Construction has begun on the first U.S. commercial-scale post-combustion CCS project aimed to annually capture 1.4 million metric tons of CO2.

On July 15, 2014, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced that construction has begun on the Petra Nova Project, the first U.S. commercial-scale post-combustion carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) retrofit and the largest in the world.  The $469M project, a partnership between DOE, NRG Energy Inc., and JX Nippon, received $167M in DOE funding.  It will install post-combustion CCS technology to the coal-fired W.A. Parish Generating Station in Houston to annually capture 1.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from 240 MW of generation.

According to DOE, Petra Nova will capture 90 percent of the plant’s CO2 emissions through a process that was previously deployed in a three-year pilot-scale test in Alabama, where it demonstrated a CO2-capture rate of more than 150,000 metric tons per year.  The capture rate would cause coal-fired generation to have a much lower greenhouse gas footprint compared to traditional natural gas-fired generation.  Petra Nova will use an advanced amine-based CO2 capture system capable of reducing CO2 capture costs and increasing system flexibility and efficiency.  Thermal energy required for the CO2 capture and compression system will be supplied by a cogeneration plant made up of a combustion turbine and heat recovery boiler.

Petra Nova Amine-Based Carbon Capture System (netl.doe)

The captured CO2 will be compressed and transported via an 80-mile pipeline for enhanced oil recovery at the West Ranch Oil Field – where production from conventional techniques has declined – and finally injected underground for permanent sequestration.

Originally published by EnerKnol.

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