Rodney John Allam, MBE (born 1940 in St Helens, Lancashire) [1] is an English chemical engineer and fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers who is credited with inventions related to power generation, notably the Allam power cycle, which is a generation process for fossil fuels, with integrated carbon dioxide capture. [2] [3] [4]
Allam was employed by Air Products & Chemicals for 44 years, most recently as Director of Technology Development. In 2004, he was appointed member of the Order of the British Empire for services to the environment. He has also been a visiting professor at the Imperial College of Science and Technology and a lead author of the IPCC special report on carbon dioxide capture and storage, released in 2005. In 2007, the IPCC, along with Al Gore, was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
His work has included new processes and equipment for production of gases and cryogenic liquids, such as oxygen, nitrogen, argon, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen and helium. Several of these gases are generally produced through air separation, which is also a necessary step in the practical application of the Allam cycle, in which gaseous fossil fuels, for example natural gas or gasified coal, are combusted with pure oxygen. A 50 MW demonstration plant being built in Texas is expected to start operating in 2017. [3] [8] [9] [10] [11]
In 2012, Allam was awarded the Global Energy Prize, for his work on processes and power generation, along with Russian scientists Valery Kostuk and Boris Katorgin. As of January 2017 [update] , he is chairman of the international award committee for the prize. [2] [7] [8] [12]
As of November 2016 [update] , Allam works for 8 Rivers Capital, with among other things the commercialisation of the Allam cycle. [3] [13] [14]
Steelmaking is the process of producing steel from iron ore and/or scrap. In steelmaking, impurities such as nitrogen, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur and excess carbon are removed from the sourced iron, and alloying elements such as manganese, nickel, chromium, carbon and vanadium are added to produce different grades of steel. Limiting dissolved gases such as nitrogen and oxygen and entrained impurities in the steel is also important to ensure the quality of the products cast from the liquid steel.
The use of energy is considered sustainable if it meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations. Definitions of sustainable energy typically include environmental aspects such as greenhouse gas emissions, and social and economic aspects such as energy poverty. Renewable energy sources such as wind, hydroelectric power, solar, and geothermal energy are generally far more sustainable than fossil fuel sources. However, some renewable energy projects, such as the clearing of forests to produce biofuels, can cause severe environmental damage. The role of non-renewable energy sources has been controversial. Nuclear power is a low-carbon source and has a safety record comparable to wind and solar, but its sustainability has been debated because of concerns about nuclear proliferation, radioactive waste and accidents. Switching from coal to natural gas has environmental benefits but may lead to a delay in switching to more sustainable options. Carbon capture and storage technology can be built into power plants to remove their carbon dioxide emissions, but is expensive and has seldom been implemented.
A fossil fuel power station is a thermal power station which burns a fossil fuel, such as coal or natural gas, to produce electricity. Fossil fuel power stations have machinery to convert the heat energy of combustion into mechanical energy, which then operates an electrical generator. The prime mover may be a steam turbine, a gas turbine or, in small plants, a reciprocating gas engine. All plants use the energy extracted from expanding gas, either steam or combustion gases. Although different energy conversion methods exist, all thermal power station conversion methods have efficiency limited by the Carnot efficiency and therefore produce waste heat.
Climate change mitigation consists of actions to limit global warming and its related effects. This involves reductions in human emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) as well as activities that reduce their concentration in the atmosphere. It is one of the ways to respond to climate change, along with adaptation.
Coal pollution mitigation, sometimes called clean coal, is a series of systems and technologies that seek to mitigate the health and environmental impact of coal; in particular air pollution from coal-fired power stations, and from coal burnt by heavy industry.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) or carbon capture and sequestration is the process of capturing carbon dioxide before it enters the atmosphere, transporting it, and storing it for centuries or millennia. Usually the CO
2 is captured from large point sources, such as a chemical plant or biomass power plant, and then stored in an underground geological formation. The aim is to prevent the release of CO
2 from heavy industry with the intent of mitigating the effects of climate change. Although CO
2 has been injected into geological formations for several decades for various purposes, including enhanced oil recovery, the long-term storage of CO
2 is a relatively new concept. Carbon capture and utilization (CCU) and CCS are sometimes discussed collectively as carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration (CCUS). This is because CCS is a relatively expensive process yielding a product with an intrinsic low value. Hence, carbon capture makes economically more sense when being combined with a utilization process where the cheap CO
2 can be used to produce high-value chemicals to offset the high costs of capture operations.
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 power 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.
Oxy-fuel combustion is the process of burning a fuel using pure oxygen, or a mixture of oxygen and recirculated flue gas, instead of air. Since the nitrogen component of air is not heated, fuel consumption is reduced, and higher flame temperatures are possible. Historically, the primary use of oxy-fuel combustion has been in welding and cutting of metals, especially steel, since oxy-fuel allows for higher flame temperatures than can be achieved with an air-fuel flame. It has also received a lot of attention in recent decades as a potential carbon capture and storage technology.
