Kemper Project

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Kemper Project
Kemper Project Construction.png
Kemper Project
Location of Kemper Project in Mississippi
Official nameKemper County energy facility
CountryUnited States
Location Kemper County, Mississippi
Coordinates 32°39′4.45″N88°45′32.5″W / 32.6512361°N 88.759028°W / 32.6512361; -88.759028
StatusOperational
Construction beganJune 3, 2010
Construction cost$6.7 billion [1]
Owner(s)
Thermal power station
Primary fuel Natural gas
Power generation
Units under const.582-megawatt
Nameplate capacity 582-megawatt electric
External links
Website Official website

The Kemper Project, also called the Kemper County energy facility or Plant Ratcliffe, is a natural gas-fired electrical generating station currently under construction in Kemper County, Mississippi. Mississippi Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, began construction of the plant in 2010. [3] The initial, coal-fired project was central to President Obama's Climate Plan, as it was to be based on "clean coal" [4] and was being considered for more support from the Congress and the incoming Trump Administration in late 2016. [5] If it had become operational with coal, the Kemper Project would have been a first-of-its-kind electricity plant to employ gasification and carbon capture technologies at this scale. [6]

Contents

Project management problems had been noted at the Kemper Project. [4] The plant was supposed to be in service by May 2014, at a cost of $2.4 billion. As of June 2017, the project was still not in service, and the cost had increased to $7.5 billion. [7] According to a Sierra Club analysis, Kemper is the most expensive power plant ever built, based on its generating capacity. [8] In June 2017, Southern Company and Mississippi Power announced that the Kemper project would switch to burning only natural gas in an effort to manage costs. [9]

Background

Kemper County is a small county in eastern Mississippi, roughly 30 miles north of Meridian. [10] Kemper County was chosen as the site for the plant to take advantage of local brown coal (lignite), an untapped natural resource, while providing geographic diversity to help balance the electric demand and strengthen electric reliability in Mississippi. [11] Mississippi Power is a large energy company based in Gulfport, providing energy for Gulfport, Biloxi, Hattiesburg, Meridian, Pascagoula, Columbia, Laurel, Waveland, Lucedale and Picayune. [12]

Mississippi Power intended the Kemper Project to produce cleaner energy through the use of integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) and carbon capture technologies, eliminating the majority of emissions normally emitted by a traditional coal plant. [13] A study conducted by Southern Company (parent of Mississippi Power) stated that the Kemper Project would have been "a large undertaking with high visibility and ... help set the stage for future coal-based power generation. [14]

On June 3, 2010, the Mississippi Public Service Commission certified the project and the ground-breaking ceremony took place. [14] Governor Haley Barbour was present. [15]

Timeline

  • August: Connection of the site's 230 kilovolt transmission lines
  • September: First firing of the plant's combustion turbine (CTs) achieved [16]
  • October: Combined cycle unit originally synchronized to the grid [17]
  • December: Final transmission line that will carry electricity was energized [18]
  • July: Pneumatic tests on gasifiers used to convert lignite to synthetic gas successfully tested [19]
  • July: Combined cycle unit responsible for generating electricity successfully tested [19]
  • August: Combined cycle unit in commercial operation and available to serve customers. Mississippi Power identified this milestone as the most significant to date. [20]
  • October: Delays postpone in-service date to first half of 2016, and increase estimated cost to $6.1 billion. [21]
  • December: 48 "steam blows" successfully completed. Steam blow is the process of blowing steam through pipes to ensure that they are clean, tight, and leak free. [22]
  • March: First fire of gasifiers successfully completed. The gasifiers, the centerpiece of the project, are designed to convert lignite coal to synthetic gas, or syngas, for use in power generation. [23]
  • May: The South Mississippi Electric Power Association decided not to purchase a 15 percent interest in the Kemper Project. [2]
  • September: Mississippi Power adjusted scheduled completion to a date after April 19, 2016. Because of this delay, the company will be required to pay back $234 million in investment tax credits to the Internal Revenue Service. [24]
  • March: Southern Co. reported to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that the cost of the Kemper Project had increased due to "repairs and modifications". The updated cost of the project was $6.6 billion. [25]
  • July: First of two gasifiers produces syngas. [26]
  • September: Second of two gasifiers produces syngas. [27]
  • October: Plant produces electricity using syngas in first of two gasifiers. [28]
  • March: Southern Co. discovered leaks that will cause it to miss scheduled mid-March completion of the project. [29]
  • June: Kemper power plant suspends coal gasification. [9] [ needs update ]

