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Xcel Proposes Advanced Coal Plant with Carbon
Capture
August 21, 2006
Xcel Energy announced last week it has allocated $3.5
million into developing new “clean coal” technology. It’s a big step
forward and promises to move Xcel into the forefront of power
technology.
The technology involves heating the coal to convert
it into a gas, nearly eliminating sulfur, mercury and other harmful
substances from the gas, and generating electricity in a combined
cycle gas turbine. The system uses two thermodynamic cycles, just as
advanced natural gas power plants do, which almost doubles the fuel
efficiency.
These systems are called integrated gasified combined
cycle (IGCC) plants, and many analysts believe they are important
step to modernizing the world’s electricity sector. During his
keynote address at the 2002 CRES Conference in Colorado Springs,
President of the United National Foundation and former U.S. Senator
from Colorado Tim Wirth hold us he believes that IGCC technology may
hold a key to keeping world surface temperatures within reasonable
limits. His reason is that coal reserves are widespread throughout
the world, and coal-fired power generation is growing worldwide.
IGCC plants diminish criteria pollutants to minute levels and,
because of their efficiency, cut carbon emissions nearly in half.
Wirth said in 2002 that if the world’s power industry would begin to
replace conventional power plants with IGCC plants, it would keep
carbon emissions down while allowing renewable power generation to
ramp up over time as the world figures out a way to deal with global
warming.
Today there are only two IGCC power plants operating
in the United States. The Xcel plant would be the third, and it
would attempt to capture, and then sequester carbon emission by
venting its smokestack into an underground mine instead of the
atmosphere. This represents the first proposal by a U.S. utility to
sequester carbon emissions.
Xcel has begun preliminary design and will submit
plans later this year to the Colorado Public Utility Commission for
approval to begin construction in 2009. |
