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A new technology to clean up emissions could be coming to Indian River Power Plant soon, its owners confirmed this week.
NRG Energy Inc. Communications Manager Jay Mandel said Thursday, Jan. 26, the wholesale power generation company has proposed spending $1 billion to build a new coal-powered generation plant that would greatly reduce emissions and cost less to operate than plants that burn natural gas. Mandel would not confirm which of the company’s old coal-fired power plants would be upgraded.
Clean coal technology is a process that has been evolving since the 1990s. It uses inexpensive American coal to create a synthetic gas called syngas. Syngas is then cleaned of all pollutants before being burned to power electricity-producing turbines.
Scott J. Davido, Northeast region president of NRG Energy Inc., announced the plan Dec. 19, saying: “This is something we believe is absolutely the right thing to do from an energy policy standpoint and the right thing to do from an investor standpoint.”
Davido said NRG is evaluating all its generation plants in the Northeast to determine which site and which state would be best for the project. The company’s Indian River site is being considered, along with properties in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
The decision as to where to build the plant depends on which state offers the company tax breaks, loan guarantees, subsidies and other incentives. Mandel said that decision would come sometime in late spring or early summer.
The three-year building project, if it comes to Indian River, would be finished and operational by 2012, Mandel said.
“I fully support the plan and I think Delaware is in a position to provide NRG Energy with the incentives,” said Sen. George H. Bunting Jr., D-Bethany Beach. “I hope to work toward that end.”
NRG Energy Inc. representatives are part of Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control’s ongoing rulemaking process to lower sulfur oxide, nitrous oxide and mercury emissions from the power plant by 2015.
New technology
The relatively new technology of coal gasification has already gained acceptance as a clean alternative to coal combustion.
The process involves bringing pulverized coal into contact with steam and oxygen, which causes a thermo-chemical reaction producing a fuel gas of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. When burned, that gas can be used to power an electricity-producing turbine.
Coal gasification power generation systems are being developed and operated in the United States and Europe. The systems produce less solid waste and lower emissions of sulfur oxide, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide. More than 99 percent of the sulfur present in the coal can be recovered for sale as chemically pure sulfur.
Clean coal plants emit fewer pollutants than either standard coal plants or gas plants, but they still send carbon dioxide up the stacks. The long-range goal for clean coal technology is to capture that carbon dioxide and store it deep underground or in the ocean instead of adding that greenhouse gas to the atmosphere.
NRG Energy’s plan is to build its new plant, leaving add-on space for carbon-capturing when it is perfected for the marketplace.
Davido said the coal syngas process would produce byproducts that could be useful in other markets. Sulfur, nitrogen and mercury all could be collected and sold. The hydrogen produced by syngas systems could be used for Delaware’s developing fuel–cell market.
Davido also addressed those who might have environmental concerns about the new system, saying clean coal technology is the best opportunity this country has in the next half century to build toward energy independence.
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