Lignite

Lignite is a soft, brownish-black coal that has the lowest energy content of any type of coal. It is also very dirty when burned. [31]

Lignite coal Lignite-coal.jpg
Lignite coal

According to the Lignite Energy Council about 79 percent of lignite coal is used to generate electricity, 13.5 percent to generate synthetic natural gas, and 7.5 percent to produce fertilizer products. Mississippi has an estimated five billion tons of coal reserves, consisting almost entirely of eocene lignite. The typical lignite beds that can be economically mined range from two to nine feet thick. Mississippi's lignite resources equal about 13 percent of total U.S. lignite reserves. [32]

The Kemper plant was expected to use about 375,000 tons of locally mined lignite per month or almost 185 million tons over the plant's expected 40-year life. [33] TRIG technology can utilize lignite, which is also a driving factor of the technology. [34]

Technology

Mississippi Power's Kemper plant was intended to be an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) facility, utilizing a technology known as "transport integrated gasification" (TRIG) to convert lignite coal—mined on the Kemper site—into syngas. [35] The natural gas would then have been used to power turbines to generate electricity. [36]

Mississippi Power stated that, by adding coal to its sources of power, it wished to add balance to its fuel-source choices, and be less reliant on any one form of energy. [37] There is an estimated four billion tons of lignite available to be used. [35]

If successful, the Kemper Project would have been the second TRIG facility in the United States. [35] Producing electricity from coal in this way produces tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide, and Mississippi Power hoped that 65 percent of the carbon dioxide would be captured and utilized in Enhanced Oil Recovery at neighboring oil fields. [35]

Transport integrated gasification technology

TRIG was developed by the Department of Energy, Southern Company and KBR at the Power Systems Development Facility in Wilsonville, Alabama. [38]

Southern Company stated that TRIG is a superior coal-gasification method with low impacts to the environment. TRIG technology can utilize lignite, which accounts for more than half of the world's coal reserves and drove global interest in the plant. [39] [40]

Power Magazine posted an article in April 2013, walking through the technology in technical detail. They say, "Commercial TRIG units can be designed to achieve high environmental standards for SO2, NOx, dust emissions, mercury, and CO2. Cost analysis based on extensive design has shown that the economic benefits offered by the air-blown transport gasifier relative to other systems are preserved even when CO2 capture and sequestration are incorporated into the design." [41]

Clean coal

If the carbon, capture and sequestration technology used at the Kemper Project had been successful, it would have been the United States’ first clean coal plant. [6] The need for this type of technology has come from decades of debate among energy leaders on how to minimize carbon dioxide emissions into the Earth's atmosphere. [42] In 2013, the United States' coal use was 40%, dominating all other energy sources. [43] Realizing the demand for coal was not decreasing, Mississippi Power, Southern Company, KBR, and the Department of Energy invested in technology to capture emissions from burning fossil fuels. [44] The investing bodies argued the type of clean coal technology they claim are found at the Kemper Project will be adopted worldwide; bringing profits back to Mississippi customers. [45]

Environmentalists state that clean coal is not a possibility, as some emissions will still be emitted into the atmosphere. [46]

