DOE Selects Bechtel to Optimize, Reduce Costs Of Future Gasification-Based Power Plants

The power plant fleet of the 21st century will likely look much different than today's conventional power stations. Increasingly, coal - which today supplies 56% of U.S. electricity demands - may be gasified in a coal gasifier, rather than burned in a boiler. Once virtually all of the pollutant-forming impurities are removed, the coal-derived gas then would be fired in a turbine to generate electricity, much the same way that natural gas is used in many power plants today.

But the differences might not stop there. Future coal-fueled power plants may incorporate fuel cells which will use the coal-derived gas to produce electricity very cleanly, much like a battery. The power plant may also be equipped with devices to capture carbon dioxide, preventing this greenhouse gas from escaping into the atmosphere.

At the core of these advanced power plants would be an advanced coal gasifier. While many gasifiers exist today, there remain opportunities to improve the technology, tailoring it for the multi-faceted, ultra-clean power plant of the future.

With this in mind, the U.S. Department of Energy's Federal Energy Technology Center has selected Bechtel Systems and Infrastructure, Inc., San Francisco, to develop new, cost-optimized designs for integrated gasification combined-cycle plants.

The $3 million, 2-year project calls for designing an improved, fuel-flexible gasifier that can process coal, petroleum coke, or a combination. It also calls for developing conceptual designs and cost estimates of advanced gasification-based power plants that would use fuel cells and innovative carbon dioxide separation/collection devices.

The Department of Energy, through its Fossil Energy Program, will provide $2.4 million, while Bechtel will cost-share $611,000.

Bechtel will use data from one of the first pioneering coal gasification-based power plants in the United States: PSI Energy's Wabash River Generating Station, near West Terre Haute, Indiana. Built under a government-industry cost sharing arrangement in DOE's Clean Coal Technology Program, this plant has generated thousands of hours of useful data.

Bechtel will team with Dynegy, Inc., which designed the 262-megawatt plant, in studying how the gasification process might be improved to generate power more efficiently, or perhaps to produce future combinations of power, liquid fuels, chemicals and hydrogen in response to market needs.

A key objective will be cost reduction. The first gasification-based power plants have cost more than conventional coal-based combustion plants.

The design and operating experience at Wabash River, coupled with Bechtel's experience and innovative plant optimization process, are expected to help reduce capital costs. The gasifier-based system to be designed by the Bechtel/Dynegy team will be developed with innovations that boost the overall efficiency of the future power plants, meaning that less fuel is needed and even fewer emissions are produced, including carbon dioxide.

Higher efficiencies also lead to lower operational costs. Today's typical coal-burning power plants operate with efficiencies of around 33-35%. The current gasification-based systems boost efficiencies to around 45%, and DOE expects that by 2005, using improvements such as those from this project, efficiencies could be increased to more than 50%.

Ultimately, in a concept the Energy Department has termed Vision 21, it may be possible to boost power generating efficiencies to 60%, as well as use the coal gas to make a variety of co-products, such as hydrogen and chemicals or liquid fuels.

The Federal Energy Technology Center, which will oversee this project, is the technology arm of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy.

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For more information, contact:
Otis Mills, Jr., DOE Federal Energy Technology Center, 412/386-5890, e-mail: mills@fetc.doe.gov

Technical Program Contact:
John H. Rockey, DOE Federal Energy Technology Center, (304) 285-4711