Carbon capture and storage program will include world’s first commercial-scale oxy-combustion unit; could boost Boilermaker work
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION signaled its continuing commitment to advanced coal technology Aug. 5 when the Department of Energy announced a $1 billion award for a carbon capture and storage program in downstate Illinois known as FutureGen 2.0.
Three firms will share in the award, which will be allocated from Recovery Act funding. The firms include Ameren Energy Resources, Babcock & Wilcox, and Air Liquide Processs & Construction Inc. The program will involve “repowering” a 200-megawatt coal-fired unit at Ameren’s Meredosia, Ill., plant with oxy-combustion technology, to strip away carbon dioxide (CO2), and building a new pipeline to carry the CO2 about 150 miles to a regional storage site in Mattoon, Ill., where it will be permanently injected deep underground. The pipeline will transport an estimated one million tons of CO2 annually.
The project partners estimate that 900 jobs will be created in the region, with another 1,000 new jobs in the supply industries. According to Ameren, retrofitting the Meredosia plant will require 500 construction workers and will include a new boiler, air separation unit, and CO2 purification and compression unit. Boilermakers are expected to be involved in much of that work, said Legislative Director Abe Breehey. He added that since the project is funded under the Recovery Act, Davis-Bacon wage protections will apply.
The FutureGen 2.0 program is based on an earlier concept known simply as FutureGen. That program envisioned building a new power plant on site at Mattoon, near the underground CO2 storage area. President George W. Bush’s administration killed FutureGen in Dec. 2007, shortly after Mattoon was selected instead of a Texas site, triggering allegations that the project cancellation was politically motivated.
In an Aug. 5 press release announcing the FutureGen 2.0 funding, U.S. Energy Sec. Steven Chu stated, “This investment in the world’s first commercial-scale, oxy-combustion power plant will help to open up the over $300 billion market for coal unit repowering and position the country as a leader in an important part of the global clean energy economy.”
Oxy-combustion burns coal with a mixture of oxygen and CO2, instead of air, to produce a concentrated CO2 stream for safe, permanent storage. In addition, oxy-combustion technology creates a near-zero emissions plant by eliminating almost all of the mercury, SOx, NOx, and particulate pollutants from plant emissions. Studies by the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory have identified oxy-combustion as potentially the lowest-cost approach to clean up existing coal-fired facilities and capture CO2 for geologic storage.
Boilermakers have long been at the forefront of building pollution control systems at coal-fired power plants and are continuing that involvement as new technologies emerge. In Sept. 2009, Local 667 (Charleston, W.Va.) completed a year-long project to retrofit a chilled ammonia system at American Electric Power’s Mountaineer plant in New Haven, W.Va. The validation project is the first to capture carbon dioxide from a slipstream of exhaust flue gas and pump it deep underground below the plant for permanent storage in a saline formation. In Dec. 2009, DOE awarded a $334 million grant to AEP as partial funding to bring the project to commercial scale.
