insurgent49
  updated weekly
 home - contribute - donate -  message board - events - links - contact us - archive
August 18, 2006
Coal: Alaska's Other Black Gold
Part Two of a Two Part Series
by Brian Yanity, insurgent49

    Coal can be made to burn almost as clean as natural gas, in terms of NOx, SOx, and particulates, but no ‘zero-emissions’ coal power plant has yet been achieved.  Most experts agree that the combustion of coal with no air emissions is only theoretically possible on a large scale.

     The first and most obvious ‘clean coal’ link in the supply chain is during coal preparation. This coal cleaning process involves washing, separation of impurities such as the mercury and arsenic trace elements found in coal. Once this coal gets to the power plant, new variations on traditional coal boiler designs are improving the efficiency of the energy conversion process.

     The majority of the world’s coal-fired power plants use pulverized fuel (PF)-fired boilers. Pressurized pulverized coal combustion may achieve efficiencies of over 50%, using very high temperatures. Fluidized bed combustion is another technology that can increase coal power plant efficiency to 40%. This process solid fuels on upward-blowing jets of air, and can help get rid of SOX gases with limestone. There are also ‘Low-NOx burners’, specially designed coal burning chamber that restricts oxygen to the hottest part of the chamber. These improvements on the efficiency of traditional steam boilers, can be retrofitted to existing coal plants.

     As the exhausts of the coal combustion leave the power plant, the flue gas desulphurization (FGD) process removes sulfur dioxide with a ‘wet scrubber’. FGD leaves gypsum as byproduct, which is then used by the construction industry. Flue gas can also be reburned to make C02 ‘recoverable’ for sequestration (see below). Usually the last step in the clean coal chain is the passing the coal plant’s exhaust through electrostatic precipitators, which can get rid of 99% of particulates or ‘soot’.

     Coal-to-liquids (CTL) technology began with the Fischer-Tropsch process, named for the two German scientists who developed it in the 1920s. Both Nazi Germany and Apartied South Africa under, regimes cut off from outside sources of oil, used coal-based ‘synfuel’ condensed with the Fischer-Tropes process to make gasoline and diesel fuel. To this day, the Sasol company in South Africa (www.sasol.com) is one of the world leaders in coal-to-liquids technology.

     However, all coal-to-liquid fuels produce more carbon emissions than an equivalent amount of petroleum fuel, and are about four times more expensive at the present time. The CO2 produced per gallon of fuel (during the total production process) for standard crude oil (petroleum)-to-diesel is 25 lbs., while for coal-to-diesel it is 45 lbs. The U.S. Air Force is investigation the possibility of CTL jet fuel, though it is starting with the possibility natural gas liquids as being more practical in the short-term.

     In Alaska, the Agrium fertilizer plant in Kenai is converting to coal feedstock from natural gas, a $1 billion investment.

     Coal gasification is the cleanest coal technology that is commercially available. The high efficiency Bergius process removes sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury, but leaves carbon. The resulting coal gas product can be used in the same way as natural gas or methane. Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) is another high-efficiency process in which coal is not combusted directly, but reacts chemically with oxygen and steam to form a ‘syngas’, primarily hydrogen. The IGCC can increase plant efficiency to over 40%.

     It should be remembered that all ‘clean coal technology’ refers to the burning of it, while the mining process could still involve pollution.  For example, by carbon emissions from big mining vehicles or from water pollution created by mine waste.

     Healy Clean Coal Plant (HCCP):

     The Healy Clean Coal Plant (HCCP), located near the Usibelli Mine and ten miles NE of the McKinley Park entrance, was designed to reduce SO2, NOx and particulate emissions. It should be kept in mind that HCCP is mostly conventional coal generation technology, representing the mid-1990s ‘state-of-the-art’ in clean coal. Present-day technology should do much better environmentally and economically.


     Almost $300 million has been spent on the HCCP, over a third of which from the federal U.S. Department of Energy. Project planning first started in 1989, and construction was finished in 1997. However, the plant failed a 90-day test run in 1999, and has been idle ever since. So in the end, nearly $300 million has been spent on the HCCP with not a single kWh of electricity produced for the grid.

     The Fairbanks-based Golden Valley Electric Association (GVEA) claims that the HCCP has not demonstrated safe and economical operation. The utility estimated cost of a retrofit from $7 to $51 million, which would entail gutting the plant of the clean-coal equipment, and replacing it with dirtier, ‘proven’ technology preferred by GVEA.

     Citing its unwillingness to pay for this as ratepayer protection, since the only way GVEA could raise that kind of capital is with an increase in consumer electric rates. The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA), the HCCP’s owner, accuses GVEA of violating a 2000 settlement agreement, and claims economic damages in excess of $167 million. AIDEA claims that HCCP’s performance has met the original goals while GVEA GVEA owns the land on which HCCP is sited, and shares resources with existing GVEA coal plant, and filed suit against AIDEA in November 2005.

     Homer Electric Association (HEA) has recently expressed interested in the HCCP, saying that the installed clean-coal technology is now economical with the rising costs of natural gas. HEA signed a letter of agreement with AIDEA in October 2005, and the state senate approved spending $12.5 million on the HCCP in early May 2006, to be taken out of the existing $73.5 million Railbelt energy fund. However, this spending was vetoed by Governor Murkowski, in addition to other allocations to utilities totaling $61million.


