Currently and for the near future, coal provides a substantial portion of the world's supply of electric energy. Pollution from coal-fired power plants is a pressing environmental problem and the emission of carbon dioxide is of increasing concern in regard to global warming.
Coal is a desirable fuel for electric power generation especially if power plants are designed to give zero atmospheric emissions. The world has an abundant supply of energy in coal. In 1996, coal provided approximately 24% of the world's total energy supply and 38.4% of the world's electricity generation. In comparison, in 1999 the electricity production in the United States was 10.1 ExaWh (10.1×1018 Wh), while electricity production from coal was 5.67 ExaWh, or 56% of the total electricity production. The United States has 507.8 billion metric ton of demonstrated coal reserves while the consumption in the year 2000 was 1.097 billion metric tons. Hence, the United States has a coal supply of more than 460 years based on today's consumption. With a 1.5% annual growth in energy use, the United States still would have more than 100 years of energy supply in coal. Coal is expected to remain a long-term candidate for electric energy production both in the United States and in the world. Coal and other heavy liquid/solid fuels require preprocessing prior to combustion in the gas generator. The preprocessing of these fuels involves conversion to syngas in oxygen-blown gasifiers and subsequent cleansing of particulates (ash and carbon), sulfur compounds (H2S and COS), and some of the other impurities (e.g., nitrogen, chlorine, volatile metals) prior to introduction into the gas generator. Although gasification and gas cleanup moderately increase plant capital costs, this technology is well established and currently is practiced on a large scale. Oxygen is used to combust the fuel rather than air as in conventional systems thereby eliminating the formation of NOX and the large volume of noncondensible exhaust gas. The oxygen is obtained from air via a number of processes, including commercially available cryogenic air separation units (ASU). Advanced air separation technologies such as those based on ion transfer membranes (ITM) hold promise for lowering the cost of oxygen and therefore are expected to enhance the economics of future oxygen using power generation systems.
The invention starts with oxygen blown gasification of coal. The resulting gaseous syngas is cleaned of corrosive components and burned with oxygen in the presence of recycled water in a gas generator. The combustion produces a drive gas composed almost entirely of steam and carbon dioxide. This gas drives multiple turbines/electric generators to produce electricity. The turbine discharge gases pass to a condenser where water is captured as liquid and gaseous carbon dioxide is pumped from the system. The carbon dioxide can be economically conditioned for enhanced recovery of oil or coal bed methane, or for sequestration in a subterranean formation.
Accordingly, a primary object of the present invention is to provide a power generation system which combusts a syngas produced from gasification of coal, biomass, or other fuel sources with oxygen to produce combustion products including carbon dioxide and water and to generate power without atmospheric emissions.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a power generation system which combusts a syngas fuel, such as coal syngas, with oxygen to produce power and which collects carbon dioxide in a form which can be sold as a byproduct or sequestered out of the atmosphere.
Another object of the present invention is to generate power from combustion of a hydrocarbon fuel with high efficiency and without any atmospheric emissions.
Other further objects of the present invention will become apparent from a careful reading of the included drawing figures, the claims and detailed description of the invention.
A simplified schematic diagram of the basic process of the various embodiments of this invention is shown in
Most of the water from the condenser is heated and returned to the gas generator to reduce the temperature of the combustion products in the gas generator to a temperature that is acceptable to the turbines. Excess water resulting from the combustion process is removed from the system.
Gaseous CO2 leaving the condenser passes to a recovery system. Residual moisture is removed from the CO2 in the recovery system where it is also cooled and compressed to conditions necessary either for sequestration into a subterranean formation, or for further use. For example, the CO2 can be used in enhanced oil recovery operations, injected into coal seams to recover coal bed methane, or processed into saleable products if local markets exist. With this process, atmospheric emissions of controlled pollutants and greenhouse gases are totally eliminated. The gas generator shown in
The gas generator consists of an injector section, a combustor section, and a number of cooldown sections. These sections embody several aerospace derived design features to control mixture ratios, gas temperatures, gas pressures, and combustion reaction times. For instance, bonded photo-etched platelet designs are utilized to accomplish metering, mixing, and cooling functions. The injector can optionally premix the gaseous reactants (syngas and oxygen) with recycled water from the plant in precise ratios and incorporate an integral face-cooling feature. The combustor section and the cooldown sections are regeneratively cooled with recycled water. The amount of water injected into the combustor and into each cooldown section is controlled to produce specific combustion temperatures. Temperatures and residence times in those sections are selected based on reaction kinetics so that daughter species produced in the combustion process have time to recombine.
