Released February 26, 2009 | GALWAY, IRELAND
en
Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--German industrial group E.ON AG (OTC:EONGY) (Dusseldorf) and Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) (Munich, Germany) plan to set up a pilot plant to capture carbon-dioxide emissions resulting from combustion of coal at the Staudinger power plant near Hanau in Germany. The pilot project will be tested in Unit 5, a hard-coal fired unit, of the power station. The plant is expected to commence operations in the middle of this year and will run until the end of 2010. The value of the project is estimated to be $12.6 million. The pilot plant will have a power-generating capacity of one megawatt (MW) and aims to reduce carbon-dioxide emission levels by more than 80%.
The carbon capture and storage (CCS) pilot project is part of the German federal government's fifth energy research program, "Innovation and New Energy Technologies." Germany's Federal Ministry of Economics will sponsor the project according to the terms of an initiative that focuses on development of carbon-dioxide reduction technologies for fossil-fired power plants. The announcement for the project coincides with the finalization of a draft law by the German government to provide planning security to developers of CCS technologies. The draft of the legal framework lays down the conditions for carbon-dioxide storage activities and is likely to be passed in Germany's parliament before the country's next general election in September of this year.
For the pilot project, E.ON and Siemens will implement the latter's post-combustion-capture technology in which flue gases will be scrubbed by amino acid salt, a cleaning agent, to remove carbon dioxide before discharged into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, thus captured, will then be buried in porous rocks underground. It is estimated that the carbon dioxide emissions in the pilot project will be lowered to 100 grams per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of power generated before the discharge of flue gases into the atmosphere. Coal power plants in Europe typically have an emission level of 900 grams of carbon dioxide per kWh of power generated.
Siemens' technology can also be retrofitted to existing conventional processes of thermal power generation and is known to offer the benefits of low energy consumption, efficient utilization of cleaning agents, and good environmental capability. The firm has been developing this technology under laboratory conditions for several years at its facility in the Frankfurt-Hoechst Industrial Park. The technology will be tested for the first time under real operating conditions at the Staudinger power plant in terms of process efficiency and long-term chemical stability of the cleaning agent. Siemens will also work toward optimizing the technology in terms of power consumption under real operating conditions.
The pilot project is one of several initiatives in CCS technologies being pursued worldwide to combat the issue of climate change caused by the combustion of fossil fuels and the resultant emissions. However, the CCS technologies and processes being adopted by firms are still in the experimental stages and need to be vetted and adapted to real operating conditions before they can be deployed for large-scale commercial use. Pilot projects need to be scaled up to handle power plants with generating capacities of at least 400 MW for use on an industrial scale.
Vattenfall AB (Stockholm, Sweden), which inaugurated the world's first CCS demonstration plant in September 2008 at Schwarze Pumpe in north Germany, has earmarked funds of $1.27 billion to develop a 500-MW power plant in Janschwalde based on the oxyfuel CCS process in which combustion of coal in pure oxygen results in lower emissions of carbon dioxide and water. The plant is scheduled for commissioning by 2014. RWE AG (OTC:RWEOY) (Essen, Germany) is pursuing a pre-combustion CCS process for its proposed 450-MW power plant in Hurth near Cologne. The technology involves combustion of coal in a gasifier to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Hydrogen is then reused to provide surplus energy, while carbon monoxide is mixed with steam to generate carbon dioxide that can be captured and stored.
The success of the CCS pilot project at the Staudinger plant could lead to the development and operation of large-scale demonstration plants by 2015 and will enable E.ON to meet its deadline of adopting the CCS technology on an industrial scale by 2020 as mandated by the European Union, which requires that all coal-fired power plants incorporate CCS in their daily operations by that time. Germany has an estimated disposal capacity for nearly 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide, corresponding to 100 years of emissions from power plants in the country. Late last year, Germany announced that it has reduced greenhouse gas emissions to 957 million tons of carbon dioxide, which is below the average limit of 974 million tons of carbon dioxide as specified in the Kyoto protocol for the country during the 2008-12 commitment period.
