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May 20, 2009 04:20 PM | 18
Capturing the carbon dioxide that wafts up the smokestack after burning coal (or any other fossil fuel) has been identified by everyone from President Obama to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a critical technology to help keep the lights on while combating climate change. And now there has been yet another successful demonstration that the technology to capture that CO2 from flue gas might actually work: chilled ammonia can capture more than 88 percent of the greenhouse gas before it goes up the smokestack.
Alstom Power and We Energies have released preliminary data on their carbon capture pilot project at Pleasant Prairie, Wisc. The pilot plant, set up to siphon the CO2 from a small stream of the total flue gas using chilled ammonia, not only captured most of the CO2, it captured it in a more than 99 percent pure form, according to Robert Hilton, vice president of power technologies and government affairs at Alstom, which is important for any future storage or industrial reuse. "We can [capture] 90 percent [of the CO2] and do it consistently," he notes. "We've done over 90 percent at times."
So far the project has run some 4,600 hours continuously without issue and captured some 18,000 tons of CO2 over the last year.
Because this was just a demonstration project, Alstom didn’t do anything with the CO2, which in the future would either be sold to industrial users for carbonated beverages or oil recovery or pumped deep underground for permanent storage. Alstom just re-released the CO2 right back up the smokestack with the other flue gas.
A similar demonstration project using Alstom's chilled ammonia at AEP's Mountaineer power plant in West Virginia this fall aims to be the first to put together the full package. "It really will be the first plant that will take flue gas from a coal-burning power plant, clean it, remove the CO2, compress it and inject it in a true sequestration at 8,300 feet deep," Hilton says. "It's the first time that will be done anywhere in the world."
Following that test and others, the company plans to have the chilled ammonia technology available for sale by 2015.
Of course, employing such technology uses up much of the energy produced by burning the coal in the first place. Although Alstom declined to give exact figures, Hilton claimed the process used up less than 25 percent of the electricity produced: "We expect chilled ammonia to be in the low 20s."
In other words, capturing that CO2 will cost between $50 and $90 per metric ton, though Hilton believes that scaling up the process and refining it will reduce that cost to as little as $20 per metric ton of CO2. That could make such carbon capture and storage a cheap alternative for avoiding CO2 emissions under any regulatory scheme to fight global warming, such as the cap-and-trade proposal currently being debated in Congress.
The company is also developing amine scrubbers as well as pilot projects in Europe of so-called oxyfuel combustion—burning coal in pure oxygen to create flue gas of nearly pure CO2.
The reason to pursue multiple technologies, Hilton says, is because they can be added on to existing plants—either by replacing the boiler in the case of oxyfuel or adding processes to the back-end in the case of amine and ammonia. And that may be the key to halting the CO2 emissions from power plants driving climate change. As Hilton says: "You can't make any of the goals [for emission reductions] anybody's proposed without doing the existing fleet."
Credit: Courtesy of We Energies
Tags:
CCS,
carbon capture,
carbon capture and storage,
climate change,
emissions,
carbon dioxide,
global warming,
greenhouse gas
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18 Comments
Add CommentNice work, cheeseheads!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKinda silly though, to make such a big deal about capturing the CO2, and then not really have a solution to the problem of... what to do with it.
Release it out of a smokestack, release it from a billion Coca Cola's, or release it through a hundred feet of earth, it's still being produced, and it's still being released.
What was the cost in energy terms of capturing CO2?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPumping it underground is no solution, it will re-emerge. We live on a plastic crust, constantly deforming and changing, today's dump site tomorrows catastrophic release.
Convert CO2 to Na2CO3 or a similar stable compound, and take into account the energy used to achieve this end point.
It would be helpful to know whether or not the working fluid in the system is recycled (at the price of some amount of energy) on-site, or if it requires a catalyst that must constantly be replenished from elsewhere. Because that would change the equation significantly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCo2 is used in commercial green houses at some 1200ppm to boost plant growth, maybe if there was more Co2 in the air plants might grow better meaning a greener lusher planet with abudnent food supply for everyone, if we try to reduce Co2 below the current 380ppm who know how this might affect the eco system, maybe the planet might turn into a desert with famine and malnutrition for everyone except for people who can afford food. This carbon capture and storage is just technology gone insane.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismarcus03,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIsn't CO2 currently a problem re. emissions are too high causing global warming?
Darla
FIrst of all Marcus,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCO2 is plant food. But CO2 also helps regulate earth's climate. The problem is not how much plants will grow. Increased CO2 doesn't directly = a greener planet. The plants that have evolved now in there current conditions will not be able to adapt to the changing temperature and climate long before the planet becomes a lush jungle.
Nobody is talking about bringing CO2 below 380ppm. Indeed its not even feasible in the near term. Most who have ambitious CO2 targets suggest 450ppm. And your desert/famine/malnutrition argument is precisely what most predict in a warming climate.
Why on earth would this company initiate carbon capture methods before figuring out how to store or make use of all that CO2??? That 18,000 tons could have been permenantly removed, helping us that much more in fighting climate change, and they just dumped it back? Am I the only one that feels this was a ridiculously stupid and irresponsible approach?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes I know it was to prove a concept, but you don't prove half a concept and declare it a success. When they've installed storage measures that work, I'll be convinced, but right now all they have is a publicity stunt.
