ND utility to unveil plans to capture C02
BISMARCK, N.D.—Basin Electric Power Cooperative is unveiling a project to capture carbon dioxide at its coal-fired power plant in central North Dakota, then pipe the gas to Canada where it will be pumped underground to force oil to the surface.
The Bismarck-based company said it chose Powerspan Corp., of Portsmouth, N.H., to provide the technology to remove about 1 million tons of C02 annually from one of two units at Basin's Antelope Valley Station.
Carbon dioxide emissions are widely blamed for global warming.
Basin and Powerspan executives, along with Lt. Gov. Jack Dalrymple and coal and power industry officials, are scheduled to release details of the project, including its cost, at a press conference on Wednesday at Basin's corporate headquarters.
Powerspan said earlier that it had been chosen by Basin over five other companies to supply technology for the project.
Powerspan spokeswoman Stephanie Procopis said the company's patent-pending technology involves an ammonia-based solution that snares carbon dioxide from the flue gas of a power plant.
The technology is unproven beyond the laboratory, though a small demonstration project is planned at the in R.E. Burger power plant in Shadyside, Ohio, later this summer.
"It works very well in lab and should work very well at the pilot project (in Ohio)," she said.
The larger project designed for the power plant in North Dakota will be the first commercial-scale testing, Procopis said.
"It is very important to us, and will give us the information we need to offer it commercially," she said.
Basin said in a statement that the project could begin late next year and be completed in 2012. The company said it wants to remove the amount of CO2 equivalent to that emitted from a 120-megawatt power plant.
The Antelope Valley Station produces 900 megawatts of power, most of which is sent to a substation near Huron, S.D.
The coal-fired power plant is part of a $4 billion energy complex that includes a nearby coal mine and the Great Plains Synfuels plant, which was built in response to the energy crisis of the 1970s to make natural gas from lignite, a low-grade coal abundant in North Dakota.
The gasification process at Great Plains involves using high-pressure steam and air to break down low-grade the lignite -- about 18,000 tons daily -- to make natural gas that is piped to Iowa, where it is distributed to markets in the eastern and southeastern United States.
The process also generates carbon dioxide, which Great Plains pipes 205 miles north to oil fields in southern Saskatchewan. There, it's pumped underground to force oil to the surface.
Basin says CO2 from the Antelope Valley Plant will be pumped into the pipeline already used by its synfuels plant.
The company says it captures about 50 percent of its carbon dioxide output from the synfuels plant and sells about 3 million tons of CO2 annually to increase oil production in Canada.
In March, the company said CO2 used for oil recovery was fetching about $35 a ton.
Basin generates about 1,950 megawatts of power for 2.5 million customers in nine Midwestern and Western states. The company operates two coal-fired power plants North Dakota and one in Wyoming.
Basin also is planning a $1.3 billion coal-fired power plant near Gillette, Wyo., which is slated to come on line in 2011, producing 385 megawatts of power, and a $2 billion coal-fired power plant near Selby, S.D.
Basin said it has invested more than $319 million in pollution controls at its Antelope Valley Station since the plant began operation in 1984.
