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Siemens lands $8.9 million DOE grant for carbon capture

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded Siemens Energy an $8.9 million grant to capture carbon at American coal-fired plants.
Written by Andrew Nusca, Contributor

Siemens Energyon Monday announced that the U.S. Department of Energy has awarded it an $8.9 million grant to capture carbon at American coal-fired plants.

The funds are for the design, installation and operation of a pilot plant for treating a 1 megawatt-equivalent "slipstream" facility -- that is, one installed downstream of an existing system that treats flue gas -- at the 1,892-megawatt-capacity Tampa Electric Big Bend Station in Hillsborough County, Fla.

The goal of the project is to reduce the energy-intensive post-combustion CO2 gas capture process. Siemens' technology uses a non-toxic, biodegradable amino acid salt formulation as a solvent for carbon dioxide absorption.

The demonstration is expected to capture 90 percent of the CO2, and will be installed downstream of an existing Siemens Wet FGD System processing 890 megawatts of flue gas.

It's scheduled to come online in 2013.

The announcement comes just weeks after the U.S. Department of Energy announced a $67 million investment in 10 carbon capture technologies.

Those are:

  • Bench-scale membranes by Newark, Dela.-based American Air Liquide and Des Plaines, Ill.-based Gas Technology Institute
  • Bench-scale solvents by Lexington, Ken.-based 3H Company, St. Louis, Mo.-based Akermin, Boulder, Colo.-based ION Engineering, the University of Illinois and Austin, Texas-based URS Group
  • Slipstream membranes by Joseph City, Ariz.-based Membrane Technology and Research
  • Slipstream solvents by Pittsburgh, Penn.-based Siemens Energy
  • Slipstream solid sorbents by Littleton, Colo.-based ADA-ES

The Obama administration's goal is to improve efficiency and reduce added costs to electricity for carbon capture to less than 30 percent for a new pulverized coal plant and 10 percent for a new advanced gasification plant, with a target date of 2016.

Photo: Siemens' laboratory-scale plant at the Höchst Industrial Park in Frankfurt. (Siemens)

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com

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