The U.S. Department of Energy plans to write an environmental impact statement related to the FutureGen 2.0 project, which would involve repowering an oil-fired unit at Ameren Corp.’s Meredosia power plant with coal-burning technology.
DOE said in a May 23 Federal Register notice that it would put $1 billion in federal funding, most of it appropriated in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, into the FutureGen 2.0 program. DOE wants comments from interested parties on the environmental issues that should be addressed in the EIS, including project impacts on floodplains and wetlands. Public scoping meetings will be held June 7-9 to discuss FutureGen.
DOE noted that it entered into separate cooperative agreements with Ameren Energy Resources Co. LLC and with FutureGen Industrial Alliance Inc. defining DOE’s proposed action. The program consists of an oxy-combustion large-scale test undertaken by Ameren at its Meredosia plant in westcentral Illinois and a pipeline and CO2 storage reservoir undertaken by the alliance.
In addition, the alliance would construct and operate facilities for research, training and visitors in the vicinity of the sequestration site. The alliance’s preferred sequestration site is in Morgan County, Ill., with two alternative sites, in Christian and Douglas counties, Ill.
The FutureGen 2.0 program consists of the two separate cooperative agreements with Ameren and the alliance. Ameren’s partners include Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group and Air Liquide Process & Construction Inc. The alliance is a nonprofit corporation that represents a global coalition of
coal producers, coal users and coal equipment suppliers, including full members Alpha Natural Resources Inc.; Anglo American plc; CONSOL Energy Inc.; Louisville Gas and Electric Co. and Kentucky Utilities Co.; Peabody Energy Corp.; Rio Tinto Energy America; and Xstrata plc. LG&E and KU are units of PPL
Corp. Rio Tinto Energy America is part of international miner Rio Tinto plc.
The new oxy-combustion facility at Meredosia would be capable of running a range of coals and operating conditions. The data generated would be used to expand the market for oxy-combustion technology. The scope of the test includes steps from design, to start-up, to commercial operation and testing of
an integrated oxy-combustion coal boiler with CO2 capture, purification and compression. The revamped unit would generate about 200 MWe gross, with a net output estimated at 140 MWe.
Meredosia is on east side of the Illinois River, south of Meredosia, Ill. The plant includes four generating units, three of which are coal-fired and one of which is oil-fired. Unit 4, built in 1975, is an oil-fired unit that is currently idle. The steam turbine and generator have low operating hours and could be placed into service as part of the repowered oxy-combustion design, DOE noted. The 5,300-foot western boundary of the 260-acre Meredosia plant site fronts the Illinois River, where the station’s oil and coal barge unloading facilities are located. The land immediately adjacent to the station on the north, northeast and southeast is railroad property; other immediately adjacent property is roadway.
SNL Energy data shows that the sole coal supplier in January and February to the existing Meredosia 1-3 coal units, which have a total of 215 MW of operating capacity, was Peabody’s North Antelope Rochelle mine in the Wyoming Powder River Basin.
Oxy-combustion system lives on oxygen. Oxy-combustion technology involves the use of a mixture of nearly pure oxygen and recycled flue gas, which is primarily CO2, rather than air. An air separation unit produces the oxygen. The concentrated and compressed CO2 from the boiler would be transferred to a pipeline for transmission to the storage location. The oxy-combustion technology during normal operations would produce near-zero emissions of NOx, SOx, mercury, particulate matter and other pollutants typical of a conventional coal-fired boiler. The plant would be designed to capture about 1.3 million tonnes of CO2 per year from the oxy-combustion system and is targeted to achieve a CO2 capture rate exceeding 90%.
The alliance’s preferred site for geologic storage in Morgan County is approximately 30 miles from the Meredosia plant, and the alternate sites in Christian and Douglas counties are about 75 and 125 miles, respectively, from the plant site. The alliance would construct a pipeline to transport CO2 from Meredosia to the selected storage site, where it would be injected through deep wells into the target geologic formation. The pipeline and storage reservoir would be designed to inject and store approximately 39 million tonnes over a 30-year operating period. Depending on stakeholder and landowner acceptance, the alliance also may consider other sources of CO2 in addition to that from Ameren’s plant for injection. That is an important point, since other coal-fired plants in the region may have to eventually install CO2 capture and storage systems.
The target formation for CO2 injection and storage is the Mount Simon sandstone formation, one of the Illinois Basin’s major deep saline formations. The formation’s advantages include its isolation from other strata, as well as its depth, lateral continuity and relative permeability. Archer Daniels Midland Co.
also has targeted the Mount Simon sandstone as the storage site for a test CO2 well in Illinois, with the CO2 captured from an ADM ethanol production facility.
The Mount Simon is bounded below by a Precambrian igneous rock and above by the Eau Claire formation, which is a mixture of tightly layered shales with low permeability, as well as by secondary caprock formations above the Eau Claire. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the alliance would be required to obtain a Class VI underground injection control permit from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The new unit would begin operations, including CO2 capture, purification and compression, in 2016 and complete federally funded operational testing in 2018. The pipeline and CO2 storage reservoir would become operational at the same time and complete federally funded project activities in 2020.
The schedule is contingent upon Ameren and the alliance receiving the necessary permits and regulatory approvals, as well as needed financial closing, including final agreements on DOE’s financial assistance.
Source: SNL Energy, May 23, 2011