Beneficial Byproducts from Coal are Important – Take-away from the Hot Topic Hour July 26

Participants in the Hot Topic Hour yesterday agreed that beneficial reuse of the more than 100 million tons of coal ash is important enough to affect U.S. competitiveness in the world. In the Hot Topic last week we established that the U.S. is burning 21 quads of coal today and that EIA and McIlvaine predict it will be burning 21 quads in 2035. How the ash disposal issue is addressed will be critical to the cost of electricity.

Tom Adams, Executive Director of American Coal Ash Association (ACAA) updated the group on the latest regulatory developments. A house bill allowing coal combustion wastes to be treated similarly to municipal wastes passed the house and was favorably viewed in the Senate. However it appears that passage would be delayed until 2013.  In the meantime there is substantial cost to the nation in deterring progress in beneficial reuse of the coal combustion byproducts.

Robert Spoerri, President and CEO of Beneficial Reuse Management LLC, says gypsum “has now been demonstrated to provide agronomic, economic and environmental benefits to farmers when used as a soil amendment and nutrient source. For those utilities producing FGD gypsum, this emerging market represents a beneficial use opportunity that could reduce disposal costs and generate revenue. Gypsum improves certain crops such as peanuts and tomatoes. The number of no till farmers using gypsum has tripled. Gypsum holds water preventing run off and nutrient loss.

While there are significant challenges to developing this new market, interest and demand is growing and now is a good time to assess the opportunity. The potential use of gypsum for agricultural uses is as much as 0.5 tons/yr x 329 million acres. Even realization of a small portion of this potential would have a big effect on the market. 

Robert Tang, President and CEO of CEFCO Global Clean Energy LLC, explained that, the recently-patented CEFCO process separately captures all emitted pollutants and CO₂ in flue gas into distinct end-product groupings: Metals (including mercury) into neutralized and sellable form; SO_x into potassium sulfate fertilizer; NO_x into potassium nitrate fertilizer, and CO₂ into a bicarbonate solid which can be liberated as "pure" food-grade CO₂ for many practical uses, including making Syngas and Liquid Fuels. Separately, CEFCO's patented supersonic capture and reaction mechanism can be developed and applied to react any carbon feedstock and CO₂ with other reagents to produce plastics and other more valuable chemical compounds.

Dr. Robert (Bob) B. Bruce, President of Innogyps Inc, believes that higher value gypsum products can be produced. FGD scrubbers produce millions of tons of calcium sulfate (gypsum) and sulfite each year. Although it would appear that FGD gypsum usage has plateaued, a simple analysis of the basic economics of the gypsum industry shows how more FGD materials can be sold for better prices, improving both the environmental and financial position of FGD scrubber operators.  High quality plasters are one of the potential products.

The market in China is just emerging. The current five year plan incorporates closure of old gypsum mines and a switch to FGD gypsum. Given the huge amount of limestone used in Chinese FGD scrubbers and the growing recognition of the fire retardant benefits of wallboard, there is going to be rapidly increasing beneficial use of Chinese FGD gypsum

Amy Evans, Director of Technology at Marsulex, discussed the  commercially viable process for FGD using ammonia as a reagent and producing commercial grade ammonium sulfate (AS).  The benefits of the AS-WFGD technology include: operational reliability and SO₂ scrubbing equal to or greater than conventional wet FGD; offsets to a portion of the yearly operating costs derived by the sale of the AS fertilizer by-product; and the CO₂ friendly nature of the process as, unlike calcium-based wet FGD, no CO₂ is produced in the SO₂ absorption process.

There is now considerable experience with the system--Dakota Gasification, Syncrude, some Chinese installations and now a big installation in Poland.  A chart of the difference between purchased ammonia and ammonium sulfate sales price over time reveals that it is consistently around $100/ton.  This is enough to make byproduct sales a major factor in total costs and to make the system competitive with others in areas where ammonia is available and there is a demand for the fertilizer.

The Bios, Abstracts and Photos information is linked below.

Bios, Abstracts, Photos - 7-26-12.htm