Vattenfall Claims Clean Thermal Power Generation Lead with 30 Megawatt Pilot Project

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Coal and its associated thermal fuels are set to continue to be a staple feedstock of power generation through 2050. Major utilities and power engineering companies are making dramatic advances in the application of new technologies to 'clean' thermal power generation emissions.

Claiming a lead in European developments is Sweden's Vattenfall (Stockholm), which has announced plans to build a pilot carbon dioxide emissions-free plant. The company says that the coal-fired plant will be the first in the world to lay claim to this achievement.

The $51 million 30 MW plant will be built in Germany, on a site adjacent to the Schwarze Pumpe coal-fired power station near Spremberg in Brandenburg, south of Berlin, and is scheduled to go into operation in 2008. Construction should start in mid-2006.

The pilot project is part of a research and development plan to commercialize the new technology, which uses carbon dioxide separation with oxyfuel technology to fire the lignite fuel with pure oxygen and recycled carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide that is formed in the combustion process will then be separated into such a pure form that it can be retrieved and later stored permanently in rock formations underground. This sequesters the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Lars G. Joseffson, Vattenfall President and Chief Executive Officer said, "The CO2 free, coal-fired plant signifies that Vatenfall, as a leading European energy company, is taking further concrete steps towards reducing its emissions of carbon dioxide - emissions that affect the global climate."

Klaus Rauscher, President Vattenfall Europe, "The oxyfuel technology for a CO2-free coal-fired plant will give us, as an electricity generator with lignite-fired plants, a leading role in the development of a more climate friendly system for the extraction of energy from lignite." The company invested $11 billion in the 1990s, modernizing lignite-fired power stations in Lausitz and central Germany. Vattenfal claims that these units are currently the most modern and fuel efficient of their type in the world.

The 30 MW pilot project is being conducted in collaboration with leading research institutes at German universities.

State-of-the-art clean thermal energy research and development projects are currently running in all energy intense regions of the world. In the U.S., the Department of Energy is leading and participating in projects across the board from emissions sequestration to minimum emissions technology - all with a component of raising energy generation efficiency.

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