Abu Dhabi's 400-Megawatt Power Plant with Carbon Capture and Storage Overcomes Delays

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--A $2 billion hydrogen power and carbon capture and storage (CCS) power plant planned for Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates is going ahead after delays following technical issues among the various companies involved in the joint venture. Originally planned to go on stream in 2012, the plant is now scheduled for completion by the third quarter of 2014.

The project is a joint venture between the government of Abu Dhabi's Masdar clean energy fund and Hydrogen Energy International LLC (Abu Dhabi), a joint venture between BP plc (NYSE:BP) (London) and the Rio Tinto Group (NYSE:RTP) (Melbourne, Australia). The 420-megawatt (MW) plant is the world's first large-scale CCS project, with a similar but slightly smaller 400-MW plant in California scheduled to start operations in 12-24 months after the Abu Dhabi project is commissioned.

The Abu Dhabi plant will use the pre-combustion process to extract carbon dioxide and hydrogen from natural gas, before the latter is burned in a gas turbine to produce electricity. The carbon dioxide extracted will then be pumped into previously depleted oil fields in the area to drive out more oil in a process known as enhanced oil recovery.

The California project will use petroleum coal as fuel. In this case, coal is first converted into fuel gas in a high-temperature gasification process. The fuel gas contains carbon monoxide, hydrogen, carbon dioxide and various methane compounds. Adding steam to fuel gas converts carbon monoxide into hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is then separated by absorption, while the remainder of the fuel gas is used to drive gas-fired turbines.

The global financial crisis is forcing many companies to delay or shelve carbon-reduction projects, especially since carbon emission prices in Europe have dropped by half in the previous six months. In the wake of this, Hydrogen Energy is seeking to obtain about $100 million from the U.S. government for its California project as part of the funds of $3.2 billion earmarked for CCS by the U.S. administration as a part of its overall economic stimulus package.

While both the Abu Dhabi and California CCS projects will use pre-combustion technology, many European companies are opting for the post-combustion method, in which solid or gas fuel is burned to heat a boiler or drive a turbine. The exhaust gases from combustion are then treated by the absorption method, similar to the pre-combustion model, to remove carbon dioxide.

European companies also favor retrofitting post-combustion CCS technology equipment to existing power stations instead of integrating pre-combustion CCS technology into new power stations. The European Technology Platform for Zero Emission Fossil Fuel Plants is keen to see demonstration plants using CCS technologies with a variety of fuels, including biomass. The agency believes that this method would speed up the commercial use of the CCS technology and would like to see these demonstration plants planned by 2010, built by 2013, and operational from 2015.

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