Published December 2009
A great deal of attention has been paid in recent years to the issue of carbon emissions and their effect on climate change. Because of this, considerable effort has been made in the area of carbon capture and sequestration as applied to coal-fired power plants. In previous PEP reports and reviews we have examined integrated gasification and combined cycle (IGCC) and oxycombustion. In this report we examine the technology and economics of electric power generation using supercritical pulverized coal combined with scrubbing of the flue gases and compression of CO2. We present three carbon capture processes. First, we examine the use of generic, modern (30 wt%) monoethanolamine (MEA) scrubbing. Second, we examine an advanced amine process as exemplified by the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries — Kansai Electric KMCDR process which uses the proprietary hindered amine KS-1. Finally, we look at the chilled ammonia process which has been jointly developed by Alstom, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and SRI International.
We have conducted all of our analyses using new plant construction (the issue of retrofits is beyond the scope of this study) at 550 MW net power output. Our efforts are centered around the development of independent cost analyses tied to the basis of comparison laid out in the US Department of Energy's report , "Cost and Performance Baseline for Fossil Energy Plants," DOE/NETL-2007/1281, revised October 2007. We have found that on a levelized cost basis with 90% CO2 capture and compression, MEA scrubbing adds 4.5¢/KWh to the cost of power generation via supercritical pulverized coal. The advanced amine and chilled ammonia processes show similar overall economics, each adding 4.1¢/KWh.
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