Southern Company said MHI’s process has been
demonstrated on a smaller scale at a coal-fired generating station in Japan and has been deployed in several other countries. Logo sourced from Southern Company.

US southeast utility Southern Company last week said it plans to build a facility for demonstrating carbon capture in one of its subsidiary utilities in Alabama, using a process partly developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (MHI).

The carbon capture demonstration will be built on Alabama Power’s Plant Barry near Mobile, Alabama.

The process will use a technology called KM-CDR developed by MHI and the Kansai Electric Power Company Inc. In this method, carbon dioxide (CO2) will be transported for 10 miles from the plant by pipeline to the Citronelle Oil Field operated by Denbury Resources. The CO2 will be stored underground.

The facility will be operational by 2011. It will be built in partnership with the Department of Energy’s Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership.

Southern Company chief David Ratcliffe said demonstrating the effectiveness of carbon capture and storage or CCS at a large scale is the main challenge facing its wide use.

"This project will help increase our knowledge of carbon capture and sequestration, technology we must demonstrate at a commercial level in the effort to reliably generate electricity using coal with reduced greenhouse gas emissions," Ratcliffe said.

Between 100,000 and 150,000 tons of CO2 yearly, the equivalent of emissions from 25 megawatts (MW) of Plant Barry’s generating capacity, is estimated to be stored in a deep saline geologic formation underground.

Southern Company said MHI’s process has been demonstrated on a smaller scale at a coal-fired generating station in Japan and has been deployed in several other countries. The demonstration in Plant Barry would reportedly be the demonstration of the KM-CDR in the world.

KM-CDR deploys an advanced amine-based solvent that reacts readily with CO2 in flue gas before being separated and compressed so that it is ready for pipeline transport.

"The confidence our partners have shown in the MHI CO2 capture technology is a testament to the research and development efforts we have undertaken during the past 20 years,” MHI’s general manager at the Machinery and Steel Structures Headquarters Shunichi Miyanaga said.

Southern Company, based in Atlanta, Georgia, has 4.4 million customers and over 42,000 MW of its generating capacity.

- Eric Dorente

Source:

¹ http://southerncompany.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=1904

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