Carbon capture and sequestration

Carbon capture and sequestration, also referred to as carbon capture and storage (CCS), is a technology that can capture up to 90% of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. [47] CCS uses a combination of technologies to capture the CO2 released in the combustion process, transport it to a suitable storage location and finally store it (typically deep underground) where it cannot enter the atmosphere and thus contribute to climate change. CO2 sequestration options include saline formations and oil wells, where captured CO2 can be utilized in enhanced oil recovery. [48]

Due to rising global demand for energy, the consumption of fossil fuels is expected to rise until 2035, leading to greater CO2 emissions. [49]

Carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery

Carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery or CO2-EOR increases the amount of oil recovered from an underground oil reservoir. By pumping CO2 into an oil reservoir, previously unrecoverable oil is pushed up to where the oil can be reached. The US Department of Energy states that this can produce an additional 30 to 60 percent of the original amount of recoverable oil. [50] Once all of the recoverable oil has been reached, the depleted reservoir can act as a storage site for the CO2. [51]

The Kemper Plant was planned to have 60 miles of pipeline to carry its captured CO2 to neighboring oil reserves for enhanced oil recovery. [14] Each year, the plant will capture 3 million tons of CO2. [14] In March 2014, The Guardian published that the diverted CO2 will be pumped into two Mississippi companies for use in enhanced oil recovery. [52]

Research and development

The Department of Energy, the Southern Company, and construction management firm KBR (Kellogg, Brown & Root) joined at the Power Systems Development Facility (PSDF) in Wilsonville, Alabama to develop a process known as Transport Integrated Gasification (TRIG). This development started in 1996, and the gasifier design of Southern Company's Kemper Coal Plant is based on this specific research and development. The technology is most cost-effective when using low-heat content, high moisture, or high-ash content coals, including lignite. [53]

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, coal gasification offers one of the most versatile and clean ways to convert coal into electricity, hydrogen, and other valuable energy products. Rather than burning coal directly, gasification (a thermo-chemical process) breaks down coal into its basic chemical constituents. [54]

The technology of processing coal to gas on a commercial scale has been in development since the 1970s, and it has been in use since the mid-1980s. [55]

The TRIG technology, derived from fluidized catalytic cracking units used in the petrochemical industry, uses a pressurized, circulating fluidized bed unit. The transport gasification system features higher efficiencies and is capable of processing low-rank coals, such as lignite. [56] Additionally, commercial TRIG units can be designed to achieve high environmental standards for sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, dust emissions, mercury, and carbon dioxide. Cost analysis based on the Kemper Coal Plant's design has shown that the economic benefits offered by the air-blown transport gasifier, relative to other systems, are preserved even when carbon dioxide capture and sequestration methodologies are incorporated into the design. [57]

The largest transport gasifier built to date commenced operation in 1996 at Southern Company's PSDF. The gasifier and auxiliary equipment at the site were sized to provide reliable data for confident scale-up to commercial scale. The demonstration unit proved easy to operate and control, achieving more than 15,600 hours of gasification. The demonstration-scale gasifier successfully gasified high-moisture lignite from the Red Hills Mine in Mississippi in four separate test campaigns for more than 2,300 hours of operations. On lignite, the transport gasifier operated smoothly over a range of conditions, confirming the gasifier design for Kemper County. [57]

In February 2015, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled Mississippi Power must refund 186,000 South Mississippi ratepayers for rate increases related to the Kemper Project. [58] These fees are derived from Mississippi's Baseload Act, allowing Mississippi Power to charge ratepayers for powerplants under construction.

In May 2016, Southern Company and its subsidiary Mississippi Power announced they were being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission related to overruns at the Kemper Project. [59] The project had been repeatedly delayed and costs increased from $2.88 billion to $6.7 billion. [1]

In June 2016, Mississippi Power was sued by Treetop Midstream Services over the cancellation of a contract to receive carbon dioxide from the Kemper Project as part of the carbon capture and storage design. [60] Treetop had contracted to buy carbon dioxide from the Kemper plant and had built a pipeline in preparation to receive the gas. Treetop alleged Mississippi Power had fraudulently and "intentionally misrepresenting and concealing the start date" for the Kemper Project, though Mississippi Power stated the suit was without merit.

