WASHINGTON, March 20 (UPI) -- A new gasification technology, HyMelt, is nearing commercialization as the EnviRes LLC project gets under way in Kentucky.
With the release of the recent Massachusetts Institute of Technology study and response from Congress pointing toward cleaner-burning coal and carbon capture and storage, new technologies, like HyMelt will likely be considered.
Traditional gasification technology uses a gas turbine and steam power. More recent technologies include Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle, U-GAS and now HyMelt, which EnviRes, the company that trademarked HyMelt, claims is more efficient.
IGCC technology converts coal to gas, and then removes impurities from the coal gas before it is combusted. This results in lower emissions of sulfur dioxide, particulates and mercury.
U-GAS technology, commercialized by Synthesis Energy Systems, allows clean conversion of low-value feedstock into high-value commodity products. It's a part of the IGCC process, as is HyMelt. An SES U-GAS plant is under construction in Shandong, China that will take waste coal and supply clean syngas to a methanol chemical plant.
The HyMelt technology uses a molten iron reactor to gasify a range of feedstocks including coal, petroleum coke, biomass and other biowastes. The molten iron transfers heat more directly and quickly than steam, allowing for smaller reactors and lower building costs.
Coal plants using these new technologies are typically more expensive to build and operate than traditional pulverized coal-fired power plants. Using these technologies makes the carbon dioxide byproduct more concentrated and easier and cheaper to sequester.
EnviRes says its new gasification process will make coal to liquids and biomass to liquids more affordable. Since it doesn't use natural gas, it would also lessen the demand and, in turn, the price of natural gas if and when it is successfully commercialized.
Though opponents of coal claim there is no such thing as clean coal, the amount of U.S. reserves and the increasing demand for affordable electricity leave few options. According to the recent MIT study, coal can be part of the solution, so long as a way to burn it cleanly and capture and safely store carbon dioxide can be found.
New coal gasification technologies, as one of the steps in turning coal into electricity or fuel, are a part of the process to commercialize carbon capture and storage and make it more affordable and efficient.
EnviRes said HyMelt can be slightly modified and used in a number of other processes, including production of hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, ethanol, IGCC electricity, carbon dioxide for streaming in enhanced oil recovery, diesel and jet fuel from the Fischer-Tropsch process, and natural gas substitutes.
James Mayer, a business development advisor for EnviRes, said that with grants from the Department of Energy and Illinois and Kentucky over the last 10 years, several small HyMelt reactors are being engineered and permitted in the first commercial project. The exact location and more details will most likely be available over the next six months, Mayer said.
"It makes a lot less carbon dioxide and doesn't use as much oxygen as opposed to conventional gasifiers," Mayer said. "It (HyMelt) will drop the cost in most areas greatly and allow potential to develop gasification in other areas like biomass gasification."
Part of the problem is high cost, he said, and that the scale for most gasification plants is so large the prices are not economical.
"I think the age of gasification is here," Mayer said, "Everyone's looking at carbon dioxide as a pollutant but it can be used in industrial useful ways, like enhanced oil recovery, enhanced agricultural growth, natural gas production and enhanced coal bed methane."
Mayer's mission is to add to the passive sequestration work that's being done on carbon capture and storage and promote carbon capture application and storage through new markets for carbon dioxide. He pointed out the Permine Bases of West Texas where there's a shortage of carbon dioxide being bought at up to $20 per ton.
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