Siemens Power Generation - Fuel Gasifiers


 

 
It's so commonplace overseas, it's commercialized and standardized by credible folk like Siemens.
 
An excerpt:
 
"Gasification offers one of the cleanest and most flexible ways of converting coal and low-grade fuels into high-value products – electricity, chemicals or synthetic fuels. Combining gasification with advanced gas turbines in Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power plants results in a highly efficient technology for coal-based power generation. Gasification can offer environmentally friendly plants with lower emissions and the combination with readily available technology for CO₂ Capture and Storage (CCS)."
 
We were led to this info by this Siemens news release:
 
 
An excerpt:

"Gasification technology developed by Siemens has for the first time been selected for a project in Australia. Australian Energy Company (AEC) Ltd, an independent project development company, has acquired a license for two 500-megawatt coal gasifiers.

The two gasifiers are destined for a fertiliser plant in Latrobe Valley, Victoria, where they are to be used to convert lignite to ammonia. In an adjacent plant the ammonia will be used to produce the fertiliser urea. After commissioning in 2012, the plant will have an annual production capacity of approximately 1.2 million tonnes of urea."

We were led to that release by news reports of CTL fuel in the Latrobe Valley - i.e. Monash, etc.

In this case, the technology will be used to produce fertilizer from coal - in much the same way most of China's planned 88 CTL plants will devote the bulk of their production to fertilizers, plastics and chemicals.

Oh, note these gasifiers might be dedicated to fertilizer production, instead of fuel, because they'll be working with lignite as a raw material, much as the Dakota/Montana CTL projects - dedicated to liquid fuel - will be; lignite which is similar in many respects to the many piles of coal waste we have lying about WV - and to the Shcuylkill, PA. wastes they will be making fuel out of. 

Yep, Coal Can Do That.