The company was also found to have unlawfully fired a whistle-blower who had criticized alleged false statements by company management. [61]

Environmental controversies

Environmental groups argue that the project is an expensive undertaking that offers only limited benefits. In 2011, the Sierra Club and Bridge the Gulf organizations spearheaded the effort to lobby the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deny the required wetland permits, which Mississippi Company would have to fill to build the plant's facilities. [62]

The Mississippi Chapter of the Sierra Club is arguing that the location where the facilities are planned to be built needs to be left alone. They argue that the position of the facilities on a wetland will pollute the environment with tainted water runoff. [63] Also, they believe that the extraction of the lignite will erode the environment and force the relocation of many Mississippians. Mitigation construction activities included the enhancement of 31 acres of wetlands, 105 acres of riparian buffer, and approximately 3,000 linear feet of stream channel. [64] [65] In an agreement with the city of Meridian, the plant is using city wastewater as its only water source. [66] Additionally, the Kemper Project site is a "zero" liquid discharge facility. Therefore, no processed water from the plant is discharged into rivers, creeks or streams. [67]

Political controversies

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour has praised the planned project's potential of placing Mississippi in national prominence, mostly because it would be the first U.S. commercial-scale power plant to capture carbon. [68] Additionally, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich expressed his support for the Kemper Project, stating that in his opinion it had the potential to be the single most important experiment in developing electricity in the world today. Gingrich's closing words of encouragement for the Kemper Project and the state of Mississippi: "You have a chance to be a remarkable leader in the country in the next 10 to 20 years." [69]

The Kemper Project received an estimated $270 million in Department of Energy funds after the Southern Company's plan for the proposed Orlando Gasification Project bunked when Florida decided the state was not interested in more coal plants. [68] These transferred funds were moved from Florida to Mississippi in December 2008, after Haley Barbour's Washington D.C. lobbying firm, the BGR Group, pushed for the reallocation. [68] Southern Company has been a BGR client since 1999, having spent a total of $2.6 million with the firm, according to federal lobbying disclosure documents. [68] Southern Company alleges that Governor Barbour did not help them receive any additional funding at all. [68] The BGR Group website has deleted all connections with Southern Company from its website. [70]

Mississippi state law was changed to permit charging ratepayers for construction of the facility. [71] In 2017 the Mississippi Public Service Commission recommended the facility burn natural gas rather than syngas from coal to avoid the risk of further consumer rate increases. [9]

The plant missed all its targets and plans for "clean coal" generation were abandoned in July 2017. The plant is expected to go ahead burning natural gas only. [72] [73]

See also

Related Research Articles

Southern Company is an American gas and electric utility holding company based in the southern United States. It is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with executive offices also located in Birmingham, Alabama. The company is the second largest utility company in the U.S. in terms of customer base, as of 2021. Through its subsidiaries it serves 9 million gas and electric utility customers in 6 states. Southern Company's regulated regional electric utilities serve a 120,000-square-mile (310,000 km2) territory with 27,000 miles (43,000 km) of distribution lines.

Syngas, or synthesis gas, is a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, in various ratios. The gas often contains some carbon dioxide and methane. It is principally used for producing ammonia or methanol. Syngas is combustible and can be used as a fuel. Historically, it has been used as a replacement for gasoline, when gasoline supply has been limited; for example, wood gas was used to power cars in Europe during WWII.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gasification</span> Form of energy conversion

Gasification is a process that converts biomass- or fossil fuel-based carbonaceous materials into gases, including as the largest fractions: nitrogen (N2), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen (H2), and carbon dioxide (CO2). This is achieved by reacting the feedstock material at high temperatures (typically >700 °C), without combustion, via controlling the amount of oxygen and/or steam present in the reaction. The resulting gas mixture is called syngas (from synthesis gas) or producer gas and is itself a fuel due to the flammability of the H2 and CO of which the gas is largely composed. Power can be derived from the subsequent combustion of the resultant gas, and is considered to be a source of renewable energy if the gasified compounds were obtained from biomass feedstock.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FutureGen</span> Cancelled coal power station project

