Basin Electric Selects Powerspan's ECO2 Carbon Capture Process for Commercial Demonstration Project

Basin Electric Power Cooperative and Powerspan Corp. today announced the selection of Powerspan's carbon dioxide (CO2) capture technology, called "ECO2(TM)," for a commercial demonstration at Basin Electric's Antelope Valley Station, a coal-based electrical generation facility located near Beulah, North Dakota. Approximately one million tons of CO2 will be captured annually from the 120 megawatt slipstream project, making this demonstration among the largest in the world.

ECO2 is a post-combustion, regenerative process, which uses an ammonia-based solution to capture CO2 from the flue gas of a power plant and release it in a form that is ready for further compression, safe transportation, and geological storage.

The demonstration will draw the equivalent of a 120 megawatt slipstream and will be designed to capture 90 percent of the incoming CO2. The captured CO2 would then be delivered by pipe to the existing compressor station at Dakota Gasification's adjacent Synfuels Plant and injected into Dakota Gasification's 205-mile pipeline system for delivery to Canada where it will be used in an EOR project.

The ECO2 process is a post-combustion CO2 capture process for conventional power plants that is differentiated from other approaches by its simpler capital equipment design and significantly lower energy consumption. The technology is suitable for retrofit to the existing coal-based, electric generating fleet as well as for new coal-based plants. The CO2 capture takes place after the nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2), mercury and fine particulate matter are captured. Once the CO2 is captured, the ammonia-based solution is regenerated to release CO2 and ammonia. The ammonia is recovered and sent back to the scrubbing process, and the CO2 is in a form that is ready for geological storage. Ammonia is not consumed in the scrubbing process, and no separate by-product is created.

Today's announcement is the result of the first competitive solicitation process for a CO2 capture demonstration at a coal-based power plant in the U.S.  Six companies responded to the request for proposal.  Powerspan's CO2 capture process was selected as the most promising low cost option for commercial deployment and for its ability to best integrate with Basin Electric's operations. The project is scheduled to move forward in 2009. The facility is expected to be operational in 2012.

This is a milestone in carbon capture technology, being the first demonstration of carbon capture on such a large scale in the U.S.  Some utility companies are ahead of the curve on these tecnologies, seeing the writing on the wall, seeing regulations requiring carbon capture in the future. Only time will tell whether this is the best technology, but is much further advanced in devopment than some of the more recently announced technologies and thus fits in with power generation companies more conservative nature.

Comments

[Jameel]

Does anyone know how this project is being paid for? Is it DOE-funded, or is it entirely private funding?

[Jameel]

Does anyone know how this project is being paid for? Is it DOE-funded, or is it entirely private funding?

[bigTom]

Because it is being put into an existing CO2 pipeline for use in enhanced oil recovery, the CO2 actually has a market value. I don't know if the "value" is greater than the cost of separation, but at a minimum it should offset at least some of the project costs.

[Robert Schreib Jr.]

Dear Sirs, This CO2 capture technology is a great breakthrough! Anyway, please google "A New CO2 Elimination Tactic" and scan that idea in the Techrex (me) blog, on the 11thHourAction website, since it's a possible option for disposing of this carbon dioxide taken from the coal burning electric power plants in this way.

[Nari]

Hi
It's to see the coverage on this new plant proposed by Basic Electric. I do not know if this is the *first*, nor do I care about the title first, as long as they do the job correctly. I bring this up because recently ALSTOM and another company in Wisconsin announced a pilot scale project of CO2 capture from a 610 MW plant, but they are testing it only on portion of the plant and the details of the scale were not too clear from the press releases (Link: http://www.alstom.com/pr_corp_v2/2008/corp/49200.EN.php?languageId=EN&dir=/pr_corp_v2/2008/corp/&idRubriqueCourante=23132)

[Harvey D]

Will USA export the CO2 from their dirty Coal fired power plants to Canada?

We do have very neighbours, don't we?

[poetryman69]

we need to keep pushing energy independence. Every other political concern is secondary. If we want peace and a greener world we need to stop paying for oil wars and stop paying dictators for oil. If we want to revive the economy we need to stop giving our money away to oil tycoons in foreign lands. We need to spend that cash on domestic sources.