NRG Energy Submits Application for Carbon-Capture Demonstration Unit in Texas

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--NRG Energy Incorporated (NYSE:NRG) (Princeton, New Jersey) has applied to the U.S. Department of Energy for a 50% grant to develop a post-combustion carbon-capture demonstration plant, under the Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI), at the 3,635-megawatt (MW) W.A. Parish Power Station in Thomspons, Fort Bend County, southwest of Houston, Texas. Sources at NRG Energy have indicated that even if they do not get the grant, they will look at other avenues to fund the project.

The carbon-capture demonstration unit is expected to begin operation in 2013 and is designed to capture as much as 90% of carbon dioxide from the incoming exhaust gases, which is almost half a million tons of carbon dioxide annually. Many of the previous demonstration units have been much smaller, and NRG hopes to prove the viability of the technology in a large-scale commercial operation. The slipstream from which the 60 MW of emission vapors will be pulled will come from one or more of NRG Energy's four W.A Parish coal-fired units: 649-MW 05, 649-MW 06, 551-MW 07 or 610-MW 08.

Engineering, construction management and consultancy firm Sargent & Lundy LLC (Chicago, Illinois) will provide engineering support for the project, including managing the energy requirements of the carbon-capture process. The demonstration unit will use the advanced Econamine FG Plus technology from Fluor Corporation (NYSE:FLR) (Irving, Texas) to process flue gases in amounts equivalent to that generated from a 60-MW power plant. At this time, Fluor's project lead is out of the office in Irvine, California.

Carbon dioxide, once captured, then will be compressed based on technology from Ramgen Power Systems LLC (Bellevue, Washington), in which Dresser-Rand Group Incorporated (NYSE:DRC) (Houston, Texas) invested heavily in November last year. The compressed gas then will be used in enhanced oil recovery operations, providing a revenue stream to help offset the costs of the demonstration unit.

In another move to show its commitment to the research, development and deployment of carbon-capture schemes such as the proposed demonstration unit, NRG also has become a member of the National Carbon Capture Center (NCCC) located in Wilsonville, Alabama.

The NCCC is owned and operated by Southern Company (NYSE:SO) (Atlanta, Georgia) on behalf of the Department of Energy as a center that works to develop and test advanced technologies designed to capture and store carbon dioxide from existing coal-fired power plants. The NCCC was formed earlier this year to create a place where scientists and developers from the industry, government and universities can test various technologies under realistic operating conditions.

Other members of the NCCC include American Electric Power Company Incorporated (NYSE:AEP) (Columbus, Ohio); Luminant, a subsidiary of Energy Future Holdings Corporation (Dallas, Texas); Arch Coal Incorporated (NYSE:ACI) (St. Louis, Missouri); Peabody Energy Corporation (NYSE:BTU) (St. Louis, Missouri); and the Electric Power Research Institute.

The U.S. Office of Fossil Energy administers the CCPI, which is implemented by the National Energy Technology Laboratory's Strategic Center for Coal. The CCPI is designed to encourage clean coal technologies for new and existing electricity-generating facilities, and is a cost-sharing partnership between the industry and the government. The initiative is planned as a multi-year program, in which projects are proposed by the private sector in response to calls from the government.

Funding is awarded to successful applicants; however, the share of the private sector is required to be at least 50%. The stated goals of the program are to accelerate private sector development of new coal-based power technologies capable of meeting stringent emission controls, and to build a technological foundation within the U.S. power industry capable of building near-zero-emission coal-based energy facilities.

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