U.S. DOE Plans CO2 Capture Training Simulator

Washington, DC — A new U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) cooperative research and development agreement to develop, test, and deploy a dynamic simulator and operator training system (OTS) could eventually help commercialize important carbon capture technologies at the nation’s power plants.

The high-fidelity, real-time OTS for a generic supercritical once-through (SCOT) pulverized-coal power plant will be installed at the National Energy Technology Laboratory’s (NETL’s) Advanced Virtual Energy Simulation Training and Research (AVESTAR) Center in Morgantown, W.Va. It will be used for collaborative research, industry workforce training, and engineering education on SCOT plant operations and control under the agreement signed with Invensys Operations Management.

The SCOT dynamic model will be designed to include all process- and heat-integration connections to post-combustion CO2-capture, -compression, and -utilization processes, allowing it to serve as the baseline power plant model for DOE’s Carbon Capture Simulation Initiative (CCSI). The NETL-led CCSI is a partnership among national laboratories, industry, and academic institutions geared toward developing and deploying state-of-the-art computational modeling and simulation tools to accelerate the commercialization and widespread use of carbon-capture technologies at the nation’s power plants. By developing effective strategies for the operation and control of carbon-capture technologies, CCSI is expected to have a significant impact on the extent and rate at which commercial-scale capture processes will be scaled-up, deployed, and used.　

Working in collaboration with NETL, Invensys will develop the SCOT dynamic simulator/OTS using Invensys’ SimSci-Esscor® DYNSIM® dynamic simulation software and Wonderware® InTouch® operator training interface software . NETL and Invensys previously collaborated on the high-fidelity, full-scope, real-time dynamic simulator/OTS for an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant with CO2 capture that is currently deployed at the AVESTAR Center. The IGCC dynamic simulator also utilizes Invensys Operations Management’s software, ensuring that both simulators will efficiently coexist on the AVESTAR computer hardware.

The SCOT dynamic simulator developed under this agreement will enable the AVESTAR Center to provide a virtual test bed for optimizing the operation and control of post-combustion CO2-capture technologies. Ultimately, the collaborative research conducted through this partnership will be used to accelerate progress toward achieving operational excellence for SCOT pulverized-coal power plants with carbon capture.

Source: DOE

North Dakota - Minnesota Legal Fight Update

A federal judge reportedly has ruled that environmental groups cannot be parties to the legal fight between North Dakota and Minnesota over coal-fired power plants. Seven environmental groups had petitioned to join the action brought by North Dakota's attorney general and several coal-related groups to invalidate a 2007 Minnesota law known as the Next Generation Energy Act that limits imports of electricity from new coal-fired power plants in other states to discourage new sources of carbon dioxide. North Dakota, with huge reserves of lignite coal, claims the law violates the U.S. Constitution's commerce clause and federal law. More

Cenovus to Buy SaskPower's CO2 for EOR

SaskPower, Saskatchewan's electric utility, announced last week that it has reached an agreement with Cenovus Energy for the purchase of carbon dioxide (CO2) from SaskPower’s carbon capture and storage facility now under construction at Boundary Dam Power Station, near Estevan, Saskatchewan.

Cenovus will purchase the full volume, approximately one million tonnes per year, of the CO2 captured at SaskPower’s facility and use it for enhanced oil recovery at a project operated by Cenovus on behalf of its partners near Weyburn, Saskatchewan. SaskPower’s facility is the world’s first and largest coal-fired integrated carbon capture and storage project.

The long-term contract with Cenovus was signed at the completion of an extensive sales process. Cenovus expects to be ready to accept the CO2 when SaskPower’s integrated carbon capture and storage facility goes into commercial operation on or about April 1, 2014.

Source: SaskPower

California CO2 Permit Auction Update

Source: California Air Resources Board.
Note: Fuel distributors include wholesale natural gas and gasoline suppliers.

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At the first California Air Resources Board (CARB) auction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions permits for itscap-and-trade program in mid-November, prices for year-2013 emissions permits were at or near the $10 per ton minimum price. At a $10 permit price, the roughly 150 million metric tons of emissions covered by the program in 2013 have an implicit gross valuation of about $1.5 billion. However, since a significant share of 2013 permits are being distributed to distribution utilities and emitters without charge, impacts on the cost of energy to California consumers will be only a small fraction of the gross permit valuation. By way of comparison, California consumers across all sectors spent roughly $117 billion on energy in 2010, the latest year for which complete data are available, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data.

In the auction CARB sold all of the 23.1 million allowances for 2013 vintage at a settlement price of $10.09 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e). For the 2015 vintage, about 5.5 million of the nearly 40 million allowances sold at a clearing price of $10.00 per ton of CO₂e. The auction reserve price–defined as the minimum allowance required to bid in the auction–was $10 per ton of CO₂e for both vintages. The fact that the auction clearing price was close to the price floor indicates that demand for allowances was modest and market participants were confident they could obtain the required allowances to meet the cap.

Emissions permits serve as an additional input cost proportional to the CO₂e emitted by the entity responsible for the emissions. The cost associated with obtaining emissions permits has the potential to decrease the profit margin from a covered entity and raise the cost of energy from GHG-intensive fuels relative to other sources.

The cap-and-trade program covers several GHGs, with CO₂ being the most significant. For the first two years (2013-2014), only electric power plants supplying power to California and industrial facilities in the state with historic CO₂e emissions greater than 25,000 metric tons are required to comply. The cap expands to include fuel distributors (such as wholesale natural gas and gasoline suppliers) over the next two compliance periods. Electric power plants importing power into Calfornia are required to comply with the cap regardless of their historic emissions level.

California imports a significant portion of its electricity from neighboring states. Power plants outside of California that sell a portion of the electricity they generate to California are subject to the cap, but only for the amount of electricity sold to California.

