted 9-2 last week to send the petition to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with Pennsylvania and Virginia voting no. New York and Maine abstained.

Pennsylvania regulators say the petition relies on outdated data and does not reflect the state’s current efforts to cut air pollution. A Pennsylvania regulation under development would begin to require coal-fired power plants to meet daily pollution limits during summers, but the rule, if finalized, is not expected to take effect until 2023.

The petition was proposed by Maryland environmental regulators who attribute a significant share of their state’s air pollution problems to emissions that float in on the wind from Pennsylvania coal-fired power plants.

Maryland’s Director of Air Quality Programs, George Aburn, told a Pennsylvania environmental advisory committee last month that Pennsylvania coal-fired power plants are, collectively, one of the largest sources of nitrogen oxide pollution in the Ozone Transport Region, which stretches from Virginia to Maine.

Maryland regulators have calculated that Pennsylvania coal-fired power plants could reduce their nitrogen oxide emissions by up to 47 tons a day if they ran their installed emissions control equipment every day.

A reduction of that size “may be the difference between Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington attaining or not attaining the current [air quality] standards,” Mr. Aburn said.

The Ozone Transport Commission said about 30 million people living in its member states breathe air that fails to meet the current air quality standard for ozone. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified Pennsylvania as a contributor to high ozone within its own borders, as well as in parts of Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey and New York.

An analysis by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups found that Pennsylvania coal-fired plants emitted nitrogen oxides at much lower rates in 2005, when emissions allowances were expensive and coal-fired plants had a cost incentive to ramp up their pollution controls to avoid having to purchase allowances.

But the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry said Pennsylvania’s air quality data raises “significant questions about any potential correlation” between Pennsylvania emissions and excessive ozone levels measured in Maryland, since Pennsylvania did not exceed ozone standards on 23 of the 50 days that Maryland did in 2017 and 2018.

“It is a questionable proposition that Pennsylvania facilities are the culprit for the majority of the exceedances outlined in the petition,” Kevin Sunday, the chamber’s government affairs director, wrote.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has considered and denied similar petitions from surrounding states seeking to place stricter controls on the same Pennsylvania coal-fired power plants. Federal regulators found that the plants were not releasing pollution at levels that would violate “good neighbor” standards under U.S. law.

Electricity generation from coal-fired power plants has already dropped dramatically in Pennsylvania in the face of competition from cheaper natural gas.

Modeling by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection projects that coal-fired power generation will drop from 47 percent of the state’s electricity portfolio in 2010 to 1 percent in 2030 based on market forces alone.

Governor Tom Wolf has directed the department to develop a regulation to put a fee on power plants’ carbon emissions and invest the estimated $300 million in annual proceeds in projects that cut down on air pollution, like energy efficiency and renewable energy.

That regulation is expected to make more coal-fired power plants to retire as soon as 2022.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, David Boyd, is seeking to give evidence in a High Court case brought by NGOs against air pollution from coal-fired power plants operated by Eskom and the coal-to-oil producer Sasol. In his affidavit Boyd noted that air pollution is the “deadliest environmental problem in the world today” and that member states have an obligation under international human rights law to “protect the enjoyment of human rights from environmental harm.”

China aims to cap coal-fired power capacity at 1100 gigawatts (GW) and the number of coal mines at 5000 by the end of 2020, the state planner said, keeping up efforts to ease overcapacity in industry and boost consumption of clean energy.

The world’s top consumer of coal had 1040 GW of installed coal-fired power capacity and 5268 coal mines nationwide by 2019.

“(China) will eliminate outdated and unqualified coal-fired power units...(and) will approve new coal-fired power projects orderly and moderately based on needs,” the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in a statement.

Researchers had feared China might struggle to meet climate pledges this year as it turns to heavy industry and carbon-intensive projects to shore up its coronavirus-stricken economy.

China will continue to support renewable energy development providing that electricity generated from renewable sources could be absorbed by grids, the state planner added.

It aims for total installed capacity of 340 GW of conventional hydropower, with installed capacity of both wind and solar power to reach about 240 GW by the end of the year.

However, about 4 percent of the electricity generated by wind farms and 2 percent by solar stations did not connect to China’s grid last year, thanks to its insufficient power carrying capacity, data from the National Energy Administration (NEA) shows.

