HEI Weighs Opportunity for Hydrogen-Fueled IGCC Plant in California

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Hydrogen Energy International LLC (HEI) (Long Beach, California), a joint venture of BP Alternative Energy and Rio Tinto, is undertaking feasibility studies for a hydrogen-fueled, combined-cycle power plant capable of producing 250 megawatts (MW) of electricity while capturing and storing up to 90% of the CO2 produced. The Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) plant will convert coal, natural gas or petroleum coke into hydrogen gas to power the combustion turbines.

The IGCC power plant is to be located in Kern County, California, next to the Elk Hills oil reserve owned by Occidental Petroleum (Los Angeles, California), which will benefit from the carbon capture and storage technology by piping CO2 to the reserve for enhanced oil production. Kern County was selected because of the many oil refineries in the area, existing electrical transmission lines, and substations and delivery points for production of western coal and local petroleum coke. An additional benefit is that Kern County has ideal underground storage conditions for CO2.

By using coal and petroleum coke as sources for hydrogen, the project will take advantage of a common by-product that has little value as a standard hydrocarbon fuel; by processing it through gasification, about 90% of its carbon will be kept out of the atmosphere.

The project's combustion turbines will operate on hydrogen gas instead of traditional natural gas. The elemental carbon, having been stripped from the feedstock fuel, will have prevented the carbon from being oxidized into the atmosphere as CO2, thus preventing greenhouse gas emissions.

Taking advantage of hydrogen's clean-burning properties is a way of addressing the global climate change challenge. In addition to providing clean power to more than 150,000 homes in the Bakersfield area, the Hydrogen Energy California project may produce sufficient supplies of hydrogen fuel for use in other applications, such as for transport.

The plant is one of a handful of its kind built or proposed in the world. Existing IGCC plants are located in Belgium, Spain and China.

The project has won $308 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy through the American Recovery and Investment Act, under a program supporting power plants that enhance the country's energy security while helping fight global climate change.

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