The Cap and Trade program intends to limit GHG emissions to an annual target of 427 million metric tons (mmt) of CO₂e from all sectors by 2020. This limit was established to help California meet the overall goals set by the state legislature to reduce statewide CO2e emissions from covered entities to the 1990 level. Most, but not all, of these emissions will eventually be covered by the cap-and-trade program.

According to the most recent California GHG Inventory (2009 data), the transportation sector was the largest source of GHG emissions in the state, followed by electricity, industrial, and residential and commercial fuel use.

To comply with the cap, the program requires all facilities to submit emissions allowance permits for each ton of emissions they produce. More than 50% of the permits will be initially distributed through auctions. Approximately 25% will be allocated to electrical distribution companies, who are required to sell their allowances to facilities covered by the rule and use the proceeds to credit ratepayers. The rest of the allowances are allocated to trade-sensitive industries as defined by the regulation as well as a market reserve fund that would be used to stabilize allowance prices.

The California cap-and-trade program is not the first mandatory cap-and-trade program for GHG in the United States. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative has been in effect in the northeastern United States since 2009, but it only applies to the electric power sector.

Source: EIA

U.S. DOE Releases CO2 Storage Atlas Update

Washington, D.C.— The United States has at least 2,400 billion metric tons of possible carbon dioxide (CO2) storage resource in saline formations, oil and gas reservoirs, and unmineable coal seams, according to a new U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) publication.

This resource could potentially store hundreds of years’ worth of industrial greenhouse gas emissions, permanently preventing their release into the atmosphere, says the 2012 edition of the Carbon Utilization and Storage Atlas (Atlas IV). Capturing CO2 emissions from large power and industrial plants and putting it to beneficial use or storing it in deep geologic formations is a key element in national efforts to mitigate climate change.

Of particular importance is that over 280 billion metric tons of storage capacity has been identified in depleted oil and gas fields (including unconventional gas sources) which could accommodate storage of several decades of emission from stationary sources while simultaneously improving the energy security of the United States by enhancing oil and gas recovery.

Atlas IV was created by the Office of Fossil Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) with input from DOE’s seven Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships and ten Site Characterization projects. Comprising more than 400 organizations in 43 states and four Canadian provinces, the regional partnerships are testing CO2storage potential and investigating best practices for CO2 storage in a variety of geologic formations. The Site Characterization projects, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, are furthering DOE efforts to assess the nation’s CO2 storage resource by developing additional characterization data for possible storage reservoirs.

The primary purpose of Atlas IV is to provide an update on the CO2 storage potential in the United States and to showcase updated information about the partnerships’ field activities and new information from the site characterization projects. Atlas IV outlines DOE’s Carbon Storage Program and its carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) collaborations, along with worldwide CCUS projects and CCUS regulatory issues. The atlas also presents updated information on the location of CO2 stationary source emissions and the locations and storage potential of various geologic storage sites, and it provides information about the commercialization opportunities for CCUS technologies from the regional partnerships.

The data used to create the resource estimates in Atlas IV is available in interactive form on the National Carbon Sequestration Database and Geographic Information System (NATCARB) website.

Source: NETL

Using Lime for Carbon Capture

Researchers in Spain and Germany are testing carbon capture technology that uses lime-derived material in place of traditional amine-based solvents. The lime material reportedly absorbs more carbon dioxide per unit of weight than its amine counterparts and costs less than half as much to use, partly because the lime-based process uses bed reactors that are easier and less expensive to install than the scrubbing towers used with amine-based technology. Read more

The Effect of Increased CO2 Levels on Wheat Quality

Researchers in Sweden have concluded  that higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can negatively impact the quality of wheat. The study, which was recently published in the journal Global Change Biology, found that higher levels of carbon dioxide stimulate photosynthesis and increase the rate at which plants grow, forcing wheat plants to increase their uptake of nutrients such as nitrogen to a corresponding level to maintain normal nutritional (protein) value. The scientists, based at the University of Gothenburg, found that the protein content in wheat drops as carbon dioxide increases even though wheat yield may not affected, a result attributed to a dilution effect that occurs when nitrogen uptake does not keep up with the increased growth of the wheat grain. The researchers also concluded that the apparent negative effect of CO2 on the ability of plants to absorb nitrogen cannot be countered simply through increased fertilization. Read more 

New CO2 Storage Monitoring Tools Investigated

Researchers in Canada are testing new geo-electric techniques that could complement seismic tools in monitoring the injection of carbon dioxide (CO₂) into reservoirs deep underground. The goal of the research is learn more about the electrical properties of CO₂ as well as the cross relationships between seismic and electric properties. By studying the relationship between fluid nature, pressure changes and temperature changes, the scientists hope to improve their fundamental understanding of how CO₂ affects the electrical properties of rocks in the CO2 storage formations. Using a saline aquifer in Saskatchewan and a reservoir in Quebec, the researchers will test different methods of measuring electrical properties underground. More specifically, the team will test how measuring the magnetic field instead of the electric field (as is usually done) can be used to infer the electric conductivity of the rock. Read more

U.K. Report Shows Hydrogen Potential in CCS

A new report from the U.K.-based Institution of Gas Engineers & Managers (IGEM) highlights the potential for using hydrogen to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and improve the efficiency of renewable technologies, including wind and solar power. The report explores how hydrogen can be used as a carrier to store energy produced from a wide range of primary sources, and to power applications including electric vehicles, heating and power generation.

