Clean Energy Quest Turns Pragmatic and Hybrid as DOE Tells Industrialinfo that Coal-Fuel Cell Program Ahead of Schedule

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Not so long ago, solutions to major problems confronting world climate change and the reduction of environmentally damaging emissions by industry were favored if they claimed to be ‘holistic.’ An even shorter time ago, and still to be heard in some product pitches to client management, the concepts and systems offered to combat the noxious problems got the top nod if they were 'seamless.' Both these 'resonating' concepts seem to have folded in the face of that rather mongrellish pragmatic concept - 'hybrid.' Many of the solutions now being pursued for the more efficient and cleaner generation of electrical power combine two or more technologies seeking to obtain the synergies which make one plus one equal a clean three.

Aussie practicality and pragmatism was evident at a Clean Coal conference in Brisbane, Australia, at the end of August, where the Victorian state commissioner for environmental sustainability, Ian McPhail said that it was time to stop waiting for so-called ‘clean coal’ technologies and start investing in renewable energy, asking customers to use less electricity and reduce inefficiency. The Age also reported him as saying that a sensible mix of options was required to face the possibility that clean coal technology and geosequestration of CO2 do not work, or were not technically feasible in the locations where they were needed, or were too expensive, with particular regard to retrofitting 'dinosaur' coal plants.

Mr. McPhail makes points on the downside problems, which the sequestration of CO2 may face and China is applying an End Use Energy Efficiency Program (EUEEP) in a wide range of basic moves faced with high pollution, growing energy demand, and severe energy shortage. The initiative is being jointly developed by the local UNDP (United Nations Development Program) and China’s government body, the National development and Reform Commission (NDRC). The country faces the prospect, with India second, of becoming the world greatest pollutant emitter by 2025. Its GDP is expected quadruple by 2020. Currently, the U.S. contributes 24% of the global total of carbon emissions and these are growing at a rate of 1.5% per annum.

Khalid Malik, representative of the UNDP in China said that China’s energy consumption per unit of output value in 2000 was greater by a factor of 2.4 than that of the world average. The level of end-use energy efficiency is 10% lower than that of industrialized countries. The twelve year, four phase EUEEP program aims to remove barriers to the widespread application of energy conservation and efficiency in China’s major end energy users - industry and buildings.

Jiang Weixing, vice chairperson of the NDRC said that by reducing energy consumption by nearly 19 million tons of coal equivalent (TCE) in the first three year phase of the program, carbon emisions would be reduced by about 12 million tons which ,in turn, is equivalent to over 42 million tons of CO2. By reducing energy consumption by over 126 TCE by the end of the 12-year planned program the cumulative carbon emission reduction would be 76 million tons, equivalent to 279 million tons of CO2.

A U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) study has estimated that to meet Kyoto targets the U.S. would need to reduce carbon emissions by about 540 million tons between 2008 and 2012, which is equivalent to shutting 90 coal-fired power plants each year. The study suggested that meeting the target could cost the economy 4.2% of the national GDP with a $400 billion bill.

At the end of July, Kyoto dissidents, U.S., Australia, Japan, South Korea, India, and China announced an agreement to develop and share the technologies, which produced cleaner and more efficient power and that would meet the problems of climate change without strangling economic growth.

U.S. companies and the DOE have massive product and technology programs under development directed to provide the solution, or parts of the solutions, to carbon emissions. In something of a quantum leap in fuel cell power generation targets the DOE has selected GE Energy (NYSE:GE ) (Fairfield, Connecticut) and Siemens Westinghouse (NYSE:SI ) (SWPC) (Munich, Germany) and (BNF, London, U.K.) to develop high efficiency solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) based power systems operating on coal, which are capable of generating 100 MW of power. The DOE will back the program with $83 million.

GE Energy’s Hybrid Power Generation Systems (HPGS) unit will design and demonstrate the IGFC (integrated gasification fuel cell) system that incorporates a hybrid SOFC-gas turbine as the primary power generation unit.

