COAL – U.S.

Lamar, CO Plant May Be Converted from Gas to Coal

The Lamar Daily News reports that the Lamar Utilities Board (Colorado) is studying a proposal to convert its 25 MW Lamar generating plant from natural gas to coal.

20 MW Coal-fired Plant Possible in Wyoming

The Casper Star Tribune reports that Torrington, Wyoming is considering building its own 20 MW power plant by 2007. William Tuminello, a scientist with the Western Research Institute's Transportation Materials and Refining Business Unit, explained progress on the project during a meeting Wednesday. Tuminello envisions a boiler system that would use coal as its main fuel but could also burn a variety of fuels including wood, natural gas, diesel, ethanol, biomass or even shredded tires.

North Dakota Coal-Fired Project Cancelled

Great River Energy has cancelled its proposed 500 MW coal-fired power project in North Dakota.

COAL WORLDWIDE

Siemens Expects to be EPC Contractor for Tanjung Bin in Malaysia

Siemens Malaysia Sdn Bhd is confident that its unit, Siemens Power Generation Asia Pacific, will secure the RM4.94 billion engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the coal-fired power plant in Tanjung Bin, near Johor Baru, Malaysia. Siemens Malaysia president and chief executive officer Rainer Althoff said the concession holder, SKS Ventures Sdn Bhd, was expected to announce the results of the tender exercise in the next few weeks. Althoff said the EPC contract was on a turnkey basis. The entire power plant project, inclusive of dredging works, land clearing and other aspects, amounts to RM6.4 billion. Siemens had submitted the tender bid in April together with three other companies – the French ALSTOM Group and Japan's Mitsubishi Corp. and Sumitomo Corp. The first plant is scheduled to begin operations in August 2006, and the other two in February and August 2007.

Keti Bandar in Pakistan May Go Forward

The Daily Times–Pakistan reports that the Sindh Coastal Development Authority is now approving for investment the CEPA 5,280 MW coal-fired power complex project at Keti Bandar, Pakistan. Ground breaking occurred in January 1996, but evidently the project never went forward. The project was to be implemented in four stages.

ALSTOM Will Supply ESPs for Pulau Seraya in Singapore

ALSTOM’s Environmental Control Systems Business has received an order for the supply of electrostatic precipitators for the 750 MW orimulsion-fired Pulau Seraya power station in Jurong, Singapore.

Two Russian Coal-fired Plants Will Be Built with U.S. Help

The U.S. Energy Department announced a $466 million deal Tuesday to build two coal-burning power plants for Russia in return for a Russian promise to close three plutonium-producing reactors considered among the most dangerous in the world. Two American companies – Washington Group International and Raytheon Technical Services – will oversee construction of the two fossil fuel plants. Most of the actual work is expected to be done by Russian companies and workers. Washington Group International will oversee work at the Seversk site, where an old coal-fired plant will be refurbished and expanded by 2008. Raytheon will oversee construction of a new plant at the Zheleznogorsk site with a completion date of 2011.

Three Coal-fired Plants for Brazil

A number of coal-fired power plants are on the drawing board for Brazil, including the 440 MW Usitesc project in Criciuma, Santa Catarina, the expansion of the Usina de Figueira plant to 100 MW, and a 650 MW project in Cachoeira do Sul that investment group Central Termoeletrica Sul (CTSul) is planning.

2,100 MW Pacifico II in Mexico Planned

Mexico’s state power company CFE plans to call for bids in December 2004 to build and operate the 2,100 MW US$2.1 billion Pacifico II coal-fired power generation project in Michoacan state, CFE executive Francisco Soto de la Vega told BNamericas. The CFE will decide the winner of the 30 year contract by 2005, and work is scheduled to be completed by 2009, he said.

500 MW Bhadrawati Power Project Revived in India

Ispat is reviving the coal-fired Bhadrawati power project in Maharashtra, India. However, the group has decided to cut the capacity of the project to 500 MW from 1,082 MW.

MORE ON MEGA

One hot issue raised in the Alert last week was the inclusion of condensibles in the particulate guarantees. The major condensible is SO₃. Bill Ellison believes that EPA should allow new coal-fired plants higher emission levels of SO₃ than appears to be the case at MidAmerican. He points out that the impact on ambient fine particulate is the same. It is an anomaly that SO₃ is controlled as a particulate and SO₂ is controlled as a gas. This results in much tougher SO₃ limits than those for SO₂.

There is another aspect to this separation of SO₃ and SO₂. Let’s take the total U.S. situation. Uncontrolled SO₂ emissions are 20 million tpy.  If all coal plants install scrubbers and SCR, SO₂ emissions may drop to two million tons per year; but SO₃ emissions could be 2 percent of 20 million tons per year or 400,000 tpy. “Clear Skies” does not take into account that as much as 20 percent of the sulfur load could eventually be in the form of SO₃. Presently this contribution is ignored. The positive aspect of these statistics is that by eliminating most SO₃ emissions there could be a significant decrease in the total ambient fine particulate.

Rich Staehle (and Triscori, Ross, Kumar and Pasternak) addressed SO₃ removal at Mega. Rich pointed out that H₂SO₄ emissions after SCR on high sulfur coals can exceed 20 ppm. Furthermore, concentrations as low as 5 ppm have caused visibility problems. At AES Deepwater only 30 percent of the mist is captured in the FGD system. The particulate limit including condensibles was set at 0.005 gr/scf. This required more than 90 percent removal of acid mist. A wet precipitator (WESP) following the FGD is achieving 98.9 percent removal of particulate including acid mist. New Brunswick Power Coleson Cove is switching to Orimulsion. The WESP will ensure stack emissions of less than 5 ppm of sulfuric acid and flyash to 0.015 lbs/MMBtu. This system will be in operation in September 2004.

The authors addressed the 64 thousand-dollar question, which is the cost of SO₃ removal with the WESP versus sorbent injection. A WESP for 80 percent SO₃ removal would cost $30/kW vs. $40/kW for 95 percent removal. For a 500 MW plant the total costs to own and operate per year would be $1.66 million for the WESP, $2.54 million for lime and $9.6 million for sodium bisulfite for 80 percent removal. At 95 percent removal the cost is $2.2 million/yr for the WESP and double that for lime and seven times higher for sodium bisulfite. We will look forward to getting input from URS, Carmuse, Chemical Lime and Marsulex relative to their views on the comparison of costs between sorbents and the WESP.

The Utility Fax Alert http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/UtilityFaxAlert556.html is published weekly and is available separately for $850/yr. This includes access to back issues which are searchable. The Alert is also available as part of the Utility Upgrade Tracking System. This service includes a database with estimated PM_2.5 emissions for each coal-fired plant in the U.S. For more information on this service click on http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/energy.html .

The market for wet precipitators is going to soar as power plants are faced with removing SO₃, mercury and fine particulate. As shown above the wet precipitator is higher in capital cost but is lower in life cycle cost than additives for this application. The market for upgrading of dry precipitators is also going to rise substantially as power plants strain to maximize generation for old coal-fired generators. The price of natural gas is likely to remain so high that even operation of older and inefficient coal plants will be comparatively attractive. The market for precipitators and components is continually revised in Electrostatic Precipitators: World Markets  http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/air.html#N018

Bob McIlvaine

847-784-0012

www.mcilvainecompany.com