For example, the authors explain how excess electrical output from solar and wind facilities can be used to produce hydrogen, which can be transported and used later to produce heat or electricity with zero carbon emissions, reducing dependency on fossil fuels. Similarly, they say storing and transferring energy using hydrogen could support and complement other technologies to combat climate change for instance carbon capture and storage technology

Doha Agreement Reached on Black Carbon

At the United Nations climate change meetings in Doha, ministers from 25 countries have agreed to co-operate on policies aimed at vastly reducing black carbon (commonly known as soot), as well as methane and ozone in the atmosphere – substances known collectively as short-lived climate pollutants. Read more

EIA CO2 Emissions Update

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlooks 2009 - 2013
Note: Solid portions of each series show history as of each publication; dotted portions show projections. ARRA2009 denotes the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

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Projections for U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions have generally been lowered in recent editions of the Annual Energy Outlook (AEO), the long-term projections of the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The lowered projections reflect both market and policy developments that have reduced recent and projected growth in energy demand and its expected carbon intensity. The chart presents projected energy-related CO₂ emissions from AEOs issued since 2009 in terms of changes relative to emissions in 2005, a commonly used comparison year, particularly with regard to mitigation targets.

EIA's AEO reflects laws and regulations in place at the time the analysis was performed. New policies are incorporated in subsequent editions of the AEO as they are put in place. For example, updated fuel efficiency standards for light-duty and heavy-duty vehicles were incorporated in AEO2012 and AEO2013, tending to lower CO₂ emissions relative to earlier projections. The CO₂ projection in AEO2013 generally falls below that in AEO2012, and remains more than 5 percent below the 2005 level throughout a forecast horizon that for the first time extends to 2040. However, near-term expectations of industrial growth in response to the availability of low-priced natural gas result in somewhat higher projected levels of CO₂ emissions at the end of the current decade than in last year's outlook.

From 2009 to 2013, key changes in the AEO include:

• Downward revisions in the economic growth outlook, which dampens energy demand growth
• Lower transportation sector consumption of conventional fuels based on updated fuel economy standards, increased penetration of alternative fuels, and more modest growth in light-duty vehicle miles traveled
• Generally higher energy prices, with the notable exception of natural gas, where recent and projected prices reflect the development of shale gas resources
• Slower growth in electricity demand and increased use of low-carbon fuels for generation
• Increased use of natural gas

Power sector transformation, based on decarbonization of the generation mix, occurs because natural gas and renewables gain market share at the expense of coal, reflecting:

• Resource economics—high domestic production of natural gas at historically low prices, reflecting increased production of shale gas
• Regulation—updated state renewable portfolio standards and efficiency standards, and cap-and-trade provisions of California Assembly Bill 32, as well as implementation of federal policies to reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards and other policies and measures at local, state, and federal levels

In addition to publishing the Annual Energy Outlook, EIA also creates a report evaluating how our projections of key energy concepts compare with realized outcomes. The AEO Retrospective Review includes additional analysis of past projections of CO₂ emissions and other energy indicators like consumption, production, and prices.

Source: EIA

Can CO2 Increase Bakken Well Production?

Researchers from the University of North Dakota's Energy and Environmental Research Center have announced a project to determine if injecting carbon dioxide into the Bakken formation could increase the productivity of depleted wells. The scientists estimate that pumping one percent of additional oil from the Bakken and Three Forks formations would yield an additional 1.7 billion barrels. The process, called enhanced oil recovery, has been used successfully with conventional reservoirs in other parts of the U.S. and  in Canada, but has not been tried with unconventional reservoirs such as the shale formations in the Williston Basin. Read more

DOE Approves Funding for CO2 Capture Technology

Washington, D.C. — A promising post combustion membrane technology that can separate and capture 90 percent of the carbon dioxide (CO2) from a pulverized coal plant has been successfully demonstrated and received Department of Energy (DOE) approval to advance to a larger-scale field test.

In an $18.75 million project funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Membrane Technology and Research Inc. (MTR) and its partners tested the Polaris™ membrane system, which uses a CO2-selective polymeric membrane (micro-porous films which act as semi-permanent barriers to separate two different mediums) material and module to capture CO2 from a plant’s flue gas. Post-combustion separation and capture of CO2 is challenging due to the low pressure and diluted concentration of CO2 in the waste stream; trace impurities in the flue gas that affect removal processes; and the amount of energy required for CO2 capture and compression.

Because the Polaris membranes are 10 times more permeable to CO2 than conventional materials (reducing the membrane area required), and use a slipstream of combustion air as a sweep gas, the system has great potential for reduced energy requirements, reasonable capture costs and greater efficiencies for post-combustion capture, all important factors for retrofitting existing coal-based plants.

Demonstrating and further validating this innovative, cost-effective membrane CO2 separation process at the 1 megawatt equivalent (MWe) pilot scale is expected to be a major step toward meeting DOE’s program goals of capturing more than 90 percent of CO2 from flue gas with less than a 35 percent increase in the cost of electricity. Consequently, MTR will now begin fabricating a 1-megawatt (MW) system capable of meeting this goal from a 20-ton-per-day slipstream of coal-fired flue gas.

The 1-MW system will be tested at DOE’s National Carbon Capture Center (NCCC) in Wilsonville, Ala., beginning in 2013. The Post-Combustion Carbon Capture Center at the NCCC enables testing and integration of advanced CO2-capture technologies, at scale, using flue gas from Alabama Power’s Gaston power plant Unit 5, an 880-megawatt supercritical pulverized coal unit. Data generated in a 6-month field test of the 1-megawatt system will be used by MTR to develop a preliminary 20-megawatt full-scale commercial design in cooperation with their partners, Vectren and WorleyParsons.　

　

In addition to MTR, other collaborators on the three-year project include the Babcock & Wilcox Company, Electric Power Research Institute, and Southern Company. Objectives of the project, part of DOE’s Clean Coal Research Program portfolio, include reducing the capital cost, footprint, and energy penalty for CO2 capture in conventional coal-fired power plants, compared to existing commercial systems.

