Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
10/4/13
Babcock & Wilcox’s Power Generation Group said late this week that it has signed an agreement with the FutureGen Alliance to perform Phase II front-end engineering and design work for FutureGen 2.0. B&W said the move officially kicks off the second phase of the Department of Energy’s flagship carbon capture and storage demonstration project, which the Department formally approved in February. B&W said it is responsible for designing and supplying the plant’s boiler, oxy-combustion capture and gas quality control systems. The company will also oversee the balance of engineering work on the 167 MW retrofit of a decades-old oil-fired unit at Ameren’s mothballed Meredosia plant in western Illinois. “This agreement is an important next step in our progress toward making near-zero-emissions power generation from coal a reality,” B&W PGG President J. Randall Data said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing our relationship with the FutureGen Industrial Alliance, the DOE and the project team in demonstrating the value of carbon-capture technology.”
B&W said DOE has authorized up to $49 million to fund Phase II FEED work for FutureGen ahead of financial close and Phase III construction work which, pending DOE approval, could begin as early as June. Timing will remain critical for the $1.65 billion venture given that project developers are months behind their initial schedule. As with all projects funded under the Recovery Act, the Alliance must spend its $1 billion in stimulus funds before Sept. 30, 2015, when all unused money must be returned to the Treasury. On the state front, the FutureGen Alliance continues to finalize details of its power purchase agreement with regulators and is also navigating a legal challenge from utilities and other industry groups in Illinois opposed to its 20-year PPA. The Alliance submitted its proposed CO2 pipeline route to regulators this spring, which detailed plans to transport roughly one million tons of CO2 annually from Meredosia 30 miles east to a saline aquifer in Morgan County.
In a June interview with GHG Monitor, Data said B&W PGG is looking to take a “phase-by-phase” approach to FutureGen, focusing on Phase II FEED work and not letting uncertainties surrounding project cost and schedule, as well as legal and political pressures, affect its decision-making in the near-term. “We will continue to try and meet what our customer’s needs and expectations are and support [the FutureGen Alliance] in that endeavor. From our standpoint, we are just looking phase to phase,” Data said. “We’re trying not to look at the whole long road.” The project’s other technology provider, Air Liquide, will be providing the air separation and cryogenic purification units for the project.
