Australia Clean Coal: Carbon Capture Technology

By: EconomyWatch   Date: 30 April 2010

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Australian coal

Coal has always been the main fuel for Australian power plants as part of the process of generating electricity. Coal helps generate sufficient electricity to meet over 80% of the country’s current energy requirements.

 

 

Australia's Carbon Capture Technology

Australia has recently been endeavoring to capture a large share of the harmful carbon dioxide emitted by its coal power plants, thereby mitigating highly toxic, flue gases from the surrounding atmosphere.

Typically, coal is burnt at high temperatures in most power plants. This leads to the production of steam, which is then sent to the turbine, the rotation of which produces electricity. The gases emitted by the coal, containing almost 15-20% of carbon dioxide, are routed back to the atmosphere.

Recently, the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization (CSIRO) established a post-combustion capture (PCC) pilot plant at the Loy Yang Power Station near Victoria’s Latrobe Valley. This project is part of the Latrobe Valley Post Combustion Capture Project. It is meant to be built under the collaboration of Loy Yang Power, International Power Hazlewood, the Government and researchers from CSIRO’s flagship CO2CRC. This project gained ample support from the Victorian Government as well as aid of $2.5 million, under its Energy Technology Innovation Strategy.

The post-combustion capture technology proved to be vital for the elimination of carbon dioxide from the flue gases. Thereby, the surrounding environment became cleaner. The PCC system can easily be retrofitted within the existing power plants sans any major changes in the design. The CSIRO has designed a 10.5 meter high pilot, which is basically a post-combustion carbon capture plant. It comes with the capability of capturing 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year from the flue gases of power stations.

The most common method of capturing carbon dioxide from flue gases requires passing the gas through amine solvents. This absorbs about 85% of the carbon dioxide, releasing gas that is almost 100% pure nitrogen into the atmosphere.

Other Australian Clean Coal Approaches

Another carbon capturing process that is still in its infancy stage of development is called the calcium cycle capture. In this highly innovative carbon capturing process, carbon dioxide is captured with the help of quicklime. This leads to the formation of limestone. The limestone is then heated to an extent at which carbon dioxide content is completely eliminated and the residue of limestone is then recycled.

As with every novel technology, both advantages and disadvantages pervade the process of carbon capturing. The carbon capture system is associated with high operating costs and limited ability for large scale operation. On the positive side, this process offers feasibility of design, capability of retrofitting within existing power plant design and high reliability.


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