Carbon Capture & Storage
CRN Studies Carbon Dioxide Uses
Research is under way on how to convert carbon dioxide from coal-based power plants into products that co-ops and consumer-members can use.
NRECA’s Cooperative Research Network, through its alliance with the Idaho National Laboratory, has learned of a high temperature steam electrolysis system now in development.
“We can feed in high temperature steam, CO2 which would be captured from a coal-based power plant, add electricity which would come from coal and/or renewables or nuclear, and the resultant output would be synthetic gas as well as oxygen,” said Dale Bradshaw, a CRN senior program consultant.
The synthetic gas—consisting of hydrogen and carbon monoxide—can then be converted into products that consumer-members need, including gasoline, diesel fuel, chemicals, plastics and fertilizers.
“This would eventually provide a revenue stream that would potentially offset most, if not all, of the costs associated with the CO2 removal,” Bradshaw told the recent CRN Technology Summit Web conference. “This has the potential to help control the cost of electricity produced from coal in the future.”
Bradshaw said CRN is looking at ways to treat carbon dioxide not as a waste product, but as a product that can be utilized “for the benefit of the bottom line of all G&Ts and co-ops, but also for our [members].”
Tags: Carbon Capture and Storage, Cooperative Research Network, Emerging Technologies