Gasification Tech. and IGCC - Programs and Progress is Hot Topic Hour on Aug. 19, 2010
With all of the talk in political and environmentalist circles about re-powering America with natural gas and the huge gas reserves now proven and flowing from the Marcellus shale deposits in the East and the Barnett shale deposits in Texas, you might wonder if there is a future for coal gasification and IGCC technology. However, there are many risks associated with re-powering with this gas supply. The gas is difficult and more expensive to extract then normal gas fields and extraction requires huge quantities of water, another scare resource, and treatment of large quantities of contaminated produced water both of which may act to restrict the supply and will affect the price of this gas. There are also issues related to pipeline capacity to transport the gas where it is needed. For these and other reasons, we strongly believe that gasification of coal, our countries most abundant energy resource, and IGCC technology for power generation should and will be a major part of the solution to GHG issues as well as to eliminating our nation’s dependence on foreign oil.
Coal gasification offers many significant environmental and economic benefits. It is one of the most versatile and cleanest ways to convert the energy content of coal into electricity, hydrogen and other energy forms as well as the feed stocks for many other products. The gasification process basically removes 99 percent or more of the pollutant materials such as sulfur, mercury and other heavy metals in coal before combustion making it much easier to have almost “zero emissions” from the combustion and power producing process. In addition, some of the gasification processes can have as byproducts other important chemicals such as hydrogen sulfide, elemental sulfur, sulfuric acid and nitrogen compounds such as ammonium nitrate for fertilizer or other ammonia based chemicals. An added benefit is that basically the same gasification technology can be applied to a variety of other materials such as biomass, municipal waste and sludge.
With gasification, the IGCC process offers significantly greater combustion efficiency than just combustion of coal or any other fuel – up to 50 or 60 percent efficiency compared to 30 to 40 percent for other combustion power generation technologies. The efficiency could even approach 80 to 90 percent if the waste heat is used for other industrial processes or local heating. This naturally means lower GHG’s per unit of power. The D.O.E has estimated that CO2 emissions could be reduced by as much as 40 percent compared to today's conventional coal-burning plant even without any CO2 capture. But the gasification process can also make it much more economical to capture the CO2 for reuse or sequestration making this technology combination a powerful tool for GHG reduction.
The following speakers will update us on the status of gasification and IGCC technology, describe their experience with the permitting, design, construction, operation and maintenance of gasification plants and IGCC power plants and discuss the economic and environmental performance of these plants. They will also describe new equipment designs, technology and systems being developed to improve gasification and IGCC performance and economics, discuss the research and development that must be conducted to perfect this technology and address how the gasification of coal coupled with IGCC compares to re-powering with natural gas relative to the risk, economics, ability to achieve “zero emissions” and ability to reduce GHG’s.
Steve Jenkins, Vice-president, Gasification Services at CH2M HILL, Inc. will provide an update on IGCC projects and technology. At this time, only a handful of IGCC and Hybrid IGCC power plant projects are going forward across the U.S. In his presentation, Steve will provide an update on these projects. The presentation will include information on performance and environmental issues, as well as project progress.
Keith Moore, President, Castle Light PR Corp. will discuss how an advanced, field-demonstrated coal gasification technology can be retrofit on power boilers to improve efficiency and reduce SO2 and NOx emissions. Called the Clean Combustion System (CCS), the CCS replaces the power boilers’ original coal-burners and wind box with a coal-gasification module. The CCS simply prevents the formation of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx), all within the boiler’s furnace volume. The only "chemical" is limestone. A bag house is needed for particulate control. The CCS can retrofit all power boilers including cyclone, wall-fired, tangential and stoker designs and may be capable of converting gas and oil-fired boilers to coal firing. The CCS has demonstrated excellent SO2 and NOx emissions control performance and is expected to meet EPA’s stringent new CAIR (Clean Air Interstate Rules) with both Western and Midwestern coals. Construction Permits for CCS boiler retrofit with waivers of NSPS, PSD (and no NSR) may be available.
Michael (Mike) Preston, Product Manager at SPX Flow Technology will discuss the material handling aspects of coal gasification processes. Coal gasification processes rely on moving coal (either dry or wet) to the gasifier. For wet processing of coal, the material is first slurried as a 63-65% solids mixture with water and additives. This coal slurry exhibits pseudo-plastic (shear thinning) behavior upon mixing yet settles readily when un-agitated. The gasifier works best with a reliable and non-variable feed rate so mixers are used for storage of the coal slurry. Slurry rheology combined with the volume required to fuel a utility-scale power plant make design/engineering decisions a critical part of the plant and equipment selection. LIGHTNIN performs laboratory testing to determine the correct impeller type and accurate scale-up for agitation equipment in these large vessels.
Harry T. Morehead, Director, IGCC and Gasification Sales and Marketing, Americas at Siemens Energy, Inc. will provide an update on Siemens gasification and gas turbine technologies for IGCC and the projects that have selected its technologies. Interest remains strong for those IGCC and gasification based projects that can address the related commercial and technical risks and in North America that have a carbon management plan. Several IGCC projects in North America continue to move forward through the permitting and FEED processes while addressing these issues. The next IGCC project in North America could startup as early as 2014.
Phil Amick, Director, Gasification Commercialization at ConocoPhillips
To register for the "Hot Topic Hour" on August 19, 2010 at 10 a.m. CDT (Chicago time), click on: http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/brochures/FGDnetoppbroch/Default1.htm
Bob McIlvaine
President
847 784 0012 ext 112