Cost Effective Clean Fuel and Turbine Innovations Flowing from Industry-Government Projects

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Whether your energy flavor of the month is renewables, standalone and back-up power, or base load, grid- feeding generation, the pace of development in fuel technologies and turbine innovations should have power industry managers and their clients on high alert as the lag between R&D prototypes and the installation of commercial applications is becoming compressed to a short space of months in some cases.

By the end of this year, Fern Engineering (Cape Cod, Massachusetts) will have completed the 'operational flexibility study' on an investigation covering several technologies that have the ability to improve the operational flexibility of gas turbine power plants. These technologies will include inlet air conditioning, inter stage cooling, advanced steam injection, supercharging, humid air injection and improved parts by after market suppliers and performance maintenance. Fern was chosen for the investigation by EPRI (Electrical Power Research Institute).

The study objective will be to overcome some of the disadvantages of a combined cycle as de-rating at high ambient temperatures and low site barometric pressure. The potential of hybrid combinations with chilling at humid sites and foggers at dry sites will be assessed to derive an approach to a flat rated capability with high efficiency. The use of the fan for inlet heating at low ambient temperatures is included. The installed costs are anticipated to be comparable with inlet chilling systems.

"The issues are increased efficiency with the volatility of fuel costs, the potential for greenhouse gas caps and improvements in O&M to improve performance and reduce costs. One of the technologies 'supercharging' uses a variable pitch fan driven by an electric motor. The parasitic load of the motor is much less than the increase in power output of a combined cycle. The fan-supercharger was recently patented by Enhanced Turbine Output (Washington, DC).

At the end of July, the dedication of the Liquid Phase Methanol (LPMEOH) Process plant took place at Eastman Chemical Company's (NYSE:EMN) coal gasification unit in Kingsport, Tennessee. The demonstration facility (PEC 25000467), part of the DOE's Clean Coal Technology Program is a 25 to 1 scale-up of a liquid phase coal to methanol conversion system pioneered in DOE's R&D program. Initial performance targets were quickly achieved with 80,000 gallons of methanol per day rate and the completion of 700 hours of stable operation.

The Eastman plant has been in operation producing commercial synthesis gas from eastern high-sulfur bituminous coal since 1983 allowing the Kingsport demonstration to show, at full commercial scale, the advantages of liquid scale reactors as a cost-effective alternative to conventional fixed-bed methanol production systems.

Liquid phase reactor technology can be used to lower costs for other indirect liquefaction applications to produce no-sulfur aromatic free, high-octane diesel transportation fuels such as Fischer-tropsch diesel or dimethyl ether.

Cost savings are realized when utilities manufacture and sell the two products, electricity and methanol, which together could provide energy services to local communities. The DOE program shows that based on recent economics, a commercial scale IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined-Cycle) facility generating 426 MW equivalent of electric power could also manufacture 152,000 gallons of methanol per day at a cost of around 45 to 50 cents per gallon. This price compares favorably to new world-scale chemical-grade methanol plants producing 700,000 to 900,000 gallons a day at a US Gulf Coast delivered cost of 55 to 60 cents per gallon.

Air Products (NYSE:APD) (Allentown, Pennsylvania), who pioneered LPMEOH, Eastman and Acurex Environmental Corporation (now part of Arthur D Little out of Cambridge, Massachusetts) are conducting and part funding ($121 million) the $214 million project with DOE support ($93 million) and with the EPRI providing guidance for commercial acceptance.

In August, the final stages of construction and equipment installation for the world's first clean fuel-cell demonstration power plan were marked in a ceremony attended by government and industry at Terre Haute, Indiana as part of the FutureGen initiative announced earlier this year by President Bush.

"One truly remarkable aspect of this technology is its ability to produce hydrogen from coal. Because the fuel cell operates at high temperatures that allow fuel reformation to occur, the system can internally generate hydrogen from fossil fuels, as well as from renewable sources such as waste-water treatment digester gas," said Carl Michael Smith, DOWE assistant secretary of fossil energy.

The project uses the Direct Fuel Cell molten carbonate technology developed by FuelCell Energy (NASDAQ:FCEL)(Danbury, Connecticut) using an electrochemical reaction between fuel and oxygen from the air to produce electric power. Since no fuel is burned, there are none of the pollutants commonly associated with the combustion of fossil fuels. Many US states have classified fuel cells as the environmental equivalent of wind and solar energy.

The electrical balance of plant, which converts direct current into alternating current for domestic use, is being installed and the two fuel cell modules (each 13ft x 14ft) will be integrated into the unit in the third quarter of the year. The 2 MW clean coal project will be the largest fuel cell ever to run on a coal derived synthesis gas and will be FuelCellEnergy's largest DirectFuelCell power plant in service. The $32.3 million project is funded 50% by the DOE.