B9 Coal enters carbon capture competition

B9 Coal and partners are proposing to use a combination of underground coal gasification and alkaline fuel cells to reduce carbon emissions by more than 90 and generate electricity from the captured hydrogen. Unlike post-combustion carbon capture processes that rely on capturing emissions after the coal is burned, the Lynemouth project is a pre-combustion process that will use gasification to separate hydrogen and carbon from the coal before using the hydrogen to generate electricity. The Lynemouth plant is owned and operated by Rio Tinto Alcan, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto plc.

B9 Coal's project partners include environmental consultancy firm WSP Group, Australian clean-coal technology developer Linc Energy Limited and hydrogen fuel-cell manufacturer AFC Energy plc.

The 500-MW project has been presented to the Department of Energy and Climate Change's DECC CCS demonstration competition and has the support of the North East Process Industry Cluster and Renew, the group overseeing commercial energy and environmental technology projects across North East England.

"At a time when the government is expressing a desire to show global leadership on CCS, we are offering a project that has the potential to become a world-leading template," explained B9 Coal Director Alisa Murphy. "Our combination of technologies is truly game-changing and offers CCS without inflated cost or loss of efficiency. The B9 Coal project also has major implications for UK energy security, job creation and technological achievement."

Linc Energy's Underground Coal Gasification UCG process, which is supported by the UK's Environmental Agency, produces syngas, which is then passed through a clean-up process resulting in separate streams of hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The hydrogen will be used to power AFC Energy's alkaline fuel cells, while the captured CO2 is readied for storage. AFC's fuel cells convert hydrogen to electricity at 60 efficiency and, when combined with UCG, can provide a projected cost per kilowatt-hour of 4p US $0.06.

The B9 Coal consortium argues that the UCG process potentially gives access in the UK to an extra 17 billion tonnes of coal without the traditional environmental impacts of conventional mining.

"It provides the UK with a genuine opportunity for enhanced energy security whilst meeting green-energy demand from domestic coal reserves," said Ian Balchin, the CEO of AFC Energy. "Our fuel-cell technology will allow the lowest possible unit cost electricity alongside hugely efficient power generation."

Earlier this month, German energy giant E.ON AG advanced its intention to build a CCS system at the Kingsnorth coal-fired plant in Kent, England, by awarding contracts to Foster Wheeler AG and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Incorporated.

E.ON and rival ScottishPower were awarded key funding by the UK government this year to progress their CCS projects at the Kingsnorth and Longannet coal-fired power plants, respectively.