To push local grid firms to prioritize purchase of clean sources, the agency set quotas early this month for each province’s minimum consumption of renewable electricity in 2020.

Fitch Solutions expects Vietnam's power expansion to continue being largely driven by coal, despite increasing pressures on the fuel source recently. Fitch expects Vietnam's power expansion to continue being largely driven by coal despite increasing pressures on the fuel source of late.

Power project pipeline driven by coal: Vietnam — capacity of power project pipeline by fuel type, MW.

The National Steering Committee for Power Development has recommended scaling the share of coal down for the upcoming PDP VIII, eliminating nearly 15 GW of planned coal projects and for coal to account for only 37 percent of Vietnam’s electricity by 2025, due to slow progress and environmental opposition to in some coal projects.

It is noted that the government initially had a coal capacity target of 106 GW by 2025, and for an additional 55 GW of coal capacity from 2017 - 2030. There is yet to be a decision made on capacity targets, and Fitch believes that the government is likely to retain an ongoing commitment to coal at present.

According to its key projects database at present, there is more than 17 GW of coal power plants that are already under construction, and almost another 29 GW under preconstruction stages. It is unclear how the government will halt the development of these projects that are already under construction without incurring significant compensation costs.

Furthermore, Vietnam is facing looming threats of power shortages over the coming years, given an expected surge in power demand, and has in fact been trying to fast-track the development of some of these projects since 2019. It is clear that the government is prioritizing the development of the power sector in general to support the country’s strong economic growth.

Coal remains the most practical option in the near-term to stimulate affordable electricity generation growth at the pace and scale needed by the country, given its affordability, accessibility and reliability.

In the short-term, there are also limited alternatives that the country can use to ramp up power generation capacity substantially. Vietnam's power generation has been traditionally dominated by natural gas-fired power and hydro power, but Fitch sees several obstacles to growth in the short-term.

Hydropower: hydropower potential has already been almost fully exploited at present, and hydropower generation output reliability is further threatened by lower rainfalls and a series of abnormal weather patterns in recent years. Many major hydropower dams have seen historic low water levels in 2019, as low as 20-30 percent of capacity, and were in fact being forced to shut down.

Natural gas: domestic gas reserves are depleting and have also seen output reductions in recent years. While there is some scope to boost LNG-to-power projects, a rebound in gas-fired generation will likely only occur from 2023, as the first LNG terminal comes into operation. This is also contingent on global gas prices remaining low.

Non-hydro renewables: while Vietnam is seeing substantial growth (and opportunities) in renewables capacity, Fitch stresses that the intermittent nature of wind and solar power coupled with an underdeveloped grid capacity remains a bottleneck to generation growth at present. For example, the rapid build out of renewable projects in Ninh Thuan and Bình Thuan has caused grid overload and renewables curtailment in recent months, and some wind and solar plants were forced to reduce their output.

As such, Fitch expects thermal capacity in Vietnam to continue seeing robust growth, adding a net capacity of approximately 15 GW by 2025 from end-2019, and another 4.8 GW by 2029, with coal being the main driver of this expansion. Fitch does stress that its forecasts remain conservative as a fraction of those in the pipeline, as Fitch has already accounted for project realization risks. Coal projects that are at the highest risk of derailing are those that use less efficient technologies, located in provinces with high renewables penetration, and those that have yet to achieve a final investment decision and financial close.

A key supportive factor for continued coal-fired power growth is the continued access to financing from China and South Korea. While a shifting international financing environment for coal amid environmental concerns posit some downside risks, Fitch believes that alternative financing sources, particularly from China, will likely remain forthcoming. Fitch notes that the 1200-MW Vung Ang 2 and 1980-MW Vinh Tan 3 coal-fired power plants have come under the spotlight following OCBC Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and HSBC Bank recent announcements to withdraw financing from the plants.

Japan, a key financing source in the region, is also looking towards reviewing their coal financing and export policies by end of June 2020. That said, most Chinese and South Korean banks, which form a substantial majority to Vietnam’s coal financing, have not flagged any commitments to exit coal yet.

Crucially, these countries aim to generate external demand for coal power equipment through the use of their respective export credit agencies, amid a decline in domestic coal power markets. Fitch stresses that many banks with effective coal bans also have financing loopholes and exemptions, which unlock funding for certain projects in light of its importance to economic development. As such, the extent and scope of Japan’s coal financing review also remains uncertain at present.