FutureGen was a project to demonstrate capture and sequestration of waste carbon dioxide from a coal-fired electrical generating station. The project (renamed FutureGen 2.0) was retrofitting a shuttered coal-fired power plant in Meredosia, Illinois, with oxy-combustion generators. The waste CO2 would be piped approximately 30 miles (48 km) to be sequestered in underground saline formations. FutureGen was a partnership between the United States government and an alliance of primarily coal-related corporations. Costs were estimated at US$1.65 billion, with $1.0 billion provided by the Federal Government.

In industrial chemistry, coal gasification is the process of producing syngas—a mixture consisting primarily of carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen, carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapour —from coal and water, air and/or oxygen.

Coal liquefaction is a process of converting coal into liquid hydrocarbons: liquid fuels and petrochemicals. This process is often known as "Coal to X" or "Carbon to X", where X can be many different hydrocarbon-based products. However, the most common process chain is "Coal to Liquid Fuels" (CTL).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coal pollution mitigation</span> Attempts to mitigate the health and environmental impact of coal

Coal Pollution Mitigation, sometimes also known as Clean Coal, is a series of systems and technologies that seek to mitigate health and environmental impact of coal; in particular air pollution from coal-fired power stations, and from coal burnt by heavy industry. Clean Coal primarily focuses on removing sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx), critical gasses contributing to the formation of acid rain; and particulates which cause visible air pollution, illness, and premature deaths. It also reduces fly ash and reduces emissions of radioactive materials. Mercury emissions can be reduced up to 95%. Capturing carbon dioxide emissions from coal is also being pursued.

Underground coal gasification (UCG) is an industrial process which converts coal into product gas. UCG is an in-situ gasification process, carried out in non-mined coal seams using injection of oxidants and steam. The product gas is brought to the surface through production wells drilled from the surface.

Enhanced oil recovery, also called tertiary recovery, is the extraction of crude oil from an oil field that cannot be extracted otherwise. Although the primary and secondary recovery techniques rely on the pressure differential between the surface and the underground well, enhanced oil recovery functions by altering the chemical composition of the oil itself in order to make it easier to extract. EOR can extract 30% to 60% or more of a reservoir's oil, compared to 20% to 40% using primary and secondary recovery. According to the US Department of Energy, carbon dioxide and water are injected along with one of three EOR techniques: thermal injection, gas injection, and chemical injection. More advanced, speculative EOR techniques are sometimes called quaternary recovery.

An integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) is a technology using a high pressure gasifier to turn coal and other carbon based fuels into pressurized gas—synthesis gas (syngas). It can then remove impurities from the syngas prior to the electricity generation cycle. Some of these pollutants, such as sulfur, can be turned into re-usable byproducts through the Claus process. This results in lower emissions of sulfur dioxide, particulates, mercury, and in some cases carbon dioxide. With additional process equipment, a water-gas shift reaction can increase gasification efficiency and reduce carbon monoxide emissions by converting it to carbon dioxide. The resulting carbon dioxide from the shift reaction can be separated, compressed, and stored through sequestration. Excess heat from the primary combustion and syngas fired generation is then passed to a steam cycle, similar to a combined cycle gas turbine. This process results in improved thermodynamic efficiency, compared to conventional pulverized coal combustion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mississippi Power</span> Investor-owned electric utility

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Edwardsport Power Station is a 618 MW Integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) coal based power plant in Vigo Township, Knox County, near the town of Edwardsport, Indiana. The integrated gasification combined cycle power plant construction started in June 2008 by Duke Energy near the site of an older 160 MW coal-fired electrical power plant, which was decommissioned in 2010.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a technology that can capture carbon dioxide CO2 emissions produced from fossil fuels in electricity, industrial processes which prevents CO2 from entering the atmosphere. Carbon capture and storage is also used to sequester CO2 filtered out of natural gas from certain natural gas fields. While typically the CO2 has no value after being stored, Enhanced Oil Recovery uses CO2 to increase yield from declining oil fields.

