Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
11/14/2014
Four advanced gasification projects will receive $16 million in funding from the Department of Energy, DOE announced late last week. The selected projects will “focus on developing technologies that can significantly reduce the cost of producing hydrogen-rich syngas derived from fossil fuels, enabling coal resources to both improve U.S. economic competitiveness and provide global environmental benefits,” a DOE release says. Gasification is the basis for integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power generation that is a component of many carbon capture and storage plants, such as the Kemper County Energy Facility in Mississippi. “Advances in the gasification process will allow industry to develop technologies that may open pathways to carbon use in beneficial new ways while also advancing an important method for reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said in the release.
The projects awarded funding include Aerojet Rocketdyne’s Advanced Gasifier and Water-Gas Shift Technologies project for Low-Cost Coal Conversion to High-Hydrogen Syngas. This project will work to develop a pilot-scale gasifier for eventual use on a “commercially relevant” demonstration plant. Also receiving funding is Alstom Power’s Limestone Chemical Looping Gasification Process (LCL-G) for High-Hydrogen Syngas Generation. “The LCL-G process will be evaluated and refined using bench-scale testing followed by process validation at Alstom’s 3-megawatt (thermal power) chemical looping test facility,” according to the release.
New York-based Praxair has been awarded funding which it will use on “developing a techno-economic analysis of an IGCC power plant with CO2 capture with an integrated oxygen transport membrane (OTM) syngas converter to determine technical targets for the OTM and culminate in determining technology success based on project data.” TDA Research, the final award winner will look into water-gas shift to “eliminate CO2 emissions from IGCC power plants,” DOE said.
