Federal and state government officials last week joined executives from American Electric Power (AEP) and Alstom at AEP's Mountaineer Plant to formally commission the world's first project to both capture and store carbon dioxide (CO2) from a coal-fired power plant. The officials hailed the project as a significant milestone in the effort to reduce CO2 emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels.
The Mountaineer CCS demonstration project, which began capturing CO2 on 1Sept and storing it on 2 Oct, is designed to capture at least 100,000 metric tonnes of CO2 annually.
"Commercialisation of carbon capture and storage technology is an essential part of a successful strategy to address climate change, not only for the United States, which relies on coal-fired generation for about half of its electricity supply, but also for coal-dependent nations around the world," said Michael G. Morris, AEP's chairman, president and chief executive officer. "Coal is a low-cost, abundant fuel source, but its use is a significant source of carbon dioxide emissions. We are pleased to be working with Alstom and our other partners on a project that plays a significant role in the advancement of a technology that will allow us to continue to depend on coal for electricity generation with reduced environmental impact."
Alstom Power President Philippe Joubert said, "We are proud to partner with American Electric Power to demonstrate the technology of capturing CO2 for coal-fired power plants. Mountaineer, which is at the leading edge of all our demonstration projects worldwide, demonstrates the integration of all three stages of the process-capture, transport, and storage. We reaffirm our commitment to making commercial carbon capture offerings by 2015."
AEP's Mountaineer plant is a 1,300MW electrical (MWe) coal-fired unit that was retrofitted earlier this year with Alstom's patented chilled ammonia CO2 capture technology on a 20-MWe portion, or ‘slipstream', of the plant's exhaust ‘flue gas'. The slipstream of flue gas is chilled and combined with a solution of ammonium carbonate, which absorbs the CO2 to create ammonium bicarbonate. The ammonium bicarbonate solution is then is pressurized and heated in a separate process to safely and efficiently produce a high-purity stream of CO2. The CO2 will be compressed and piped for storage into deep geologic formations, roughly 1.5 miles beneath the plant surface. Approximately 90 % of the CO2 from the 20-MW slipstream will be captured and permanently stored.
AEP has applied for federal stimulus funding to scale-up the Alstom chilled ammonia technology to 235-MWe at Mountaineer Plant. The proposed commercial-scale demonstration will capture and geologically store approximately 1.5m metric tonnes per year of CO2.
