 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Projects To Develop Electricity/F-T Diesel Co-Production Plants Move Forward
Hart's
Gas-To-Liquids News
March 2001
Most people passing through the coal regions of northeastern Pennsylvania see piles of abandoned mine waste and think "environmental eyesore." John W. Rich, Jr. looks at the same waste piles and sees barrels of zero-sulfur diesel fuel. If his plan comes to fruition, Pennsylvania may become the showcase of a unique integration of land reclamation, synthesis gas generation and Fischer-Tropsch technologies that could turn the state’s sad legacy of stream-polluting mine waste into a new domestic source of clean-burning transportation fuel.
Rich, a third generation anthracite coal mine operator, has been developing this idea ever since he learned about coal gasification. He was quite familiar with the mixture of waste coal particles and silt that is leftover after coal has been mined, sorted and washed. The material looked to him like a perfect gasification feedstock and piles of it had been accumulating in Schuylkill County for more than 100 years.
In August 1999, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) through its National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), was interested enough in Rich’s idea to select it as one of three projects for co-funding under the Department’s effort to encourage the rapid commercialization of "early entry co-production" (EECP) energy plants. These EECPs are designed to produce some combination of electricity, heat, fuels, and chemicals from synthesis gas derived from coal and/or other carbonaceous feedstocks. The concept of producing a varied slate of products -- the exact combination of which could be tailored for specific markets -- is a departure from traditional power generation plants.
Waste Management and Processors, Inc. (WMPI), one of Rich’s companies, proposed that DOE co-fund an assessment of the feasibility and economics of converting a mixture of coal and coal mining residue into premium transportation fuels and electricity. If the concept can be proven feasible, WMPI’s project team will develop an engineering design package and (hopefully) obtain private funding for a $300+ million plant to be built next to an existing co-generation plant in Gilberton, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Five percent of the steam from that plant is now used to dry waste coal material for other area cogen plants. A generic greenfield design is also contemplated as part of the study. The WMPI team includes Bechtel National, Inc. (design engineering integration); Texaco Power & Gasification (coal gasification technology); and SASOL Technology Ltd. (Fischer-Tropsch technology).
In August 2000, DOE/NETL and WMPI reached a contractual agreement allowing a $7.55 million grant from DOE/NETL to be combined with about $4.45 million in funding from WMPI and the other project participants. Since then, WMPI has been negotiating with its partners to finalize terms and conditions before moving forward with the project. These negotiations were completed several weeks ago and according to Rich the stage is now set to begin work.
The DOE’s EECP projects are designed for completion in three phases. Phase I involves definition of the concept and results in plant sizing and identification of areas of technical, environmental and financial risk. Phase II consists of an experimental program designed to reduce the identified risks. Phase III involves an update of the original design concept and preparation of a final financial plan.
"The DOE is funding about 80% of Phase I, 65% of Phase II, and 50% of Phase III," says Rich. "The end result will be a comprehensive technology analysis, engineering design and economic forecast package that can serve as a prospectus for investors." Beyond that point DOE/NETL is no longer involved in co-funding and the private sector takes over.
WMPI has not been idle while this project has been in development. Rich and others have been working with Pennsylvania state legislators and U.S. Senator Rick Santorum to pass legislation that will boost the likelihood of economic success for a coal-to-diesel project. A Federal bill, H.R.2175 (The Foreign Oil Displacement Act) which has been referred to the House Ways and Means Committee, seeks to provide financial tax incentives for the liquefaction of coal and coal byproducts into liquid fuel. Specifically, the bill would provide a 28% Investment Tax Credit for coal-based liquid fuels, a benefit already enjoyed by the ethanol industry. Similar legislation (The Coal Waste Removal and Ultraclean Fuels Tax Credit Act, Penna. S.B. 650) has already been enacted into law in Pennsylvania.
Rich is also making sure that legislators recognize the impact that such activity could have on the northeastern Pennsylvania economy. "If a prototype plant were to be built on 34 acres in Gilberton, says Rich, the project that would create 1,000 temporary construction jobs over a three year period and 150 permanent jobs." Endorsed by state environmental and economic development officials, the project has received approval from the state legislature for $46.8 million in state tax credits contingent on federal and private funding.