Source: NETL

Alberta Bitumen Processing Plant Moves Ahead

Plans for the first world's first oil refinery designed to capture CO2 moved ahead today as the two companies behind the proposed facility reportedly approved $5.7 billion for the first phase of the project. The refinery, to be built near Edmonton, Alberta, will process bitumen from nearby oilsands development, according to a CBC report earlier this month. The goal of the first phase of the project is to upgrade 50,000 barrels of bitumen per day into crude oil. Upon completion of all three phases, the plan is to process 150,000 barrels per day into products including low-sulphur diesel fuel while capturing up to 1.2 million tons of the CO2 produced during the upgrading process. Part of the CO2 would be sold to area oil companies for enhanced oil recovery use, according to the CBC. The two companies working on the new facility are North West Upgrading Inc. and Canadian Natural Resources, both of Calgary. Read more

California Completes Carbon Permit Auction

California officials have announced the results of last week's carbon permit auction, the first of its kind in the state. The entire offering of  23.1 million permits to cover 2013 emissions were purchased for a total of $233 million, with three times as many bidders as buyers. The money will be distributed to residential customers of the state's utilities to offset higher electricity rates anticipated as California shifts to clean energy. The state is expected to link its cap-and-trade program to Quebec’s carbon market in 2013. More

Illinois CO2 Injection Project Update

Washington, D.C. — A project important to demonstrating the commercial viability of carbon capture, utilization and storage technology has completed the first year of injecting carbon dioxide (CO2) from an industrial plant at a large-scale test site in Illinois.

Led by the Illinois State Geological Survey, the Illinois Basin–Decatur Project is the first demonstration-scale project in the United States to use CO2 from an industrial source and inject it into a saline reservoir. The CO2 is being captured from an ethanol production facility operated by the Archer Daniels Midland Company in Decatur, Ill., and is being injected in a compressed "supercritical" state into the Mount Simon Sandstone reservoir some 7,000 feet below the surface. Injection operations were initiated November 17, 2011, with an average injection rate of 1,000 metric tons (1,100 short tons) daily.

Analysis of data collected during the characterization phase of the project indicated the lower Mount Simon formation has the necessary geological characteristics to be a good injection target, a conclusion supported thus far by data accumulated from continuous monitoring of the site. The results from various monitoring activities – including tracking the underground CO2 plume; sensing subsurface disturbances; and continuous scrutiny of groundwater, shallow subsurface, land surface, and atmosphere around the injection site – show the Mount Simon Sandstone reservoir is performing as expected, with very good injectivity, excellent storage capacity, and no significant adverse environmental issues.

Nearing the 1-year mark, 317,000 metric tons of CO2 have been injected, about one third of the planned 1 million metric ton injection volume. The demonstration-scale project provides the opportunity to test how a real-world injection operation will perform where brief interruptions—such as planned maintenance of the compression equipment and conducting of various well tests, as required by regulations—will occur.

Successfully testing and demonstrating CCUS technologies under real-world conditions is an important step toward eventual commercial deployment of the technology as an option in helping mitigate atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions.

The technologies applied and lessons learned from this project will also support industry in the region looking to develop CO2 capture and transport infrastructure, whether it is for carbon storage or enhanced oil recovery in the depleted oilfields in the Illinois Basin.

"FE is proud of the effort and diligence applied to this demonstration project during the past year, as well as during the development period leading up to injection," said Charles McConnell, DOE’s assistant secretary for fossil energy. "The work has been performed safely and with operational discipline to assure flawless performance; the volumes of CO2 injected have been measured, monitored, verified and accounted for; and we remain confident that the injected CO2 has been and will be safely and permanently stored. The Illinois Basin – Decatur Project is an important part of the FE portfolio of demonstrations, through both the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI), that continue to further CCUS and meeting administration long-term goals for greenhouse gas reductions," he said.

The seven regional partnerships in the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships program are investigating the merits of numerous CCUS approaches to determine those best suited for different regions of the country. The Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium (MGSC) is investigating options for the 60,000 square mile Illinois Basin, which underlies most of Illinois, southwestern Indiana, and western Kentucky. Emissions in this area exceed 291 million metric tons of CO2 yearly, mostly attributed to the region’s coal-fired power plants.

The Office of Fossil Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) manages the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership program. For more information about the program, please see the NETL website. More information about MGSC and its projects is available on the MGSC website.

Source: NETL

New CO2 Storage Standard Announced

A joint Canada-USA standard for the geologic storage of carbon dioxide was announced last week by two Canadian organizations. The initial research for the project was done by the Saskatchewan-based International Performance Assessment Centre for Geologic Storage of Carbon Dioxide, which collaborated with the Toronto-based CSA Group to produce the final standard. The process included participation from a technical committee of more than 30 professionals representing industry, regulators, researchers and non-governmental organizations from both sides of the border.

The standard, officially known as CSA Z741, is primarily applicable to saline aquifers and depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs and could also be applied to storage associated with enhanced hydrocarbon recovery projects. It includes recommendations for the safer design, construction, operation, maintenance, and closure of storage sites.  Also included are recommendations for the development of management documents, community engagement, risk assessment, and risk communication.

Source: CSA Group press release

OSU Scientists Report New CO2 Capture Membrane

Washington, D.C. — In a project funded by the U.S.Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy (FE), researchers at The Ohio State University have developed a groundbreaking new hybrid membrane that combines the separation performance of inorganic membranes with the cost-effectiveness of polymer membranes. The breakthrough technology has vast commercial potential for use at coal-fired power plants with carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), a key element in national efforts to mitigate climate change.

