CO₂ Capture and Sequestration was the Hot Topic Hour Yesterday

One hundred participants heard the latest on carbon capture and sequestration in the June 25 Hot Topic Hour. The following speakers discussed a number of carbon capture technology developments and sequestration challenges.

According to Pete Baldwin, President of Ramgen Power Systems, compressors are often overlooked as a key component of carbon sequestration. He discussed the “shock wave” compressors being developed by Ramgen with funding from NETL based on shock compression systems used in supersonic flight inlets.  Ramgen’s compressors are not limited by “mach” principles which limit the speed of traditional compressor stages. As a result, a two-stage shock wave compressor can achieve the same compression results as an eight or ten-stage traditional compressor. The compressors can be smaller, less costly and more efficient. Although there are no prototypes currently in operation, they are well along with R&D.

Karen Ratcliff of Siemens discussed the company’s newest offerings related to carbon capture.  Siemens provides gasifiers and pre-combustion capture for IGCC systems. The company is also ready for scalable market introduction of two post-combustion technologies. One uses ammonia acid salts, which have lower degradation rates than other amines. A demonstration of that technology will begin later this year on a 1-MW slipstream from E.ON’s Staudinger plant in Germany. The other involves a partnership with Powerspan to expand introduction of their ECO2 aqueous ammonia carbon capture system in Europe.

Jim Lepinski, President of Headwater Clean Carbon Services, discussed his company’s partnership with the University of Utah to develop carbon sequestration opportunities.  Headwater is currently conducting four sequestration tests in southwestern states and is looking at developing a regional sequestration site in Utah. The Utah site is remote, has favorable geologic formations and is within 25 miles of three coal-fired power plants.

Kurt Waltzer of the Clean Air Task Force discussed his organization’s efforts to support carbon capture and sequestration projects. Scaling up carbon capture will require more R&D to reduce costs, regulatory programs to provide incentives and standards, infrastructure (such as pipelines) and guidelines for long-term care of sequestration sites.

Lyle Witham, Environmental Services Manger for Basin Electric Power, discussed his company’s experience with carbon capture and sequestration. Their Dakota Gasification plant in North Dakota has successfully captured CO₂ using amines for almost a decade, piping three million tons per year for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in Saskatchewan. They are now planning to capture CO₂ from a 120-MW slipstream from the adjacent Antelope Valley coal-fired power plant using Powerspan’s ammonia-based ECO2 system. Antelope Valley will obtain ammonia from the gasification plant and send an additional one million tons of CO₂ per year through the existing pipeline for EOR.  Lyle stressed that CCS was very expensive and that Basin Electric was able to pursue these projects because of a number of unique synergies.

As a boiler OEM, Doosan Babcock can integrate post-combustion technologies into a complete power station with consideration given to operating factors such as utilizing spare steam. Matt Hunt discussed the company’s post-combustion offering following a licensing agreement with HTC Pure Energy using a proprietary RS solvent. A 3000-hour test will be conducted at Sask Power’s Boundary Dam power plant, focusing on minimizing steam consumption and solvent degradation.  Scott Hume discussed Doosan Babcock’s oxy-fuel research efforts at its test facility in Renfrew, Scotland, and a 40-MW oxy-fuel test facility to be commissioned later this year.

The bios, abstracts and photos can be viewed as follows:

June 25, 2009 - Bios, Photos, Abstracts Hot Topic Hour.htm

The individual CO₂ slides are as follows:

Capture and Store      CO₂ Capture   Post Combustion Capture      Case History   Subject Company       Basin Electric                       Webinar          Lyle Witham - Basin Electric - June 25, 2009.pdf

Capture and Store      CO₂ Capture   Post Combustion Capture      Amines                        Sources           Siemens            Webinar          Products          Karen Raatcliff - Siemens.pdf

Capture and Store      CO2 Capture  Pre-Combustion Capture       Oxy-Combustion        Oxy Fuel Systems            Source Doosan Babcock         Webinar          Products          Matthew Hunt - Doosan Babcock - June 25, 2009.pdf

Capture and Store      Compressions and Transportation    Compression   Compressor    Source Ramgen            Webinar          Products          Peter Baldwin – Ramgen Power Systems - June 25, 2009.pdf

Capture and Store      Information    Associations    Source             CleanAir         Webinar                      Kurt Waltzer - CleanAir - June 25, 2009.pdf

Capture and Store      Storage           Long Term Geologic Storage            Procedural      Operations      Source             Headwaters    Webinar          Products          Jim Lepinski - Headwaters - June 25, 2009.pdf