Coal is Canada’s most abundant and lowest-cost fuel, not to mention a critical input in the manufacture of steel. Canadian company Pacific Asia China Energy (PACE) holds assets in China estimated to at 11.2 trillion cubic feet of coalbed methane.
COAL POWER
by Randall Anthony Mang
Once considered the dark horse of power generation, coal-fired electricity is taking on a new green aura thanks to clean coal technologies (CCTs) that now enable this abundant fuel to be used more cleanly than ever before, in some cases causing near-zero emissions.
For Canada, CCTs spell opportunity. Not only may CCTs enable Canada to use its plentiful coal reserves to meet energy demand in environmentally and socially acceptable ways, they may also add to Canada’s export capacity.
“There is certainly potential for Canada to prosper internationally from clean coal,” says Bob Stobbs, executive director of the Canadian Clean Power Coalition (CCPC). “The operating know-how and lessons learned of companies that put these technologies together will have value. The best credibility will come from real projects, not just studies and research.”
Much of Canada’s emerging CCT prowess was spurred by the CCPC, a group of coal producers and energy companies formed in 2002 to research, develop and demonstrate commercially viable CCTs. A major CCPC goal is now approaching realization: the building by 2012 of a full-scale clean coal plant that would include carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration.
While announcements of new CCT plants for Alberta are expected soon, Saskatchewan utility SaskPower is well on its way to having the world’s first near-zero-emission CCT plant to include CO2 capture and storage.
SaskPower Clean Coal project manager Max Ball says the proposed co-generation facility will produce and sell both electricity and CO2, a byproduct of the plant’s operations.
New Brunswick-based engineering firm Neill and Gunter Limited is helping SaskPower evaluate its CCT options. Having worked with the CCPC and other utilities, the firm has examined an exhaustive list of pollution abatement technologies.
SaskPower is considering two technology pathways.
The first option, based on a modified conventional coal power station, involves CO2 removal through a post-combustion solvent process. In addition to systems that remove pollutants such as particulates, NOx and SOx, the plant would incorporate an amine solvent process to strip away the CO2. The gas would then be converted into liquid CO2 ready for geological sequestration, says Neill and Gunter president and CEO Donald Belliveau.
SaskPower’s other option is an Oxyfuel power plant. Its technology removes nitrogen from the air prior to combustion, resulting in an oxygen- fired combustion process. Its main byproducts are CO2 and water. Once the water is stripped, the remaining flue gas is compressed and liquefied.
Mr. Belliveau says while the majority of the equipment required for clean coal applications is commercially available, SaskPower would be the first to assemble it in a full-scale plant.
Not only is SaskPower doing “the right thing,” says Mr. Ball, the project is premised on a viable business case.
Whichever technology option SaskPower chooses, nearby oil patch operators are expected to be ready customers for the plant’s CO2. Practically next door to the proposed plant, the Weyburn Enhanced Oil Recovery project is injecting 2.5 million tonnes of imported CO2 annually into a depleted oil well. The long-term project is proving that CO2 can be used to push more oil to the surface while safely and securely trapping the greenhouse gas underground.
“We’re confident that we can sell the CO2 for enhanced oil recovery operations with certainty that the CO2 will remain sequestered – an astounding opportunity to reduce the environmental footprint of power generation. And the combined revenues should add up to an appealing investment for Saskatchewan,” says Mr. Ball.
SaskPower expects to make a decision as to whether to proceed with the $1.5-billion, 300-megawatt project by June 2007. The plan calls for the plant to be in service by 2011.
A recently announced coal-fired power generation facility in B.C. will also employ innovative methods to reduce its environmental impact.
The 184-megawatt AES Wapiti Energy Corporation facility, a collaboration involving U.S.-based power company AES and B.C. coalminer Hillsborough Resources, is based on a combined coal-biomass concept, using circulating fluidized bed boiler technology.
AES project director Tom Kunde says, for starters, the plant will utilize low-sulphur thermal coal mined from Hillsborough’s Wapiti property near Tumbler Ridge.
“This plant will burn coal in a fluidized bed, removing in excess of 95 per cent of sulphur in the combustion process,” he says, “beating the provincial standards for sulphur emissions,” while avoiding the use of water-intensive, post-combustion scrubbers.
He says an ammonia injection system will reduce NOx emissions and a “bag house” will capture virtually all of the plant’s particulates. A mercury scrubber will remove more than 85 per cent of mercury from exhaust – meeting the provincial standard.
To help address CO2 emissions, 20 per cent of the plant’s fuel will be wood waste – a carbon neutral fuel. Like other coal projects, AESWapiti brings significant economic benefits.
Hillsborough Resources president and CEO David Slater says, “This project brings significant value to shareholders and the community. Between the plant and the mine, 100 stable, longterm jobs will be created.”
The future of clean coal in Canada? “We’re looking at what can be done to improve the economics of gasifying lower grade coal,” says Bob Stobbs. “This is important because once you’ve got synthetic gas (from coal), you have the building block for a wide variety of applications including liquid fuels and natural as that can be shipped via pipeline.”
Mr. Belliveau says, “It’s important that policymakers take a longterm view, considering the needs of today and the future. Yes, it may be a little more expensive to build clean coal plants now, but this early adoption will place Canada on the map as a leader in clean coal solutions among nations around the globe.”
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Associations and Partners also appearing in this report:
...Pacific Asia China Energy Inc. (PACE) is at work.
Canadian Society for UnconventionalGas (CSUG), technical advances in drilling and production turned the tide...
Australian developer, Mitchell Drilling Contractors to apply new horizontal drilling techniques...
Quicksilver Resources Canada, coalbed methane production in the western United States now accounts for up to a third of natural gas...
Hillsborough Resources has 23,000 acres with coalbed methane drilling rights...
Q & A with Sprott Asset Management’s Market Strategist...
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