Before the carbon dioxide (CO2) generated at a power plant can be securely stored or put to beneficial use, it must first be separated from the flue gas stream. Unfortunately, the energy cost of current separation technologies is too high to make rapid commercial deployment of CCUS technologies feasible. To overcome this barrier, high-performance membrane separation is a focus of FE’s Carbon Capture Program, under which the Ohio State project is managed. The program supports the DOE goal of cost-effective deployment of CCUS technologies within 10 years to position the United State as a leader in the global clean energy race.

Membranes consist of thin layers of either polymer (organic, plastic) or inorganic (metal, ceramic) materials that are permeable to the molecules they are meant to capture, such as water, CO2, or oxygen. The layers are generally deposited on a membrane support structure. Polymer membranes are mass produced and very cost effective, while inorganic membranes are expensive to produce but exhibit much better performance.

To illustrate how membranes are more energy efficient than other separation methods, scientists sometimes use a familiar substance: seawater. Pure water can be obtained by boiling the seawater and condensing the salt-free vapor, but boiling requires heat, which means using energy. Alternatively, membrane processes for separating salt from water don’t require heat, making them more cost effective and environmentally friendly. Separating CO2 from flue gas is similar. Energy is still required for pre- and post-separation processes, such as compressing the gas, but for the key process of separating the CO2, new membrane technologies pioneered by FE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and its research partners are designed to eliminate most of the energy costs.

Ohio State’s new hybrid membrane consists of a thin, inorganic "zeolite Y" layer sandwiched between an inorganic intermediate and a polymer cover. These three layers sit atop a polymer support, which in turn rests on a woven backing. According to NETL project manager José Figueroa, "Combining inorganic and organic membrane materials in a hybrid configuration is a breakthrough that could potentially lower costs associated with clean coal technologies."

Ohio State researchers realized a first prototype by combining new nanotechnology characterization and fabrication methods with state-of-the-art manufacturing techniques. In the laboratory, they were able to slash the zeolite Y growth rate from 8 hours to less than 15 minutes and reduce ceramic processing time from 43 hours to 20 minutes, resulting in inorganic/organic membrane development within one hour. They have also achieved adhesion of the inorganic intermediate layer onto a polymer support.

The Ohio State team, which has emphasized the membrane’s broader separation applications in their reports, received funding for the project beginning October 1, 2011, and presented their first results at the NETL Carbon Capture and Storage meeting July 9–12, 2012. The promising results follow previous success the team has had in making continuous, intact inorganic layers on polymer supports and developing new membrane-production techniques.

Source: NETL

Australian Scientists Announce New Capture Method

Australian scientists have devised a carbon capture method that uses the equivalent of a molecular trap door to separate carbon dioxide from other gases. Using a synthesized material called chabazite zeolite the researchers are able to separate molecules based on their properties rather than their size. The material can separate CO2 from gas streams at a wide range of temperatures and pressures and has excellent potential for separating CO2 from power station flue gases and natural gas production, according to the researchers, who add that the high selectivity and lower energy requirement of the capture material provide the potential to reduce the cost of gas separation. Read more

Three U.S. DOE Projects Recognized by CSLF

Three U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) projects have been identified by an international carbon storage organization as an important advancement toward commercialization and large-scale deployment of carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies.

The projects were officially recognized by the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF) at its recent meeting in Perth, Australia for making significant contributions to the development of global carbon dioxide (CO2) mitigation technologies. All three projects will appear in a yearly project portfolio on the CSLF website to keep the global community updated on progress. With CSLF recognition, these cutting-edge projects will gain enhanced global visibility and widespread knowledge-sharing opportunities.

CCUS involves separating CO2 from the emissions produced by power plants and other industrial processes and putting it to beneficial use or permanently storing it in geologic formations. The two processes—long-term storage and beneficial use—may even be combined, as when CO2 is used to produce additional oil from depleted oilfields in a process called enhanced oil recovery. Geologic storage of CO2 prevents the greenhouse gas from escaping into the atmosphere and contributing to climate change.

Brief descriptions of the three DOE projects, which are managed by the Office of Fossil Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, follow:

Illinois Basin Decatur Project (Decatur, Ill.): This large-scale CCUS demonstration project is being conducted by the Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium, one of seven regional partnerships in DOE’s Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships program. Led by the Illinois State Geological Survey, the project is injecting 1 million metric tons of CO2 over 3 years into the lower Mt. Simon Sandstone at a depth of 7,000 feet. The CO2 is captured from an ethanol production plant at the Archer Daniels Midland Company’s agricultural-products processing complex in Decatur, Ill. Throughout the project, the injected CO2 is being monitored to ensure storage permanence. The research findings and lessons learned are proving highly valuable for establishing best practices for future CO2-injection projects. The project has been in operation since November 2011 and has already injected 310,000 metric tons of CO2. Schlumberger Carbon Services is also a project partner.

Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. (Allentown, Pa.): With funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), this large-scale industrial CCUS project is examining CO2 capture from Air Products’ hydrogen facility at Valero Refinery in Port Arthur, Texas. CO2 will be purified prior to injection into the West Hastings Field oil reservoir as part of an enhanced oil recovery effort. The vacuum swing adsorption systems used will separate 90 percent of the CO2 from the facility’s process gas stream, with the goal of capturing and purifying 1 million metric tons of CO2 per year for storage. The project partner is Denbury Onshore LLC. This project is scheduled to be in operation by the end of 2012.

Illinois Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage Project (Decatur, Ill.): Up to 3,000 metric tons of CO2 per day from Archer Daniel Midlands Company’s ethanol-production plant will be injected into the Mt. Simon Sandstone in this ARRA-funded large-scale industrial CCUS project. A negative-carbon-footprint project, it will focus on design, construction, demonstration, and integrated operation of CO2 compression, dehydration, and injection facilities, and will follow with monitoring of the injected CO2. Community outreach, training, and education are an integral part of the project. Led by ADM, project partners include Schlumberger Carbon Services, the Illinois State Geological Survey, and Richland Community College. The project is scheduled to initiate CO2 injection in the fall of 2013.