The Virgin Earth Challenge was a competition offering a $25 million prize for whoever could demonstrate a commercially viable design which results in the permanent removal of greenhouse gases out of the Earth's atmosphere to contribute materially in global warming avoidance. The prize was conceived by Richard Branson, and was announced in London on 9 February 2007 by Branson and former US Vice President Al Gore. However, the prize was never awarded. In 2019, Virgin quietly took the prize website offline, after keeping 11 finalists suspended in expectation for 8 years. Al Gore had withdrawn from the jury earlier and commented that "He was not part of the decision to discontinue the contest.".
A carbon dioxide scrubber is a piece of equipment that absorbs carbon dioxide (CO2). It is used to treat exhaust gases from industrial plants or from exhaled air in life support systems such as rebreathers or in spacecraft, submersible craft or airtight chambers. Carbon dioxide scrubbers are also used in controlled atmosphere (CA) storage. They have also been researched for carbon capture and storage as a means of combating global warming.
Low-carbon power is electricity produced with substantially lower greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fossil fuel power generation. The energy transition to low-carbon power is one of the most important actions required to limit climate change. Power sector emissions may have peaked in 2018. During the first six months of 2020, scientists observed a 8.8% decrease in global CO2 emissions relative to 2019 due to COVID-19 lockdown measures. The two main sources of the decrease in emissions included ground transportation (40%) and the power sector (22%). This event is the largest absolute decrease in CO2 emissions in history, but emphasizes that low-carbon power "must be based on structural and transformational changes in energy-production systems".
The milestones for carbon capture and storage show the lack of commercial scale development and implementation of CCS over the years since the first carbon tax was imposed.
Carbon dioxide removal (CDR), also known as greenhouse gas removal, is a process in which carbon dioxide gas is removed from the atmosphere and sequestered for long periods of time – in the context of net zero greenhouse gas emissions targets, CDR is increasingly integrated into climate policy, as a climate engineering option. CDR methods are also known as negative emissions technologies, and may be cheaper than preventing some agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.
Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is the process of extracting bioenergy from biomass and capturing and storing the carbon, thereby removing it from the atmosphere. The carbon in the biomass comes from the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) which is extracted from the atmosphere by the biomass when it grows. Energy is extracted in useful forms (electricity, heat, biofuels, etc.) as the biomass is utilized through combustion, fermentation, pyrolysis or other conversion methods. Some of the carbon in the biomass is converted to CO2 or biochar which can then be stored by geologic sequestration or land application, respectively, enabling carbon dioxide removal and making BECCS a negative emissions technology.
The Kędzierzyn Zero-Emission Power and Chemical Complex is a proposed facility in Kędzierzyn-Koźle, Poland. It will combine power and heat generation with that of chemical products and carbon capture and storage. The project is proposed by a consortium of chemicals producer Zakłady Azotowe Kędzierzyn and electricity company Południowy Koncern Energetyczny. The plant will produce synthesis gas by gasification of hard coal. The produced gas will be used for power and heat generation or for production of chemicals. The plant will capture produced carbon dioxide (CO2), which will be stored in natural geological reservoirs or used as a raw material for production of synthesis fuels, fertilisers or plastics.
The environmental impact of the energy industry is significant, as energy and natural resource consumption are closely related. Producing, transporting, or consuming energy all have an environmental impact. Energy has been harnessed by human beings for millennia. Initially it was with the use of fire for light, heat, cooking and for safety, and its use can be traced back at least 1.9 million years. In recent years there has been a trend towards the increased commercialization of various renewable energy sources.
Carbon-neutral fuel is fuel which produces no net-greenhouse gas emissions or carbon footprint. In practice, this usually means fuels that are made using carbon dioxide (CO2) as a feedstock. Proposed carbon-neutral fuels can broadly be grouped into synthetic fuels, which are made by chemically hydrogenating carbon dioxide, and biofuels, which are produced using natural CO2-consuming processes like photosynthesis.
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.
The Allam-Fetvedt Cycle or Allam Cycle is a process for converting gaseous fuels into thermal energy, while capturing the generated carbon dioxide and water. This zero emissions cycle was validated at a 50 MWth natural gas fed test facility in La Porte, Texas in May 2018. This industrial plant is owned and operated by NET Power LLC, a privately held technology licensing company. NET Power is owned by Exelon Corporation, McDermott International Ltd, Occidental Petroleum Corporation (Oxy) Low Carbon Ventures, and 8 Rivers Capital. The two inventors behind the process are English engineer Rodney John Allam and American engineer Jeremy Eron Fetvedt. The Allam-Fetvedt Cycle was recognized by MIT Technology Review on the 2018 list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies.
The Whitetail Clean Energy is a proposed power station in Wilton, Redcar and Cleveland, England. The generating process of the plant is listed as a "clean energy source", using natural gas and oxygen in a Allam-Fetvedt Cycle to create power. The excess carbon dioxide not used by the co-generation process is intended to be captured and stored under the North Sea, making the plant the first in the United Kingdom to utilise this type of technology, and also using carbon sequestration under the North Sea. The plant is also included in the Net Zero Teesside project. The power plant is proposed to start generating in 2025.
Rodney John Allam, Dir of Tech, Air Products, for serv to the Environment