     Carbon Sequestration

     China and India are building coal-fired power plants at a furious rate, because both these energy-hungry giants have large domestic coal supplies.  For the sake of the world’s air quality, something must be done about all that coal pollution from the two giants of Asia. Carbon is still left over by all the cleaning methods described above, so it must somehow be sequestered. Also called carbon capture and storage (CCS), there are two options for sequestration:

     -Injecting CO2 into underground reservoirs
     -fixing CO2 chemically in a carbonate

     CCS applied to a conventional coal power plant is estimated to reduce CO2 emissions to the atmosphere by approximately 80 to 90% compared to a coal plant without CCS. Capturing and compressing carbon requires much energy, and CSS would increase the fuel needs of a coal power plant by 10 to 40%, and would increase the cost of energy delivered by 30 to 60%. Some oil and gas fields can benefit from CO2 injection as part of enhanced oil recovery, which forces old oil to the surface. BP, Shell and Norway’s Statoil have started underground CO2 injection tests on oil fields in the North Sea.

     CCS technology remains experimental, and so far only has been done on a small pilot scale. Serious research activities on carbon sequestration have been launched in Europe, the U.S. and Japan. The newly-formed Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF) (www.cslforum.org) is a coalition of the governments of 21 countries. FutureGen (www.futuregenalliance.org), the Integrated Sequestration and Hydrogen Research Initiative, is a $1 billion partnership between the federal government and the coal industry for designing, building, and operating almost emissions-free, coal-fired electric and hydrogen production plant in the U.S. The 275 MW prototype plant is planned to be in operation in 2017.

     Four finalist sites for the FutureGen plant were recently announced, with two each in Texas and Illinois. The large German utility RWE recently announced plans to invest $2 billion into the world’s first large-scale (450 MW) power station of near zero-emission CCS technology, could be in operation by 2014.

     The chemical-treatment process of carbon sequestration, the CO2 is converted into limestone (CaCO3) together with calcium oxide (CaO). This process produces hydrogen as well. The limestone produced is split again by the next process into CaO and CO2 via the heat of the fuel cell, with the CaO fed back into the process.  In a later stage, the CO2 reacts with magnesium and calcium-silicate to form carbonates and silicon oxide (SiO2), which are chemically stable and can be disposed. Based on these chemical sequestration methods, the ZECA Corporation (www.zeca.org) is planning a zero-emissions coal plant combined with hydrogen generation. The first full-scale zero-emissions coal power plants are expected to be in commercial operation by 2020.


     The Future of Alaska Coal

     Aside from the financial catastrophe in Healy, other efforts at bringing new coal technologies to Alaska have ended on a sour note. At the end of 2004, State Attorney General Renkes resigned after admitting that held over $100,000 worth of stock in the Denver-based KFx corporation, which has a patented ‘K-Fuel’ process which enriches low-grade sub-bituminous coal into a high BTU, low moisture and reduced emission fuel.

     KFx was interested in using their special process to dry out the wet coal of the Beluga fields on the western shore of Cook Inlet, which was to be exported to Taiwan. But this scandal hasn’t stopped the recent the Chuitna coal project (www.chuitnaseis.com), a surface mining proposal for the Beluga fields to extract one billion short tons of coal over a 25 year period. One of the more serious environmental concerns raised by this project is possible effects on salmon streams.

     The Matanuska Electric Association (MEA) has proposed a large coal-fired power plant to be located somewhere in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. At present, MEA buys all of its power in bulk from Chugach Electric Association under a 25-year ‘all requirements’ contract, set to expire in 2014. By that time, MEA seeks to have its own electrical generation capacity installed.

     Full Metal Minerals of Vancouver has begun leasing 23,000 acres of potential coal fields in the Chickaloon area, though some local residents already have concerns.  The Australian-British conglomerate BHP Billiton has signed agreements with the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation to explore coal fields in northwestern Alaska starting this year.

     The world’s three largest coal importers are Japan (183 million metric tons), South Korea (76 million), and Taiwan (60 million). This is a convenient North Pacific Rim market for Alaska coal, and the growing economies in Asia make coal exports ever more tempting to Alaskan coal interests.

     There has recently been proposed a small coal power plant in Seward, but many locals don’t like the idea. The most obvious alternative for new Seward-area power generation would be new hydroelectric developments on Lowell Creek and at Grant Lake, a 7 MW hydroelectric facility planned in the early 1980s for the Moose Pass area.  However, coal-fired generation combined with hydropower could give the area a power surplus and lead to lower electric rates.

     Hydrogen production from a zero emissions coal plant is an interesting possibility for the longer-term. Perhaps a brand-new zero-emissions coal plant could be built in Healy from another $300 million in state oil and gas revenues. We are moving towards a carbon-constrained economy, and all carbon-intensive fossil fuel use must eventually be phased out.








Brian Yanity is a graduate student at UAA, activist and freelance writer. He resides in an undisclosed location in Southcentral Alaska, and can be reached at byanity@insurgent49.com.
- Columnists -

Editor's Desk
by Aaron Selbig

Rank and File
by Nova Stubbs

Red Alert
by Soren Wuerth

Alaskan In Exile
by Neil Zawicki

The
Bramble Bush
by Kevin Morford






- also by this writer -
Copyright 2005 Insurgent Media. All Rights Reserved.
in-sur-gent (in sur'jent), n. 1. a member of a group which revolts against the policies of its leadership.