The CSLF is an international climate change initiative that focuses on the development of technologies to cost-effectively capture, utilize, and store CO2. Member countries include the United States, the European Union, and 23 other countries that together account for 75 percent of all global anthropogenic CO2 emissions and aim to collaborate on mitigation efforts. For more information, please visit the CSLF website.

Source: U.S. Department of Energy

U.S. NETL CO2 Capture Sorbent Summary

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is considered one of the major greenhouse gases affecting climate change. An estimated one-third of anthropogenic CO2 emissions to the atmosphere results from the combustion of fossil fuels used for electricity generation. One technique for preventing CO2 emissions from entering the atmosphere is to capture and concentrate it for beneficial re-use or permanent storage in a geologic formation, assuaging a major concern with the continued use of abundant fuel sources that are domestically available.

Capture and separation of CO2 can be achieved by using solvents, cryogenic techniques, membranes, or solid sorbents. Large-scale operation of any of these technologies is energy intensive when applied to capturing CO2 from the combustion stream or flue gas, where it accounts for only about 15 percent of the volume. While wet scrubbing systems using regenerable, amine-based, solvents are the most commercially advanced, they are extremely energy intensive due in part to the large amount of processing water involved.

The NETL Basic Immobilized Amine Sorbent (BIAS) process is a "dry" sorbent-based CO2 capture technology that is both technically and economically viable for removing CO2 at low concentration from flue gas streams. The technology uses a sorbent made from an amine that is synthesized for high carbon dioxide selectivity and polymerized around a high surface area silica gel for ease of handling. The amine releases adsorbed carbon dioxide when heated at steam temperatures and can then be reconditioned as a solvent with no need for water.

Independent laboratory testing of over 100 sorbents demonstrated that NETL BIAS sorbents had the best overall performance. BIAS sorbents showed the greatest working capacity, a measure of the net ability of the sorbent to absorb CO2, were readily regenerated by heating, and had among the lowest projected regeneration energies—the amount of energy necessary to desorb CO2 from the sorbents.

An initial systems analysis indicates that solid sorbents, such as BIAS sorbents, could adsorb CO2 over a range of temperatures typically encountered downstream of flue gas desulfurization units in coal-burning power plants, and with their relatively low heat capacities would reduce the energy required for regeneration by 40 percent. Moreover, compared to state-of-the-art alternatives, BIAS sorbents are more thermally stable, exhibit little or no degradation , and produce less corrosion, eliminating the need for corrosion inhibitors. All these advantages combined to earn NETL BIAS sorbents a 2012 R&D 100 award, which recognizes 100 most technologically significant products introduced into the marketplace over the past year. Members of the award-winning NETL BIAS team are: McMahan Gray, Henry Pennline, Daniel Fauth, James Hoffman, and Kevin Resnik.

Source: NETL

New U.S. DOE Report on Coal-Fired Carbon Capture

Morgantown, W.Va. — Development of new carbon-capture-ready coal-fired power plants are essential to keeping coal, a proven domestic resource, in the domestic energy mix, according to a report released by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Although recent low natural gas prices have favored natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) for new fossil-fuel-fired power plants, the report asserts that it is reasonable to expect gas prices to rise; in this event, retaining the ability to use coal through systems that are constructed ready to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) will be essential for our nation’s continued economic prosperity.

The new report, Techno-Economic Analysis of CO2 Capture-Ready Coal-Fired Power Plants, provides findings from a study conducted by analysts at DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). The authors evaluated options for new supercritical pulverized coal plants that capture CO2, as would be required under a new rule proposed in April 2012 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The proposed rule, Standards of Performance for Greenhouse Gas Emissions for New Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units, would restrict CO2 emissions from newly constructed power plants to 1,000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour.

Coal-fired units would be allowed to meet the new standard either by (1) including CO2-capture technology during initial plant construction and controlling CO2 emissions from the start of operations, or (2) constructing the unit to allow for future integration of CO2-capture technology, and then controlling CO2 emissions at a level that would meet the standard, on average, over a 30‑year period. The latter compliance option, which assumes that carbon capture begins after the first 10 years of operations, is the focus of the NETL study.

The analysis showed that the economics of a CO2-capture-ready unit can be competitive with other baseload generation options, such as NGCC or nuclear. Given reasonable assumptions about advances that are likely to occur with CO2-capture technology, along with an additional revenue stream from CO2 sales for enhanced oil recovery, a supercritical CO2-capture-ready unit is competitive with NGCC at natural gas prices as low as $7.75 per million Btu. In addition, the capital cost savings of a CO2-capture-ready unit could be as much as 50–60 percent compared to new nuclear generation, according to several recent cost estimates of actual nuclear projects.

Source: NETL

Plants' Role in CO2 Mitigation Questioned

According to a new University of Minnesota study,  plants may not be able to absorb as much of the increased levels of carbon dioxide in the air as originally thought. The study shows that while plants can absorb and benefit from large amounts of carbon dioxide, they may not get enough of the required nutrients from typical soils to absorb the levels of  CO2 that scientists previously believed possible, which raises questions about their role in mitigating fossil-fuel emissions. The study was published in the current issue of the journal Nature Climate Change. Read more

NREL Produces Ethylene via Photosynthesis

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have demonstrated a better way to use photosynthesis to produce ethylene, a breakthrough that could change the way materials, chemicals, and transportation fuels are made, and help clean the air.

NREL scientists introduced a gene into a cyanobacterium and demonstrated that the organism remained stable through at least four generations, producing ethylene gas that could be easily captured. Research results were published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.

