Wyoming Infrastructure Authority

TCE Today 8/9/2010
FutureGen 2 to showcase low-emission coal
Oxyfuel retrofit rather than IGCC wins the day

by Claudia Flavell-While

SEVEN years after the original FutureGen clean coal demonstration plant was announced in the US – and three years after it was effectively abandoned – the US government has g iven the go-ahead for FutureGen 2, its rather less revolutionary successor.

The project, which will receive $1b from the Department of Energy, will see an existing coal-fired power plant – a 200 MW unit at Ameren Energy Resources’ Meredonisa power plant in the US state of Illinois – retrofitted with oxyfuel technology. This will require a new boiler, air separation unit, CO2 purification and a gas compression unit, the partners say. The project will be designed to accommodate a broad range of different types of coal and operating conditions.

Burning pulverised coal in an oxygen/ CO2 atmosphere will produce a stream of almost pure CO2, which can then be captured and sequestered. Oxyfuel combustion also removes almost all of the mercury, SOx, NOx, and particulates from the plant’s emissions. Overall, FutureGen II is expected to capture 90% of the CO2 it produces. In addition, performance and emissions data from the plant will help set up operating and maintenance regimes for future large-scale commercial projects.

The project also includes designing and establishing a regional CO2 storage site in Mattoon, Illinois and a CO2 pipeline network from Meredonisaa to Mattoon that will transport and store more than 1m t/y of captured CO2. The partners hope that this will lay the foundation for a regional CO2 network. Meanwhile, researchers will study the Mattoon site and gather data on site characterisation, injection and storage, and monitoring and measurement.

The plant will be the world’s first oxyfuel plant at commercial scale, says the US energy secretary Stephen Chu. Partners in the project are Ameren Energy Resources and Babcock & Wilcox, and Air Liquide Process & Construction is to build the plant.

Experts say that FutureGen 2 is more appropriate than its short-lived predecessor, which the US government effectively shut down in 2007 after costs escalated from $1b to $1.8b. The first FutureGen project would have showcased near-zero emission coal-fired power using integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology. But while few doubt the efficiency of the process, it is only suitable for new build power plants. With a substantial number of coal-fired power plants currently in operation and only limited plans to build new ones, many experts believe that emissions can be cut more effectively by retrofitting existing power plants with carbon capture technology.