Oxyfuel power plant with co-production of DME - A bridging technology

• Capture and storage of carbon dioxide (CCS) from fossil fuelled power plants is on its way to become animportant part of the pathway to a sustainable energy system, i.e. to serve as a bridging technology. Bridgingtechnologies using fossil fuels are required in order to meet emission targets (such as corresponding to limitingthe temperature increase to 2ºC in year 2100) at a cost which society seems willing to pay, considering securityof supply and maintaining regional competitiveness. More specifically, current estimates and analysis yield thatCCS has a large potential for reducing CO2 emissions at an avoidance cost of no more than 20 €/ton CO2avoided. However, in order to make the bridging system flexible and minimizing lock-in effects, it is importantto investigate integration possibilities between the power generation and the transportation sector and to see ifCCS can help the biomass market to grow. One capture technology for which this may be possible is the socalled oxyfuel process (or O2/CO2 recycle combustion process). An interesting possibility with this processwould be to burn the fuel in an oxygen lean mode (i.e. slightly under stoichiometric conditions), yielding aprocess between combustion and gasification with co-production of synthesis gas, which can be used tosynthesize different fuels or for power production. When the produced synthesis gas is used as fuel in thetransportation sector the carbon present in the gas is emitted to the atmosphere. In order to compensate for theseemissions a small fraction of biomass could be co-combusted in the proposed process, corresponding to theamount of carbon used for the synthesis gas production. At the same time co-combustion of biomass using alarge coal power plant is an efficient way to utilize biomass. In this way the flexibility of the processes isincreased and the expensive oxygen production for the oxyfuel process is minimized.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Energiteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Energy Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Oxyfuel

Simulation

Co-production

Co-combustion

Publication and Content Type

kon (subject category)

vet (subject category)