70 likes | 260 Views
CO2 Emission Reduction from Coal Fired Plants. FutureGen 2.0 CO2 Capture Project. Steve Moorman Mgr Business Development, Advanced Technologies Babcock & Wilcox. Relative to NOX, SOX, Hg, and Particulate the scale of CO2 emissions control is enormous.
E N D
CO2 Emission Reduction from Coal Fired Plants FutureGen 2.0 CO2 Capture Project Steve Moorman Mgr Business Development, Advanced Technologies Babcock & Wilcox
Relative to NOX, SOX, Hg, and Particulate the scale of CO2 emissions control is enormous • A 600 MW Pulverized Coal plant firing low sulfur coal generates • < 1000 lbs/year of Mercury • 8,000 tons/year of NOX • 27,000 tons/year of SO2 • 150,000 tons/year of Ash • 4,500,000 tons/year of CO2
First Ultra Supercritical Steam Electric Plant in the U.S. – 675MWgross/625MWnet Commercial operation in early 2013 750 ft ~ $2800/KWnet Plant Cost ~$1.8 Billion Plant Efficiency ~38.5%
EPA’s Clean Power Plan for Existing Plants • EPA has identified reducing CO2 emissions from existing power plants through heat rate improvement as the First of Four major building blocks of the Existing Plant GHG Rule. EPA projects the potential improvement in heat rate across the fleet of existing units to be 6%. • While the potential for efficiency increase and emissions decrease from any given plant is real through improvements in plant operations and equipment upgrades it is in no way a given for the entire fleet of coal plants in the US. The age of a plant, the physical condition, generating capacity, maintenance practices, previous upgrades and plant operating mode can all impact what level of efficiency improvement can be achieved by any given plant. • EPA cites the January 2009 Sargent & Lundy (S&L) report “Coal-fired Power Plant Heat Rate Reductions” as a basis for these potential improvements. The plant modifications discussed in the report may be feasible for any given plant, but they are not necessarily additive i.e. not every improvement identified will be applicable to every plant. • Building Blocks 2 & 3 negate the positive effects of Building Block 1 as they suggest that coal boilers be relegated to a lower position on the plant dispatch list in favor of more natural gas fired generation, added nuclear capacity and more wind and solar power. Coal plants are most efficient when they can operate at or near their full rated capacity. Low load and or cycling operation results in higher CO2 emission per MWhr generated.
Another Option • Replacing aging coal plants with more efficient Ultra-supercritical plants would allow for a significant reduction in CO2 emissions from the power generation sector. Ultra-supercritical plant designs are commercially available today at reasonable cost. These designs could be deployed in a CO2 capture ready condition. • We can reduce CO2 emission now while we wait for cost effective CO2 capture technologies to be developed. • Given the present cost to capture CO2 no coal new coal plants will be built if CO2 capture is a requirement. Our valuable energy resource, coal, will be lost to the U.S. or exported to other countries when it will likely be used in less efficient and less environmentally friendly plant designs. • If we are truly interested in our energy security and independence from foreign energy sources we cannot abandon coal as a power generation option.
Comparison of CO2 Emissions Based on Plant Steam Cycle Design(PRB coal, Midwest Location, Wet Cooling, Peak Operating Conditions)