For a 400 MWe (Mega Watt electrical output) plant, three gas generators, each with a thermal output of 400 MWt (Mega Watt thermal output), would be used. The three gas generators would be installed in parallel. Two of the gas generators would drive the turbines of the plant while the third gas generator would provide a spare during service of the other units. A gas generator with 400 MWt thermal output operating at a pressure of 10.3 MPa has an internal diameter of 0.46 m and a length of 1.88 m.
In
A gasifier converts coal to syngas at a rate of 66.55 kg/sec, while a 51.5 MWe cryogenic air separation plant produces oxygen for both the gasifier and the gas generator. Two gas streams (syngas and oxygen) enter the gas generator at a pressure of 17.24 MPa where they are joined by 139.35 kg/sec of steam.
The syngas from the gasification plant is combusted with oxygen in the gas generator. The combustion products are cooled in steps by adding water until the gas temperature is at the allowable high-temperature turbine inlet temperature of 922∫K to 1256∫K. The turbine drive gas leaving the high pressure turbine is preferably reheated by a reheater before it enters the intermediate-pressure turbine.
The intermediate-pressure turbine exhaust gases are delivered to the low pressure turbine. The exhaust from the low-pressure turbine is cooled in a feed water heater to the desired condenser inlet temperature. The heated feed water is delivered to the gas generator for use as a coolant to reduce the temperature of the turbine drive gas as described above.
The turbine exhaust gases which, by weight, contain approximately 66.2% steam, 33.3% CO2 and 0.45% nitrogen, oxygen and other non-condensables are cooled in the condenser with 306∫K cooling water. In the condenser, the steam condenses at approximately 311∫K and at 0.014 MPa. There is still moisture in the CO2 stream that does not separate without compression and further cooling.
The mixture of approximately 75% CO2 and 25% steam, by weight, is then pumped from the condenser using centrifugal compressors and is cooled in stages to remove the remaining water prior to liquefying the dry CO2 in a refrigeration plant. A small amount of gaseous nitrogen, oxygen and non condensables separate from the CO2 and are returned to the air separation plant. The liquefied CO2 is then pumped to a pressure typically ranging from 13.8 to 34.5 MPa for sequestration into subterranean oil strata, coal seams, or aquifers.
In
An advantage of the technology of this invention over combined cycle technology is the lower cost to condition CO2 for sequestration of US$9.3/metric ton versus US$28.4/metric ton. This lower CO2 conditioning cost could provide additional revenue for these plants where the CO2 could be used for enhanced oil or coal bed methane recovery, or could be sold as an industrial by product.
In the alternative embodiment of
In periods where peak electricity demand exists, an additional power turbine (either a Rankine cycle steam turbine or turbines, or a Brayton cycle power generation system) would be brought into operation. Liquid oxygen from the liquid oxygen storage tank and potentially additionally gaseous oxygen from the air separation unit would be utilized as the oxidizer for a gas generator in this peak load portion of the overall power generation system. When peak load conditions pass, the peak load turbine would be shut down and the air separation unit would again store excess liquid oxygen.
An additional option of the system of
With this system of
The various components of the system of
The system of
This disclosure is provided to reveal a preferred embodiment of the invention and a best mode for practicing the invention. Having thus described the invention in this way, it should be apparent that various different modifications can be made to the preferred embodiment without departing from the scope and spirit of this disclosure. When structures are identified as a means to perform a function, the identification is intended to include all structures which can perform the function specified.
This application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/304,290, filed on Nov. 25, 2002. This application claims benefit under Title 35, United States Code §119(e) of U.S. Provisional Application Nos. 60/336,648, 60/336,649, 60/336,653 and 60/336,673 filed on Dec. 3, 2001. This application also incorporates by reference the entire contents of U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,709,077, 6,206,684, 6,247,316, 6,637,183 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/155,932, having a filing date of May 24, 2002.
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
60336648 | Dec 2001 | US | |
60336649 | Dec 2001 | US | |
60336653 | Dec 2001 | US | |
60336673 | Dec 2001 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
Parent | 10304290 | Nov 2002 | US |
Child | 11048294 | Jan 2005 | US |