The Kędzierzyn Zero-Emission Power and Chemical Complex was a proposed facility in Kędzierzyn-Koźle, Poland. It was planned to combine the functions of power and heat generation with chemical production and carbon capture and storage. The project was proposed by a consortium of chemicals producers, including Zakłady Azotowe Kędzierzyn and the electricity company Południowy Koncern Energetyczny. The facility would have produced synthesis gas by gasification of hard coal. Gas produced by the plant would have been used for power and heat generation, or for the production of other chemicals. The carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by this plant would have been stored in natural geological reservoirs, or used as a raw material for the production of synthesis fuels, fertilizers or plastics.

Eston Grange Power Station was a proposed power station to be situated near to Eston in Redcar and Cleveland. If built, it would have been the UK's first pre-combustion carbon capture and storage (CCS) plant. The station could have generated up to 850 megawatts of electricity, enough to supply around a million people with electricity. The station would use standard oil refinery technology to turn gasified coal into hydrogen and carbon dioxide.

The Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP) was a project developed by Summit Power Group, Inc intended to build of the world’s first Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) clean-coal power plant, a type of carbon capture and storage facility, located near Odessa, Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hydrogen Energy California</span>

Hydrogen Energy California (HECA) was an alternative energy, hydrogen power project in development with support from the U.S. Department of Energy in Kern County, California.

Coal gasification is a process whereby a hydrocarbon feedstock (coal) is converted into gaseous components by applying heat under pressure in the presence of steam. Rather than burning, most of the carbon-containing feedstock is broken apart by chemical reactions that produce "syngas." Syngas is primarily hydrogen and carbon monoxide, but the exact composition can vary. In Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) systems, the syngas is cleaned and burned as fuel in a combustion turbine which then drives an electric generator. Exhaust heat from the combustion turbine is recovered and used to create steam for a steam turbine-generator. The use of these two types of turbines in combination is one reason why gasification-based power systems can achieve high power generation efficiencies. Currently, commercially available gasification-based systems can operate at around 40% efficiencies. Syngas, however, emits more greenhouse gases than natural gas, and almost twice as much carbon as a coal plant. Coal gasification is also water-intensive.

Lower-temperature fuel cell types such as the proton exchange membrane fuel cell, phosphoric acid fuel cell, and alkaline fuel cell require pure hydrogen as fuel, typically produced from external reforming of natural gas. However, fuels cells operating at high temperature such as the solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) are not poisoned by carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, and in fact can accept hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, steam, and methane mixtures as fuel directly, because of their internal shift and reforming capabilities. This opens up the possibility of efficient fuel cell-based power cycles consuming solid fuels such as coal and biomass, the gasification of which results in syngas containing mostly hydrogen, carbon monoxide and methane which can be cleaned and fed directly to the SOFCs without the added cost and complexity of methane reforming, water gas shifting and hydrogen separation operations which would otherwise be needed to isolate pure hydrogen as fuel. A power cycle based on gasification of solid fuel and SOFCs is called an Integrated Gasification Fuel Cell (IGFC) cycle; the IGFC power plant is analogous to an integrated gasification combined cycle power plant, but with the gas turbine power generation unit replaced with a fuel cell power generation unit. By taking advantage of intrinsically high energy efficiency of SOFCs and process integration, exceptionally high power plant efficiencies are possible. Furthermore, SOFCs in the IGFC cycle can be operated so as to isolate a carbon dioxide-rich anodic exhaust stream, allowing efficient carbon capture to address greenhouse gas emissions concerns of coal-based power generation.

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