The organism – Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 – produced ethylene at a high rate and is still being improved. The laboratory demonstrated rate of 170 milligrams of ethylene per liter per day is greater than the rates reported for the photosynthetic production by microorganisms of ethanol, butanol or other algae biofuels.

The process does not release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Conversely, the process recycles carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, since the organism utilizes the gas as part of its metabolic cycle.

Ethylene is the most widely produced petrochemical feedstock in the world. But currently it is produced only from fossil fuels, and its production is the industry’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide. Steam cracking of long-chain hydrocarbons from petroleum produces 1.5 to 3 tons of carbon dioxide for every ton of ethylene produced.

The NREL process, by contrast, produces ethylene by using carbon dioxide, which is food for the bacteria. That could mean a savings of six tons of carbon dioxide emissions for every ton of ethylene produced -- the three tons that would be emitted by tapping fossil fuels and another three tons absorbed by the bacteria.

NREL principal investigator, Jianping Yu, says it’s the difference between using old photons and new photons. Ethylene from old photons is the ethylene produced from fossil fuels, derived from photosynthetic organisms that captured the sun’s energy millions of years ago. The NREL process uses new photons that are currently hitting plants, algae and bacteria capable of producing fuels directly.

Ten years ago, a group of Japanese scientists led by Takahira Ogawa at Sojo University was the first to try to produce ethylene via photosynthetic conversion in the cyanobacterium Synechococcus 7942. But by the fourth generation, the bacteria were defunct, producing no ethylene at all, Yu said.

NREL turned to a different cyanobacterium, Synechocystis 6803, which scientists had been researching for a long time, knowing how to change its DNA sequences. They manipulated the sequence to design an ethylene-producing gene to be more stable and more active than the original version.

This process resulted in an organism that uses carbon dioxide and water to produce ethylene, but doesn’t lose its ability to produce ethylene over time. The product ethylene is non-toxic to the producing microorganisms and is not a food source for other organisms that could potentially contaminate an industrial process.

“Our peak productivity is higher than a number of other technologies, including ethanol, butanol, and isoprene,” Yu said. “We overcame problems encountered by past researchers. Our process doesn’t produce toxins such as cyanide and it is more stable than past efforts. And it isn’t going to be a food buffet for other organisms.”

After the culture reaches maximum growth, it’s possible that it could keep producing for months at a time, said Rich Bolin, who is a member of NREL’s partnerships group. The ethylene gas it produces naturally leaves the organism, spurring the organism to keep producing more.

The ethylene would be produced in an enclosed photobioreactor containing seawater enriched with nitrogen and phosphorous. The ethylene gas would rise and be captured from the reactor’s head space. It could then undergo further processing, including a catalytic polymer process to produce fuels and chemicals. The continuous production system improves the energy conversion efficiency and reduces the operational cost.

NREL is initiating discussions with potential industry partners to help move the process to commercial scale. Interested companies include those in the business of producing ethylene or - transportation fuels, as well as firms that build photobioreactors.

“Separations in biotechnology are complicated and costly,” said Jim Brainard, director of NREL’s Biosciences Center. “The nice thing about this system is that it is a gas that just separates from the culture media and rises to the head space. That’s a huge advantage over having to destroy the valuable culture that is taking carbon dioxide and light and water to make your product. It’s much easier than a liquid-liquid separation like in ethanol.”

NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.

Source: NREL

CO2 Storage Well Completed in Saskatchewan

The Saskatchewan-based Petroleum Technology Research Centre has announced the completion of a well to be used for testing the deep saline storage of carbon dioxide. At a total depth of 3,396 meters (11,141 feet), the well is the deepest in the province and is part of the Aquistore project, a partnership between the Petroleum Technology Research Centre and the SaskPower Boundary Dam Power Station. SaskPower, the electrical utility for Saskatchewan, runs three coal-fired plants in the province. 

The well was drilled near the city of Estevan in the Deadwood formation, the deepest sedimentary unit in the Williston Basin. It has produced a complete set of logs, core samples and other data that project officials say will be useful not only for CO2 storage, but also for oil companies in the area who have interests in hydrocarbon bearing formations. The Deadwood formation is made up of alternating porous rocks such as limestones and sandstones, and non-porous rocks like shales, anhydrite and salt.

A second observation well will be drilled beginning in October and is expected to be of a comparable depth. Both wells are part of a four year research and monitoring project to demonstrate that storing carbon dioxide deep underground in a brine and sandstone water formation  is a safe, workable solution to reduce greenhouse gases. Saskatchewan has previous carbon storage experience to draw upon. Cenovus Energy (formerly EnCana) has been injecting CO2 into the Weyburn Oil Field since 2000. In addition, Shell Oil piloted CO2 injection into Saskatchewan's Midale Field in the 1980's, which Apache Canada continued in 2005.

(A video that overviews the Weyburn Oil Field application, which uses CO2 from the Great Plains Synfuels Plant near Beulah, is available here.)

Sources: Aquistore, Petroleum Technology Research Centre

New Carbon Capture Bill Introduced

A bill introduced in the U.S. Senate last week would modify the existing carbon capture and storage tax incentive, which provides a credit of $10 per ton of industrial carbon dioxide used in enhanced oil recovery projects and $20 per ton for carbon dioxide placed directly in secure geological storage. The goal of the bill, which was co-authored by Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND), Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY) and Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), is to make the tax credit easier to access for CO2 emitters.

Senator Conrad said this bill reflects the recommendations of the National Enhanced Oil Recovery Initiative (NEORI) for spurring new enhanced oil recovery projects. The NEORI is a working group of almost 30 energy industry members, state regulators, and environmental group members and was co-founded by the Great Plains Institute and the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.

