Karen Frantz
GHG Monitor
1/31/2014
As part of what has been hailed by its developers as the world’s largest start-to-finish demonstration of carbon capture and storage technology at a commercial power plant, an initial demonstration test phase for a project that aims to capture 500 metric tons per day of CO2 from a coal-fired plant has completed, it was announced this month. The demonstration of the technology, which captures CO2 from flue gas using a post-combustion capture method utilizing a solvent developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, was conducted at Plant Barry in Alabama. The plant is operated by Alabama Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, which conducted the demonstration jointly with MHI. The Department of Energy and the Electric Power Research Institute were also partners in developing the demonstration. “The project includes the world’s largest demonstration of carbon capture on a pulverized-coal power plant,” said Southern Company spokeswoman Jeannice Hall.
According to a news release from MHI, the plant, which “consists primarily of a flue-gas scrubber, flue-gas CO2 capture/re-generation system, CO2 compression machinery, and electrical components,” can recover 150,000 metric tons of CO2 per year with recovery efficiency about 90 percent. “For CO2 recovery the facility adopts the KM CDR Process, which uses a proprietary KS-1 high-performance solvent for CO2 absorption and desorption that was jointly developed by MHI and the Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc.,” the release said. “Compared with other CO2 capture technologies, the KM CDR Process uses significantly less energy.”
Hall said the technology could be used for a new-build coal-fired power plant or used to retrofit an existing power plant, but said pipeline transport and underground sequestration is a more site-specific design that might not be universally available in all geographic areas. “CCS technology is very early in its development cycle with many site and project-specific issues that impact the economic viability,” she said. “While we are very pleased with the results to date, it is premature to predict how this success may be replicated.” Hall said the captured CO2 from the plant is supplied to the Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership, which then transports the CO2 by pipeline and injects it at a site within the Citronelle Oil Field, operated by Denbury Resources. The CO2 will remain permanently stored below the surface in a saline sandstone formation, Hall said.
According to the MHI news release, the demonstration test began in June 2011 and integrated capture and sequestration testing began in August 2012. “High-performance continuous and stable operation of the large-scale CO2 recovery plant was confirmed,” the release said. Southern Company and MHI are discussing “the performance of additional demonstration phases and activities utilizing the plant,” the release said.
