June 28, 2010

U.S. President Barack Obama's "Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Task Force" is supposed to deliver a crucial report on August 3 proposing five to 10 "commercial demonstration" CCS projects that would go on-line by 2016 at U.S. coal-fired power plants.

        With the deadline fast approaching, GE Energy gasification general manager Monte Atwell is now making the rounds among policy-makers and media urging that the Task Force mainly focus on the "S" part of CCS - especially for large, commercial-scale carbon dioxide (CO2) storage engineering studies, drilling, site selection and permitting.

GE Energy's Monte Atwell

Source: GE

        In an exclusive interview last week with Gasification News, Atwell told us that to date, U.S. government-funded CCS studies haven't been carried out at "commercial scale," which he defines as CO2 emissions from electric power plants of at least 350 megaWatts, with at least 65% CO2 capture and at least 1 million tons/year CO2 going into geologic storage.

        Nobody knows whether and when the U.S. government finally will establish a legal policy and regulations on capping carbon emissions, Atwell pointed out.

        However, GE is among a variety of companies and environmental advocacy groups urging that the U.S. government move to establish some sort of legal scheme that effectively puts a price on carbon, so that energy companies can make logical investment decisions.

        But meanwhile, it's crucial to get the CCS engineers working now - rather than waiting on Washington - to investigate, drill, plan and permit commercial-scale CCS projects at coal-fired power plants, he said. This would include both pre-combustion CCS (including integrated gasification combined cycle plants) as well as post-combustion CCS, he said.

        The pre-combustion CO2 capture is already proven, commercial technology. So, for IGCC plants combined with CCS, the real need for help from government is to focus on the "S" part, he said.

        In contrast, U.S. government-funded post-combustion CO2 capture research to date is only tapping relatively small-volume slipstreams of stack emissions. So that part of CCS research would need to focus on the "CC" part of "CCS," as well as the ‘S" part.

        Doing all the preliminary work for a commercial-scale CCS project can take many months, even years, Atwell pointed out. Hence if the U.S. government is serious about getting five to 10 "commercial demonstration" CCS projects in operation by 2016, then there's no time to waste.

        Given Obama's stated 2016 in-service deadline, "you're almost too late to make that happen" even if the engineers started work today, Atwell warns.

        A front-end engineering and design (FEED) study for an IGCC plant including CCS might cost (roughly) US$100 million, he added. Hence if the CCS Task Force were to recommend (for example) five commercial-scale CCS projects involving pre-combustion CO2 capture, then this would mean recommending about $500 million funding for the required up-front studies, he explained.

        The engineers investigating CCS projects are bound to find problems when they undertake such studies, he said. For example, the geology of a proposed CO2 storage site near a proposed (or existing) IGCC plant might turn out to be unsuitable. So, multiple studies might be required for the CCS portion of an IGCC-CCS project.

        At least in part, a blueprint for government funding support for large-scale, combined IGCC-CCS already exists, he pointed out. For example, Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) earlier approved Duke Energy's CO2 capture study at Duke's under-construction IGCC plant in Edwardsport, Indiana.

        At Edwardsport, "it's not a full site characterization," unlike what would be needed to meet President Obama's CCS demonstration-project goals, Atwell cautions. Rather, the Duke FEED studies are "a subset" of what the Obama plan demands.

        What's more, Duke still hasn't decided whether it will plunge ahead with a full-scale CCS project, even though the company has spent millions of dollars in preliminary investigations and has set-aside a plot of land for the CO2 capture section at the plant. As with most energy companies looking at CCS, there's hesitation to invest in it until the government sets the rules (aside from relatively profitable enhanced oil recovery use of CO2, that is).

        The proposed "FutureGen" IGCC/CCS project in Illinois has been touted as a research model for commercial-scale geologic CCS from a coal-fired power plant. But it's uncertain whether FutureGen project developers will raise enough funds for it by a self-imposed 2010 deadline.

        Even if FutureGen goes ahead, one project alone won't be enough for commercial IGCC/CCS project developers to take further investment plunges, he said.

        "You can't do this with just one plant," Atwell said. Rather, engineers and their companies need to learn crucial lessons from multiple large-scale projects, in order to jump-start wider adoption of ultra-low-emissions coal-fired power projects, he added.

        Nor can U.S. power producers put all their bets on just "renewable" generation, or nuclear, or natural gas, as opposed to coal-power with CCS, he cautioned. "There's a practical limit for any generation technology, including renewables," he said. "Some generation technologies come with a CO2 burden. So, you'll need multiple [CCS-equipped] plants and you'll need the experience from building those plants.

        "At the end of the day, if it takes another two years to get energy and environmental policy, you can get detailed [CCS] engineering and permits [worked out in the meantime]. And hopefully there will be [government] incentives" especially for the "first-mover" projects, he added.

        "None of this is free, whether it's for climate or energy security. So, we need to get some incentives, like those given to wind or nuclear. They got deployed with incentives.

        "We're at a real crossroads here. Myself and some of my competitors - although I can't speak for my competitors - we've all anticipated there would be some kind of value on carbon by this time. But we still don't have a market."

        That's why it's especially important for the CCS Task Force to focus on recommending a fast-track plan that would focus on supporting necessary preparation work before building future "low-carbon" coal-fired plants, he said. - Jack Peckham

Source: Gasification News, 2010 Hart Energy Publishing