Carbon Management Implications for R&D in the Chemical Sciences and Technology (2001) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
4. Opportunities for Carbon Control in the Electric Power Industry
4. Opportunities for Carbon Control in the Electric Power Industry
Pages 60-82
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 60... ...
per capita. On that basis, the EPRI roadmap suggests that a global objective should be to ensure that the energy available to each individual is a minimum that corresponds to a level between the second and third of these classifications.
|
From page 61... ...
" The global efficiency of the production of electricity from the current fuel mix averages about 32%, which the EPRI roadmap proposes should be increased to 50% by 2050. Another important consideration is the "capacity factor" of a generating plant -- that is, the fraction of the time that a given plant is in fact generating electricity.
|
From page 62... ...
CARBON MANAGEMENT FOR THE U.S. ELECTRIC UTILITY INDUSTRY As indicated above, electricity generation represents only about one-third of the anthropogenic CO2 generation in the United States, and the complete removal of all this will be insufficient to achieve what is believed to be the necessary reduction.
|
From page 63... ...
The reheated steam is then further expanded through subsequent stages of the steam turbine and finally condensed in a large condenser cooled by water from a large local source -- the sea or a river, for example. As in any heat engine, the overall efficiency is determined by the difference between the
|
From page 64... ...
For many years, both DOE and EPRI have been conducting research into the advanced gasification of coal, and the use of the product in current-generation gas turbines has been demonstrated at relatively large scale. This technology is called integrated gasification combine cycle (IGCC)
|
From page 65... ...
CARBON DIOXIDE CAPTURE AND SEQUESTRATION This leads to the other major option in carbon management. As indicated above, in the United States the utility industry is the prime target for carbon control.
|
From page 66... ...
The DOE report mentioned above lists the following methods: • Chemical and physical absorption, • Physical and chemical adsorption, • Low-temperature distillation, and • Gas separation membranes. Chemical absorption is preferred to physical absorption for low to moderate CO2 partial pressures, which is the case for fossil power plant exhausts; typical reagents are alkanolamines such as monoethanolamine (MEA)
|
From page 67... ...
While the benign and more-or-less permanent sequestration offered by these techniques is attractive, as is the potential of being able to eliminate the concentration and pumping steps, the mass flows are still daunting. For example, if CO2 were to be sequestered by the pumping of seawater, with a calcium ion concentration in the seawater of 400 g/tonne, through a separation vessel at the utility site, 100% removal from a unit of the size of the model Kenosha plant would require a flow of 18 million tonnes of seawater per day.
|
From page 68... ...
Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. DISCUSSION Jim Spearot, General Motors: Given your concerns regarding the licensing of large, centralized power generating stations and plants, what are your thoughts on a distributed electrical production system using fuel cells, and perhaps natural gas, as a way to get around the additional needs for electricity.
|
From page 69... ...
For a coal-burning Rankine plant, the figures I gave show that the actual exhaust is quite dilute in CO2 -- around 18% -- and consequently, a concentration process involves moving a considerable volume of gas. We and others have done detailed calculations for the widely used amine solvent technique for removing CO2 from a gas stream that was used at Sleipner West, for example, and it doesn't make economic sense at the moment.
|
From page 70... ...
If you don't integrate, then the reliabilities are determined by the least reliable components of the plant. Brian Flannery, Exxon Mobil: I understand that Finland is seeking a license to build a new nuclear power plant, partly in the context of what Finland has to do in terms of climate change.
|
From page 71... ...
However, if we go to the high-efficiency combustion turbine systems that I was telling you about -- the combined-cycle ones -- their start-up time is not fast. We can perhaps start them up in simple cycles quickly and then bring up the steam generator, the Rankine part of the cycle, over a longer period.
|
From page 72... ...
So demand to ensure high reliability in the power delivery infrastructure is the number one priority in the industry in the United States at the moment. The other reason I didn't have it on my slides is because it's not really a carbon management thing, but in terms of the electricity supply industry, it's very important.
|
From page 73... ...
is looking at coal power plants. It has a big circulating fluidized bed reactor built in France, and it is focusing on international marketing, so EDF is marketing as many or more fossil plants as nuclear power plants internationally.
|
From page 74... ...
This is based on experiences in the Southwest, where they are moving CO2 down pipelines for enhanced oil recovery. It's on that order, but the exact number depends on how far you transport it and under what kind of pipeline conditions.
|
From page 75... ...
Brian Flannery: The synthetic fuels program I was referring to was liquid fuels from coal and oil shales. Synthetic gas fuel is gas to liquid, which is a totally different technology.
|
From page 76... ...
David Thomas: Let me add a little bit from our point of view. At the top of my list of targets was enhanced oil recovery, because that is the only use for which people are willing to buy CO2 and pay us real money for it, so we can generate a revenue stream that offsets the cost of capture.
|
From page 77... ...
Let's look at electricity generation, where it has been identified that you want to do air separation to produce oxygen. You want to have efficient burners for the efficient conversion of fuel to energy, efficient means of electricity generation, efficient scrubbing or removal of CO2, and transportation of that CO2 to the burial site, and then efficient burial and disposal of the CO2.
|
From page 78... ...
Our thinking is that the total cost for the transportation, sequestration, infrastructure -- everything -- is probably around $10 a ton of CO2, similar to the cost that people are willing to pay for CO2 for enhanced oil recovery. I also think, as someone has mentioned before, that the majority of the cost has to do with the capture and separation of the CO2, which would be the prime thing to lower through research.
|
From page 79... ...
A good strategy for a developing country is to introduce good, proven, best-available technology, which usually makes an enormous improvement in things like local emissions and air quality. Yet asking a developing country to be the site perhaps of the introduction of brand new technology and its enabling infrastructure could potentially be a very risky enterprise.
|
From page 80... ...
John Stringer: Given the government subsidy, low-cost capital for building a power plant is the cheapest way of generating electricity. There is no doubt about this.
|
From page 81... ...
However, the world is spending a few billion dollars a year on research on climate change, and certainly the chemistry community has a lot it can contribute to this too on a fundamental level of gauging what the real nature of the issues is, what the nature of natural climate variability is, and related questions. John Stringer: I can add something to that.
|
From page 82... ...
The first is be creative and invent something new, because none of the current approaches look like they are going to work in the near term. The second is very serious.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.