The program is targeting a total system efficiency from coal of over 50%, which compares with the 35% efficiency obtained from a conventional power plant fed with pulverized coal. The systems must also capture 90% or more of CO2 emissions.

"Combining fuel cells with GE’s cleaner-coal technology will be a significant step toward GE’s goal of providing our customers with products that will replace the impact of power generation on the environment," said Tim Rehg, general manager of GE Energy’s HPGS business.

The Siemens Westinghouse Power Corporation is partnering with ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP ) (Houston, Texas) and Air Products and Chemicals Incorporated (NYSE:APD ) to develop large-scale fuel cell systems based on their in-house gas turbine and SECA (Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance) modified tubular solid oxide fuel cell technology. ConocoPhillips will provide gasifier expertise, while baseline design will incorporate an ion transport membrane (ITM) oxygen separation unit from Air Products.

In addition to the 100MW target the program covers the design and demonstration of proof-of-concept (POC) systems. Any obstacles in the way of developing an SOFC building block stack to lead to the manufacture and performance of larger MW fuel cells must be resolved.

To obtain a perspective on the development challenges involved in bringing fuel cell technology into play with major clean power generation projects Industrialinfo.com asked Wayne Survodal, SECA Coordinator, DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory how the program was moving. "Faster than originally anticipated," he said. "It is difficult to predict when new technical solutions will be developed. It turns out that the key issues of seals and metallic interconnects have been 'adequately' solved rather quickly. The solutions result in what appears to be sufficient reliability over 40,000 hours (26,000 hours is the longest test) that manufacturing studies will start two years ahead of schedule in 2008. Of course, work will continue to fine tune the existing solutions or find solutions that are more adequate. Other more minor technical issues are also being resolved. We have not identified any solution resistant problems much to our relief," he added.

Initially the key issues SECA faced were seals and metallic interconnects that performed for 40,000 hours at 650 to 1,000C. Adressing the jump from 400kW to 100 MW Survodal said," If the 400kW unit is the basic modular unit and it works well, scaling many modules together is essentially only a question of footprint and the cost to interconnect the modules. "The program is targeting an output cost of $400 per kilowatt, exclusive of the coal gasification unit and carbon separation subsystems.

Survodal told Industrialinfo.com that the commercialization program will require large investment. He said that the current investment in development is sufficient, but relatively modest for a major technology investment. There are six major industrial movers inputting their R&D experience into the program. They are GE, SWPC, Cummins Power Generation (NYSE:CMI ) (Columbus, Indiana), Delphi (NYSE:DPH ) (Troy, Michigan), Fuel Cell Energy (NYSE:FCEL ) (Danbury, Connecticut), and Acumentrics (Westwood, Massachusetts).

The DOE fuel cell program is part of President Bush’s macro FutureGen initiative that drives much of the R&D in DOE’s Office of Fossil Technology. The major focus of the DOE stationary fuel cell program is to ensure fuel cell modules are ready fro deployment in FutureGen in 2012. "The deployed fuel cell module may or may not be a hybrid, that is a fuel cell coupled with a turbine or other power technology," Survodal said.

Looking at adjacent and complementary technologies Survodal said that fuel cells and energy storage go together very well. Fuel cells can in fact be used as a form of energy storage. "Although fuel cell systems can work well today without improved energy storage, improved energy storage technologies, particularly in the high kW/kWhr range of the spectrum, will give us a new dimension," he told Industrialinfo.com.

"Although we are cautious to make claims we have an absolute belief in the future of fuel cell applications ranging from 3kW to 100 MW and beyond," he said.

Lets hope that some of Mr. McPhail’s clean energy problems will be around to succumb to new fuel cell technology in the right place at the right time.

For related news items see June 19, 2003 - FutureGen Alliance to Pioneer New Coal Energy and Sequestration Frontier with $1 Billion DOE Partnership and December 28, 2004 - Clean Coal-Fired Power Project Development Continues to Increase as Power Plant Contractors Pick Optimum Technology Elements

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