According to WMPI’s preliminary estimates, a $312 million plant could process about 2000 tons of roughly 8200 Btu/lb waste material (standard anthracite has an energy content of 12,500 Btu/lb) each day and would produce about 5,000 barrels per day of high cetane, zero-sulfur diesel. Eventually, Rich envisions a number of such plants around the nation, sited according to the volume of available coal waste feedstock. "The process’s only by-product is an environmentally benign, cinder-like aggregate that resembles crushed brown glass," adds Rich. "And that material may even have further utility as a component for concrete, mortar and cinder blocks."
How much feedstock is available? "A lot," says Ted Kopas, spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in Harrisburg, "Scattered across the abandoned mine lands of Pennsylvania." According to Kopas, "abandoned mine lands" is the general term for the pits, piles and refuse that are the leftovers of coal mining. Kopas estimates that there are about 250,000 acres of abandoned mine lands in Pennsylvania, on which are found: "gob" (waste coal from underground mining), "refuse piles" (leftover coal and shale debris), "spoil" (rock and dirt associated with surface mining), and "culm" (waste from anthracite mines consisting of fine coal, coal dust and silt). Pennsylvania’s DEP is still in the process of cataloging these volumes, but has identified 901 individual piles – spanning 8,600 acres – throughout the state’s coal fields. Kopas cites an estimate of between 82 million and 140 million cubic yards of waste material present in just the 40 largest piles in northeastern Pennsylvania’s anthracite region alone. The amount of carbon in mine waste piles varies widely, however. "Some are mostly non-carbon material but in places there are pockets of pure coal," says Kopas.
Once the basic concept is proven, several important questions remain to be answered during subsequent phases of the coal-to-diesel project evaluation. For example, just how suitable a feedstock for syngas production is the waste material? How much is available and at what delivered cost to a processing facility? How much pure coal might need to be mined and at what cost, to supplement the waste material as a gasification feedstock?
The technology package proposed by the WMPI team will probably include a combination of Texaco’s proprietary TGP synthesis gas process and Sasol’s Slurry Phase F-T process. Interestingly, Texaco is also part of a second team selected under the same DOE EECP solicitation for another F-T project. For that project, Texaco heads a team consisting of Brown & Root Services, General Electric Power Systems, Praxair, and Rentech, in a $14.6 million (62% DOE) effort to design a plant for coproduction of electricity and high-quality diesel from petroleum coke feedstock.
"Texaco completed Phase I of their project at the end of last year," says Bob Kornosky, DOE/NETL Project Manager for the Texaco-led project. "Their team looked at two sites: the Polk Power Station of Tampa Electric Co. in Florida, and the Motiva Refinery in Port Arthur, Texas. The consortium agreed to develop a design that would have the greatest opportunity of satisfying commercial criteria, to ensure that the project could actually be built. The Motiva Refinery was chosen as the site for a conceptual process design, capital and operating cost estimates, and economic analyses."
The Motiva plant would use petroleum coke to produce electricity, steam and F-T products (see table). Phase II, which has just gotten underway, will consist of a 2-year experimental effort aimed at reducing the technical, environmental and financial risks of such a plant. The team members mentioned above, as well as Bechtel and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), will be involved in that work.
It is quite possible that an increase in the demand for electric power and low-sulfur fuels, coupled with government incentives to recycle waste products, will drive industry to look at a wide variety of synthesis gas feedstocks for F-T products. In one particular case, the possibility may exist to kill two environmental problems, coal mine pollution and diesel sulfur emissions, with one unlikely "stone" … coal waste.
This article is reprinted from the March 2001 issue of Hart's Gas-To-Liquids News, a monthly newsletter focused on the technology and business of producing clean liquid fuels from natural gas and other feedstocks. To subscribe to GTLN, visit http://www.worldfuels.com/cgi/catalog/info?GTLN.