The Department of Energy estimates that standard oil production techniques leave as much as 80 percent of the original oil in place. Employing carbon dioxide in enhanced oil recovery could lead to a potential 67 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil — an increase of 45 billion barrels from the 22 billion barrels of current U.S. proven oil reserves, according to the National Energy Technology Lab. Read more

British Introduce New Carbon Capture Technology

A new Senate bill introduced last week aims to provide incentives for carbon capture though improved access to tax credits, but it may be a bit premature. The process has not yet been proven on a commercial scale, and some scientists think the ammonia-based materials currently used in typical carbon capture technology actually may contribute to toxic emissions during the process of trying to reduce them.

Current capture processes also require large amounts of heat to separate the carbon so that it can be transported and stored. Power plant officials complain that the capture process is "parasitic"--that is, it significantly reduces the efficiency of the plant by diverting heat to the carbon separation process.

Recent innovations, however, may improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of carbon capture. For example, the Department of Energy last month announced preliminary results of its tests with a new carbon sorbent called BrightBlack, which demonstrated efficiency rates as high as 95% and yielded carbon with purity rates between 95 and 100 percent.

In the BrightBlack process, CO2 is absorbed in a bed of proprietary sorbent pellets and desorbed in a separate reactor that regenerates the sorbent and cycles it back to the absorber at  low thermal temperatures. Through 7,000 absorption-regeneration cycles, and a total of 130 hours of operation, the sorbent showed little-to-no mechanical or chemical degradation. The DOE plans to use the data from the initial pilot project to run scaled-up trials of the process, with the eventual goal of testing it in a pulverized coal boiler.

Meanwhile, British scientists this week announced a new low-cost sorbent called NOTT-300 (from Nottingham University where some of the research occurred) made from aluminium nitrate salt, cheap organic materials and water. In additon to being non-toxic, the material enables captured CO2 to be released using virtually no heat.

The NOTT-300 technology uses two filters. When one filter becomes saturated with carbon, it is removed and the carbon is released through a pressure reduction process while the exhaust gases are diverted to the second filter. The regenerated filter is then reconnected to be used when the second filter becomes saturated, a process the Nottingham scientists say can occur repeatedly and at normal temperatures.

The capture rate during the trial was nearly 100%  The researchers say the rate could be lower in an actual power plant application but should still approach 90%. They also think NOTT-300 could be used in gas separation processes since other gases such as hydrogen, methane, oxygen and nitrogen cannot interact with the material in the same way and therefore cannot be adsorbed.

It is important to point out that these new technologies, while showing great promise, are still only laboratory experiments. It's unknown whether they will work in commercial power plant applications, which are likely many months from being tested.

Sources...

• The U.S. Department of Energy, "Novel Sorbent Achieves 90 Percent Carbon Capture in DOE-Sponsored Test", August 21, 2012
• Financial Post, "Boost for carbon capture from new non-toxic absorber", September 24, 2012
•TCE Today, "New NOTT-300 MOF offers CCS Potential", September 25, 2012

U.S. DOE Begins COE Injection in Alamaba

Washington, D.C. — Carbon dioxide (CO2) injection has begun at the world’s first fully integrated coal power and geologic storage project in southwest Alabama, with the goals of assessing integration of the technologies involved and laying the foundation for future use of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery (EOR).

The "Anthropogenic Test"—conducted by the Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (SECARB), one of seven partnerships in DOE’s Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships program—uses CO2 from a newly constructed post-combustion CO2-capture facility at Alabama Power’s 2,657-megawatt Barry Electric Generating Plant (Plant Barry). It will help demonstrate the feasibility of carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), considered by most energy experts as an important option for meeting the challenge of helping to reduce atmospheric CO2 emissions linked to potential climate change.
In a unique process developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a small amount of flue gas from Plant Barry—equivalent to the amount produced when generating 25 megawatts of electricity—is being diverted from the plant and captured using Mitsubishi’s advanced amine process to produce a nearly pure stream of CO2.

Once captured, the CO2 is transported approximately 12 miles west to the southern flank of a geologic structure called the Citronelle Dome, within the Paluxy saline formation. A pipeline was constructed for this purpose in 2011. The Paluxy is an ideal site for injection because it is more than 9,000 feet underground and is overlain by multiple geologic confining units that serve as barriers to prevent CO2 from escaping.

Carbon dioxide injection will take place over 2 years at a rate of up to 550 metric tons of CO2 per day. Multiple monitoring technologies will be deployed to track the CO2 plume, measure the pressure front, evaluate CO2 trapping mechanisms, and ensure that the CO2 remains in the formation. In 2017, following 3 years of post-injection monitoring, the site will be closed. At that time, the wells will either be plugged and abandoned according to state regulations, or re-permitted for CO2-enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) and CO2 storage operations. If re-permitted, CO2 that would otherwise be emitted to the atmosphere would be used to recover stranded oil while also being sequestered in a geologic formation.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy established the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships program in 2003 to determine the best geologic and terrestrial storage approaches for each partnership’s specific region and to demonstrate technologies to safely and permanently store CO2. While focusing on regional CCUS opportunities, the seven partnerships collectively form an effective and robust nationwide initiative. Each partnership has developed a regional carbon management plan to identify the most suitable storage strategies and technologies, aid in regulatory development, and propose appropriate infrastructure for CCUS commercialization within its region. FE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) manages the partnerships program.

SECARB estimates that 31 percent of the nation’s CO2 stationary source emissions come from within its region, which comprises all or part of 13 southeastern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. The region’s deep saline and oil and gas formations offer safe and permanent storage capacity for these emissions. SECARB, along with the other Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships, continues to develop best practices to support the wide-scale transfer and advancement of information and technology derived from its projects.

SECARB’s Anthropogenic Test is led by the Southern States Energy Board in partnership with the Electric Power Research Institute, Southern Company, Alabama Power Company, Denbury Resources, Inc., Advanced Resources International, Inc., and other experts.