View Project Report - 73000293
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a marketing information service specializing in industrial process, energy and financial related markets with products and services ranging from industry news, analytics, forecasting, plant and project databases, as well as multimedia services.
The carbon capture and storage (CCS) pilot project is part of the German federal government's fifth energy research program, "Innovation and New Energy Technologies." Germany's Federal Ministry of Economics will sponsor the project according to the terms of an initiative that focuses on development of carbon-dioxide reduction technologies for fossil-fired power plants. The announcement for the project coincides with the finalization of a draft law by the German government to provide planning security to developers of CCS technologies. The draft of the legal framework lays down the conditions for carbon-dioxide storage activities and is likely to be passed in Germany's parliament before the country's next general election in September of this year.
For the pilot project, E.ON and Siemens will implement the latter's post-combustion-capture technology in which flue gases will be scrubbed by amino acid salt, a cleaning agent, to remove carbon dioxide before discharged into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, thus captured, will then be buried in porous rocks underground. It is estimated that the carbon dioxide emissions in the pilot project will be lowered to 100 grams per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of power generated before the discharge of flue gases into the atmosphere. Coal power plants in Europe typically have an emission level of 900 grams of carbon dioxide per kWh of power generated.
Siemens' technology can also be retrofitted to existing conventional processes of thermal power generation and is known to offer the benefits of low energy consumption, efficient utilization of cleaning agents, and good environmental capability. The firm has been developing this technology under laboratory conditions for several years at its facility in the Frankfurt-Hoechst Industrial Park. The technology will be tested for the first time under real operating conditions at the Staudinger power plant in terms of process efficiency and long-term chemical stability of the cleaning agent. Siemens will also work toward optimizing the technology in terms of power consumption under real operating conditions.
The pilot project is one of several initiatives in CCS technologies being pursued worldwide to combat the issue of climate change caused by the combustion of fossil fuels and the resultant emissions. However, the CCS technologies and processes being adopted by firms are still in the experimental stages and need to be vetted and adapted to real operating conditions before they can be deployed for large-scale commercial use. Pilot projects need to be scaled up to handle power plants with generating capacities of at least 400 MW for use on an industrial scale.
Vattenfall AB (Stockholm, Sweden), which inaugurated the world's first CCS demonstration plant in September 2008 at Schwarze Pumpe in north Germany, has earmarked funds of $1.27 billion to develop a 500-MW power plant in Janschwalde based on the oxyfuel CCS process in which combustion of coal in pure oxygen results in lower emissions of carbon dioxide and water. The plant is scheduled for commissioning by 2014. RWE AG (OTC:RWEOY) (Essen, Germany) is pursuing a pre-combustion CCS process for its proposed 450-MW power plant in Hurth near Cologne. The technology involves combustion of coal in a gasifier to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Hydrogen is then reused to provide surplus energy, while carbon monoxide is mixed with steam to generate carbon dioxide that can be captured and stored.
The success of the CCS pilot project at the Staudinger plant could lead to the development and operation of large-scale demonstration plants by 2015 and will enable E.ON to meet its deadline of adopting the CCS technology on an industrial scale by 2020 as mandated by the European Union, which requires that all coal-fired power plants incorporate CCS in their daily operations by that time. Germany has an estimated disposal capacity for nearly 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide, corresponding to 100 years of emissions from power plants in the country. Late last year, Germany announced that it has reduced greenhouse gas emissions to 957 million tons of carbon dioxide, which is below the average limit of 974 million tons of carbon dioxide as specified in the Kyoto protocol for the country during the 2008-12 commitment period.
View Project Report - 73000293
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a marketing information service specializing in industrial process, energy and financial related markets with products and services ranging from industry news, analytics, forecasting, plant and project databases, as well as multimedia services.