Shoreliner11 try googling "Global Warming Petition Project"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is pretty amazing how even in Scientific American readership there is a huge lack of understanding how the geophysics of the crust works. Pure Cabon Dioxide injected as a super critical liquid dissolves in the water, brine or petroleum residues in the deep strata that injection will occur in. There is no leaking to the surface as the pressure of the rock above the stratum keeps it supercritical, dissolved and buried for a LONG time...tens of thousands of years and longer. Further, it can be used to bring pressure onto old oil bearing strata that can not be accessed any other way thus, we pump down super critical carbon dioxide and bring up oil, return the carbon dioxide back down and so forth. Super critical carbon dioxide acts as a super solvent of petroleum and can liquify even tars like oils. In areas of coal, it also can act as a gaseous solvent of natural methane in the coal beds and along with water can result in the capturing of methane as well...IT costs money to do the ammonia capture to begin the process but considering the alternatives it is a good system. The Ammonia method of carbon dioxide capture is excellent as a pure carbon dioxide is necessary to produce super critical liquid by compression as having other gases in the mix affects the outcome of the industrial process and adds huge costs due to the volume of flue gas that needs to be dealt with. North America has most of the world's coal under its surface and if this process can be put to work, it would make this entire content carbon output free. It is a no brainer to this observer to go this route amongst other low carbon emitting processes such as wind and solar AND the tar sands of Alberta which can use nuclear produced electricity to heat and remove the tar from deep underground without any open pit mining nor extraction using water or steam. The future is ours carbon comrades! We do not have to go back to the dark ages to survive into the future no matter what some people think. Technology will prevail and we will move on to a cleaner world...even using what seems at first sight to be a dirty fuel.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou must remember risk factors in any engineering project. In this case, the risk of leakage, resulting in planetary heating up to 19F (10.8C as in Permian Extinction) is great. The many leaks of supposedly safe nuclear material (such as near me, in Stonybrook NY USA, and in France and other countries) after only 10 or 20 years, should be a large warning. It is time to VIGOROUSLY pursue truly clean energy from wind, waves, geothermal, and photovoltaic. There is far more energy than we need today, available from those sources.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTechnology will win the day when it comes to beating Green House Gasses. Congrats to the coal industry for leading the way here. This is how progress is truly made!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTechnology will win the day when it comes to beating CO2. Congrats to the coal industry for leading the way here. This is how progress is truly made!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLOL, I'm very aware of OISM's bogus petition. Funny that I would rather listen to climate scientists over MD's on why we should reduce GHG's. Take a look here:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P8mlF8KT6I&feature=channel_page
There's plenty of info on the web debunking the OISM petition.
This is a joke as one can do thermal solar electric with biomass back up, wind, CHP with biomass, river/tidal power for less to much less than this and all are almost CO2 free/neutral except for the materials to make them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNor does it account for the damage, land poisoning from mining and transport or the waste.
And eff, conservation also is far cheaper, cleaner and save money for the customer.
This wonderful system only consumes 25% of the energy produced. This is a no brainer says one commentor.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWind ,wave,geothermal,and photovoltaics will provide more energy then we will ever need. Says another.
IT must be wonderful to be so ignorant of the total facts of all of these things.
Every energy production system has good and bad results to the enviroment and net costs for the production.
"Beware of unintended results"says pgtruspace
pgtruspace, I have been immersed in this topic for 2 1/2 years, attended numerous meetings and some conferences, and run meetings myself with expert speakers. So claiming that I (and the other commentors, for that matter) are "so ignorant of the total facts" is quite presumptuous on your part. The other disturbing aspect of your irresponsible comment is that you imply that everything is relative, that all sources of energy have "good and bad results" and therefore it doesn't make much difference what path is taken. That is a reasonable conclusion based on what you wrote. I would hope that you spoke so carelessly only because you do not realize the importance of our words and actions that are expressed in public, in all aspects of life including on the topic of how societies can continue with a minimum of suffering globally caused by climate change, resource depletion, and other difficulties.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would support a quite different position than yours; I believe that our choices are quite important, and that results will be widely different depending on that paths that are chosen. It can be debated whether the choices are somewhat inevitable based on the large forces at play in society. However, I would argue that each of us doing our best to support what we believe, after careful study, to be the best path, can and will influence the final outcome, at least to some degree, and maybe to a very large extent.
It is already later than we would like in the climate change struggle, and climate change is already having an impact which is growing. However, we must do our best to choose the energy sources with the least impact on climate as well as minimizing traditional pollution. I agree with some of the other commentors' important points as well, one of which is that conservation of energy is the single cheapest and most immediate ways to make a difference, and should receive a good deal of attention while we also set the medium-term and long-term energy generation goals.
OK! Well you scrub out the CO2 from chimney stacks, but how are you going to capture the mercury which coal contains as a trace element? In view of worldwide coal consumption, the global emission of mercury from coal represents is colossal and a real menace to fish and therefore we humans.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisit is very suprising that they have save 90 percent of carbon and will sell it after and it would be a great business, goood.. best of luck America
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